Dirac,Thanks for the warning about Blue Do

What I still don't understand is why HTM's involved with this at all. If BlueDo is providing the extended warranty, why are they sending you to HTM?

This is my concern too Tom. If the unit is 18 months old and out of URC warranty period shouldn't Bluedo recieve the unit and handle any needed diagnosing? It should be BlueDos call to say the unit has been abused. Why make URC the bad guys here. The end user should be sending it to BlueDo to do whatever they want with it. From my standpoint, it appears BlueDo is willing to self insure for the second year but seems they wish to skate and have the units sent to URC. URC is obviously going to decline fixing a remote thats out of warranty. BlueDo should do 1 of 2 things. Consider part of their profit a cost to self insure and replace defects with little or no hassle or discontinue the 2nd year free stuff. The warranty issue is ALWAYS a losing battle. If your are unwilling to accept defects even if its a grey area with abuse then please stop the 2nd year. It will only create negative or "Bad will." It appears from my end the second year warranty is mearly an illusion. Sorry BlueDo.

Now, I don't know how it really works, but perhaps the point is the extended warranty is DONE through URC.

So, BlueDo sends the remote off to URC for examination. If URC decides that it's something that they would have repaired/replaced under warranty (had it still been covered by warranty), BlueDo pays URC to make the fix or swap the remote. If URC decides that the problem wouldn't have been covered by warranty, BlueDo declines the repair. Who better to know how to repair a MX-500 than the manufacturer?

Just guessing here.

Dan,
That would make sense.
BlueDo - care to comment. Obviously many of us are unsure of the real deal.

[Link: bluedo.com]

I had to go the BlueDos site and read their extended warranty. Link is above. It doesn't memnion sending it to URC. If I were an end consumer I would think I would return to BlueDo and have them handle it. If Dan is right shouldnt BlueDo return to URC?

I am however not quite convinced there wasn't damage done to the remote which precipitated this thread. I had an employee send me to Verizon for a phone that "Just stopped working." When the tech opened it, the phone was filled with water. When inquiring to my employee that made me look stupider than I normally do, he said, "well I dropped it in a foot of water and it took me an hour to find it. But when I had found it, the phone had just stopped working." Catch my drift?

This message was edited by oex on 08/29/04 00:29 ET.

Bluedo does charge a premium for the remotes compaired to other respectible on line shops like Newegg. It looks like the only reason that this was resolved so fast is because it became public. These forums really do give power to the people, and Bluedo knows that, so I would guess they will be a little bit better in the future.


Then again, Bluedo does provide other support and does at least have some warrantee extension.



So .............

The reason for this is simple. Bluedo is an authorized dealer for HTM and Newegg is not. An MX-800, for example, purchased from Newegg would NOT have a warrantee, while one purchased from BlueDo would. Hence the premium price. Whether or not the warrantee is worth the premium is an individual decision.

Should warrantee follow product is a whole other issue, but it is a perfectly legitimate way to conduct business in the U.S. This is not the case in some countries. What seems sleazy (at least to me) is that it is sometimes very difficult for a consumer to tell if they're getting a warrantee.

As far as providing a repair service goes, I'm sure Daniel has it pretty much correct. It wouldn't make any kind of sense for BlueDo to maintain a repair service for all the different kinds of remotes it sells. As far as returning the remote to BlueDo and having them send it to HTM, would you like to wait an extra week or so (additional shipping and processing) to have the remote repaired?

BlueDo is treating me poorly, too. I purchased a modified OFA-6131 that arrived DOA. After several emails back and forth to verify that I was using batteries, and inserting them in the proper direction, they stated that they were out of stock until the following week. That was their last email to me. They have not replied to three follow up emails over the period of several weeks.

I'm glad that I only purchased a cheap remote from them. When I need another Pronto, I certainly won't make the same mistake.

Beware!

I sure hate to chime in here as well, but I recently had a problem with bluedo myself. I ordered a remote a while back which I decided I really didn't want. I emailed bluedo and asked them to cancel the order if it wasn't already shipped. They emailed me back saying no problem, the order is cancelled and no charges to my credit card. After receiving my latest CC statement, I see that bluedo sure as heck did charge my credit card and no credit issued. I do not appreciate any website that lies like that. BUYER BEWARE!!!

As always, I am more than happy to address questions that people may have, although I always recommend emailing me because I can easily miss a forum post. My email address is [email protected] and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me to get a straight answer!

jhkoenig and Skallywag, I've just sent you both an email that completely resolves the issues you mentioned. jhkoenig, UPS took a little bit longer than expected getting the new shipment of URC-6131M's to us, but the remotes are finally back in stock and we're more than happy to immediately exchange your defective remote as I promised last week. Skallywag, the issue of the credit card charge has been investigated, and your credit card has been issued a full credit for the erroneous charge!

In refernce to the questions about pricing, I think that bomberjim pretty well summed it up. We buy direct and are authorized dealers for every single product we carry, which ensures that your remote purchase is legitimate and that your manufacturer's warranty is valid (in addition to our one-year extended warranty which we include for free with every remote, which I'll go into in a moment!). Other retailers do undercut our prices by offering a product with no manufacturer support and no warranty, (and often no return policy or technical expertise), but the retailers who deal directly with the manufacturer can offer you a little something extra - in addition to a warranty, you are assured of getting a newer remote. Sometimes there are two, three and even more different versions of these remotes out there, all with the same model number. A retailer buying direct gets the newer version, not three year old remotes from a distributor's dusty warehouse :) For a $10 universal remote, this may not matter much, but with a $100+ remote that you'll be spending some time programming, and lots of time using, it may be important to you.

Finally, let's discuss our extended warranty. Basically, as the warranty verbiage reads, we provide an extended warranty identical to the manufacturer's warranty, for a full year after the manufacturer's warranty expires. There's no fine print, no loopholes, and no catches. The unique situation that provoked this thread in the first place came about because the manufacturer's technician informed us that the remote's problems were not caused by a defect, but in the end we've made an amicable agreement with Dirac in the name of keeping a customer satisfied and being faced with a strange circumstance. When Dirac first contacted me about his remote's problems, he simply mentioned that the keys on his 20 month old MX-500 were needing to be pressed harder. As we've really never heard that issue ever coming up before, I presumed that perhaps the contacts were dirty. I immediately replied that it initially sounded like the remote needed to be cleaned, which isn't something covered in the warranty, and I provided the manufacturer's phone number so that he could give them a call and hopefully find a quick and easy solution over the phone to the problem (possibly URC had heard of this issue before and had a quick fix). My next contact with Dirac wasn't until a month later, when he informed me that he had shipped this remote to the manufacturer, they had attemped to repair it, that the PCB needed replacement at a cost of $75, and that he had the remote back in his hands. I contacted the manufacturer, and you know the rest. It was never demanded that the remote be sent to URC prior to us providing warranty service, because we don't always need the manufacturer to attempt service. In many cases, we'll have the customer ship us the remote, and we'll diagnose the problem and either have it repaired, or we'll ship them back a new remote. Fortunately for the consumer, we're not Best Buy dealing with millions of orders every month, so we're able to take a more personal approach with our customers and provide the best possible service, both warranty service and customer service, that we know how. I will admit that we're not perfect, but we really try to be the best, and we always encourage comments on how to improve our service, which is why I give out my personal email address all over these forums. If you're a customer and need help and really don't feel like you're getting it, drop me a line. If you're not a customer and want to let us know how we can improve, drop me a line. However, If you want to sell me Viagra, email Daniel ;) I've heard other companies say this, and I really mean it; If you're happy with BlueDo, we hope you'll tell a friend. If you're not, we hope you'll tell me!

David
www.BlueDo.com

To all who read this read. Please dont allow this forum to become a "hammer" to force our sponsers to fix your problems or screwups. If you have a legitimate claim then contact them directly. if all else fails , then maybe this is the right place. my 2 cents

I purchased a remote from BlueDo ... no issues (so far) ... but I think this whole thread is a good example of why extended warranties are generally a poor idea on a typical consumer purchase.

The only time an extended warranty makes any sense is when you can purchase a manufacturers extended warranty on a very large purchase (like a factory extended on a new car). The only other time is when the item is so physically big that the extended gets you out of transport (like a new fridge). Otherwise, they are nothing more than a scam. I realize that BlueDo does not charge for the warranty as a line item, but it is rolled into the price. I would have preferred not to have the warranty and have had a slightly lower price.

The best advice? Make your purchase on American Express, or Gold MC or Visa and get the free extended that is every bit as good as anything you will pay extra for.

Well, you want to be careful of those credit card extended warrantees as well - read the fine print. I once bought a diswasher with a Visa Gold, it needed sevice in the second year, think the warrantee from Visa applied??? Nope, since it was a built in dishware, it was part of the house, they didn't warrantee parts of structure.

As far as credit cards go, get one with cash back, that leaves out American Express, Discover is better.

I was content to just "listen" to this thread until now. I've had some experience with extended warranties and here's my $0.02.

I purchase the extended warranty on items when it meets the following criteria:

1. The cost of the extended warranty won't be a "good percentage" of the replacement cost at the end of the warranty. I actually had a RadioShack guy try to sell me a $5 extended warranty plan on a $12 remote control (prices approximated, but not exaggerated). :o)

2. The equipment I'm buying has a reasonable proability of failure within the extended warranty period. This is tricky but what this means for me is the equip. has to have moving parts, generate heat, bad reputation (but then I wouldn't be buying it), etc. Solid-state items (like remote controls) don't typically require an extended warranty. I got the extended warranty on my 5-disc DVD player and needed it. A single disk DVD suffers much less wear and tear, but if it cost you $1200 and the E.W. costs $75, it may be worth it.

3. If any device I'm considering buying may need to be returned at any time within the warranty period, or I'm just unsure, I always try to find a brick and mortar that sells it for a decent price first. Face-to-face returns/repairs are usually easier.

4. When in doubt, use a credit card with the warranty.

I have purchased the store's extended warranty on my DVD player and used it - flawlessly.

I had the extended warranty on my computer monitor through my credit card and used it. It was a paper/phone hassle that lasted over two months, but in the end, the repair was covered. Read the fine print!!!

Not sure about that, you have to consider they are an authorized dealer and I think HTM has a MAP, so chances are that even if they did not have the warranty they would not be able to drop the price.