I should have listened to Nickel right away when he sent me an email to get a nice case for my Sprint Centro. Unfortunately, it went into my to-do pile and I just haven’t gotten around to it.
My 3 month old Sprint Palm Centro Broke
I’m not exactly sure how it happened. It just kept trying to hot sync (a feature I don’t use) and then finally shut down for good. It may have had something to do with my 8 month old slobbering all over it… but I’m not really sure.
Warranty
Since the phone is under warranty you can have Palm replace it for free. However, when I called, after over an hour, I determined it would take longer than a month; I wasn’t sure if it would actually be replaced or not.
I decided to go to our local Sprint repair shop. They replaced it with a refurbished phone for $55. It took 3 business days. You can usually save money with refurbished electronics.
Insurance Plan
Of course, the upsell for the insurance plan was strong.
Here’s the math, $7 month on 2 lines would be $168 per year. So I could replace our phones 3 times during the year and come out ahead. I’m not seeing where the value is.
I explained my profession to him and reminded the salesman that insurance was for catastrophic losses only. He told me that “someone going without their cell phone for a couple days is catastrophic.” Wow!
I said thanks but I’ll take my chances. I see that I can buy a used one on eBay or craigslist for around $100 if the refurbished ones aren’t available after my one year warranty.
Lessons Learned
I will do a better job taking care of my phone. I’ve always had the cheap free phones until now. I’ll get a case and I will treat it more like our camera (which I am very careful with). Ironically, I have a blackberry too, with a hard case and I have never had a problem with it!
Do you take the cell phone insurance?
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Well, at least it wasn’t too bad! I passed on the insurance also, because it adds up quickly. You can generally replace a phone for the same price as insuring it for a year. (although you sometimes need to renew your contract). Hopefully this phone won’t have the same problems.
PatrickMay 13th, 2008 at 8:37 am
No phone insurance for me either. Used and refurbished phones are cheap enough and abundant. Phones tend to last me a while though, just 3 in the past 6 years with my current Motorola e815 going on 2.5 years.
AndrewMay 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
LOL! Slobber and cell phones are a bad combination!
I never get the insurance either. Maybe I’ll get burned one of these days but I doubt it.
If you want, why don’t you self insure? Make those little premium payments to a savings account…just in case…
Ron@TheWisdomJournalMay 13th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Just a side note - the insurance *does* cover replacing the phone if it is lost or stolen as well. If you’re prone to losing phones, then it could still make sense.
Llama MoneyMay 13th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I never take the insurance. With all the extra fees and taxes they add on, the bill is expensive enough.
SingleGuyMoneyMay 13th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
We took the insurance when we got this contract and I’m not going to cancel it, since it ends in November. I’ve had to replace a cell phone in each contract (1 drowned, 1 just gave up), so at least I got to use it. But next time I’m going to self-insure and look for used.
Don’t forget to factor in the general copay that comes with the insurance…most want another $50. So that people can’t constantly be getting new phones.
Mrs. MicahMay 14th, 2008 at 6:22 am
We lost a sprint cell phone and went to the store for a replacement. We were faced with paying full retail ($250) or adding another line at 7/mo. for 24 months after discount and buying a new phone for $50 after rebate, then putting the lost line on vacation at $4/mo after discount for 14 months until the contract expires.
They gave us 30 days to change things. We still have about 2 weeks left.
Is it worth it to try and get a refurbished replacement, return the new phone and cancel the 4th line?
rwhMay 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
@ Llama Money… well I would be ahead unless I lost the phone. I haven’t lost one before, but this story would be much different if I had!
@ rwh: Depends on the type of phone you have, but I have had success with the used/refurbished phones on eBay. Make sure to verify that the EIN number is clean.
You could always give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work out, then add the 4th line as a backup.
Another idea I just thought of was to see if one of the other two lines on your account is up for a new free/cheap phone. Order it for that line, then take the hand-me-down phone to replace the one you lost.
Good luck! Keep us posted on how it turns out!
May 17th, 2008 at 1:18 pm