SquareTrade Reviews

I purchased a TV from Costco and purchased an extended warranty through square trade. The TV went out so we filed a claim. After 2-phone calls and 2-emails we already knew they were set up to rip people off. We have now submitted phots multiple times. Every single time they ask for more photos. The whole plan is hoping you will get frustrated and give up. I am going to try and find an attorney and see if I can get someone to file a class action law suit against them.

Later in this review, I will show you what to choose as answers and what not to choose, but just to begin:

We had purchased four different warranties from SquareTrade through eBay and WalMart: two which we never used and expired; one that we have not used and is still good for a year; and the one I filed a claim on today. The one I filed a claim for, was for a portable A/C & Heating unit we purchased on WalMart.com in July 2019. We did not use, or even unpack the item for a few weeks after we received it, but kept it stored properly - in fact, just as it had arrived, and in the corner of the den. When we did finally use it, we noticed that it really did not cool very well. I phoned SquareTrade and they had a very short message saying they were closed. This went on for several days. WHAT KIND OF COMPANY IS ALWAYS CLOSED? I guess the kind that racks up dollars but never pays anything. That kind.

Anyway, life got in the way, the unit was placed in a hall closet, and we did not have a need for it until a family with a baby was staying with us over the holidays. While it did heat well, it became full of (condensed?) water, and had to be lugged and emptied almost every two hours. Who wants to wake up to a loud beeping (which woke the baby) and have to open the doors to empty this thing in the dead of winter and every two hours? It went back in the closet.

A few days ago, I was doing some house cleaning and finally decided to do something about this thing. I plugged it in and waited for it to cool. While it did stream cool(er) air than the air a fan would push, it was not very much cooler and in no way was it cold air. The room itself did not grow any cooler; it was in no way a 14,000-BTU cooled room, or system, as touted. I phoned SquareTrade again. AGAIN THEY WERE CLOSED! No recording about Covid closures, etc., just "CLOSED".

I called the next day. CLOSED AGAIN.

I got it then. Pretty much, they are a grotesque parody of a "Warranty (protection and coverage) or Insurance Company" and operate in a surreptitious, slimy way, hoping that you do exactly what we did: forget about it - don't deal with it - take it as a loss, and move on. In short, they are GARBAGE. I knew this then, before even going further.

At that point, I went through our emails, found our original receipt, date of purchase, and finally a link to filing a claim. If I had not been convinced of this company's shadiness beforehand, I more than was convinced after going through their claim process. Trust me, it is SPECIFICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY ENGINEERED to steer you into not being able to process a claim.

Before filing you have to assert that you are not filing a false claim and that if you file any false information, your claim can be denied. This is all well and good, EXCEPT for how the Claim's questions are laid out and how they ALLOW you to reply to them. You must SELECT data about your product, but not all the data (manufacturer, model, etc.) is provided as a selection, so technically you cannot proceed WITHOUT IT, but IF you choose the WRONG selection, they can say that you "provided false information". Catch -22, or as it should be called: SCAM; PLAIN AND SIMPLE: SCAM. Next, you proceed to a screen which either asks you for your serial number - you cannot proceed without that, OR more often than not, directs you to a screen which tells you that you should check with the manufacturer because your item might still be under warranty with them. Well if so, THEN WHY BUY SQUARE TRADE AT ALL? IF it does not take you to that screen, it takes you to a screen where you must choose whether the item was working when you received it, and HERE is where they got me, and where you need to be careful!

Technically, mine does not cool a 560 sq ft room like it says it should. It blows cool air out, but it does not cool the room. In other words, it does not do the job for which it was purchased and intended. So, does it mean it is or isn't working, and if so, has it ever cooled? I did not know which of the two to choose, seeing as one could see it either way, and so I chose "NO". BIG MISTAKE. ***DO NOT CHOOSE THIS***.

The most laughable part of the entire thing is one of the following questions which asks you not only to tell them "in your own words" what "happened", BUT where they have already pre-filled a 'sample' statement of: "My cat spilled water on it", which of course, again, is PURPOSEFULLY meant to drive a person to fill it out in a manner in which THE BUYER (YOU) assume responsibility, ergo making the claim deniable AND TO BOOT, THEY ONLY GIVE YOU 250 characters to explain. Again: SCAM.

After your claim is denied, they DO give you a number to call (I did not include all of it on the screenshot in anticipation of them using that as an excuse to have this review removed in an effort to clean up their negative online presence), but when you do phone in, you invariably speak with a representative who in a bored fashion literally READS OFF a litany ...