Dixons or Currys, Coverplan or ‘Whateverhappens’: a few things to consider before investing
By Vince Wong
We apologise for any outdated information in this article regarding Dixon’s previously branded ‘Coverplan’. This was due to a tip linking to a Ciao review article dated 29/12/2008 (and obviously being a muppet on my part). Some edits have been made below in [] to reflect the rebranding to ‘Whateverhappens’. We also discuss further policy changes and on service plan policies in our updated article here.
There have been complaints about extended warranties on electronics, such as those purchased from the DSGi group under the name “Coverplan” [now rebranded as 'Whateverhappens']. While you may conclude that extended warranty coverage is necessary, in most cases it does not represent a good investment.
Here are five reasons why:
1. Legwork: If you buy a cover plan, you still must do all the legwork for getting your device repaired. In other words, if your widget breaks and you call them up, you still have to go through the adminstration hassle of scheduling in an appointment, potentially provide necessary evidence. [the old 'coverplan' policy required taking this to a service centre for repair also, but the new 'Whateverhappens' policy has repair personnel who can attend to this at your home]. The service centre has a contract for reimbursement. [Coverplan previously only got involved directly in two cases: (1) the repair takes longer than six weeks or (2) the item will have to be replaced. Currently the new policy has 21 days.]
In the event of replacement, you will be provided with a “comparable” item, which may be a refurbished model and not what you would buy if you were to replace the item yourself.
2. ‘Loopholes’: There are enough holes in the coverage (but no more than any normal policy) that you could use it to strain tonight’s spaghetti bolognese. For example, the terms under which the service plan will replace your stolen mobile phone are narrow enough, and the exceptions brad enough, partly to protect these companies that provide such policies with eventuality, particularly when it comes to mobile phone theft.
For example, theft coverage is suspended if:
-You have not done all you reasonably can to prevent your product from being stolen;
-You have given your product to someone else to look after;
-Your product is stolen while it is out of your view or control unless:
- it is stolen from a motor vehicle where you or someone with your authority was with the vehicle; or
- you had hidden it from view in your vehicle (for example, in a locked glove compartment or boot), locked your vehicle, with all windows, sunroofs or roofs closed and used all available security systems; or
- you had locked your product in your home, office or room with all windows closed and used all available security systems
The coverplan does not cover the following with regards to mobile phone extended warranties:
- Batteries, bulbs, cables and other consumable items (items which are regularly replaced).
- SIM/MMS cards.
- Damage or breakdown that is due to wind or other severe weather conditions.
- The cost of repairing or replacing a product which fails because anyone neglects, abuses or misuses the product.
(There are many more, but these are most broad exceptions to general policies.)
More importantly, the parts in bold are designed to be interpreted broadly legally. Imagine if your 2-year-old niece grabs your phone and proceeds to drool all over it to the point where it stops working. Is that neglect, abuse, or misuse? There’s a good chance that the sales representative at the POS (point-of-sale) will say “No, they’ll cover it,” while the additional coverage representative will say “Yes, it’s misuse.”
3. Profit Margins: The profit margin on extended warranties for consumer electronics is in the neighbourhood of 40 to 80%. That’s why they try to upsell it so hard to you in stores. This is also why people are likely to pay much more for these, than they are likely to recover.
4. Warranty overlaps: The term of coverage may overlap with the manufacturer’s warranty. If you buy a two-year extended warranty and the first year runs concurrently with the manufacturer’s warranty, you’re essentially throwing away half the cost of the extended warranty, because in that first year you’ll use the manufacturer’s warranty for repair or replacement.
5. Service plan vs warranty: Extended warranties are not insurance, and are not really even warranties. Extended warranties are “service plans”. A service plan is a promise to perform or pay for certain repairs or services. Besides, if you bought it with your credit card, the card may tack on an extra year to the manufacturer’s warranty. Check with your card issuer. The card’s protection may have holes, too, but at least they don’t cost you anything extra.
Have you got any personal experience with coverplan[or whateverhappens], accidental insurance, and repair coverage – good or bad? Please share them in the comments below!
Posted in Consumer Psychology, Consumer hacks, Resources and tools April 29th, 2009 | 18 Comments
feral trolley of the week
“I love it when a plan doesn’t come together…” As Hanibal off th’A-Team once said
I have excellent experience with coverplan (well in my opinion).
When I got my first ever laptop in about 2002 I was convinced to take the coverplan. After a year or so (out of original warranty anyway) It broke and as they weren’t able to fix it in 6 weeks it was written off and I was sent vouchers to purchase a new laptop. As costs had reduced in that time I was able to get a stereo and a laptop, just having to top the coverplan up a bit.
Now this new laptop was well used and abused and due to my accidental nature required a new screen due to mayonnaise ingress (don’t ask), a new motherboard and DVD due to Coke spill and another screen due to a fall. This was done very quickly each time and my warranty eventually ended last May.
I am not sure I would want cover on a desktop PC, but would definitely recommend it for a laptop, especially if you are using it a lot around and about.
When I worked at Dixons and PCWorld (10 years apart), I was told sell this shit or lose your job.
I suffered a house fire last year and my laptop melted, I had bought a clearance Asus G1S gaming laptop at 439 and it was worth over 1k, they didnt even argue and just issued me vouchers.
Reading your “story” seems so far from the truth, and I should know as I work for DSGi.
The customer doesn’t have to bring it in to store on every occasion, half the time it is because they don’t want to do the diags over the phone. We always offer them the opprtunity to arrange collection from home at their convenience and even have an engineer visit them at home and carry out the repair.
There are some items where it is not possible for customers to arrange the repair themselves, such as some printers, TV’s and such like, thats isn’t our fault.
There are some people that will never be happy with our service, such as “accidents” which are clearly people trying to get new laptops/computers, one that springs to mind was a gent who dropped his laptop in the bath……I’m sorry but thats just negligence…….
I know I’ll get stick for saying I work for DSGi, but we’re not as bad as people try to make out……
Well my experience of coverplan has been good so far… we purchased a sony camcorder from currys about a year ago, and for the life of me I do not know how but i managed to drop it down the stairs and pretty much completely decimate the casing and viewfinder (couldn’t get a picture after that)…phoned them up, got sent a box…put it in the box, called the courier, courier picked it up…a few days later got the camcorder back with a print out detailing what had been replaced/repaired and it was working fine again…. they didn’t even try once to wriggle their way out of repair/paying.
Yet another person with a gd currys extended warranty story here. Bought my tv a year ago (40″ samsung) for £630. 14 months later a white line appears at the bottom left of the screen only when on hdmi.
Engineer comes in 2 days. Takes 10 mins looking at it. Writes it off picks it up 2 days later and then vouchers arrive the following day. equivalent tv cost was £850 at the time and they happily gave me vouchers for this amount. (an extra £220) bought a different tv though and now have a fantastic 46″ Panasonic plasma with all the trimmings. And all sorted in 8 days. faultless service if u ask me.
Bitterwallet really needs to sort itself out and stop rubbishing companies with no evidence to stand on. It is clearly a slow news day.
Journalism on par with the news of the world.
I can’t see anything in their theft policy that differs significantly from other insurers?
This story isn’t doing too well is it after reading all the comments.
yet again bitterwallets childish crusade against the dixons group fails http://callmelocalhost.com/blog/images/looser.jpg
once again bitter wallet rails against DSGi in their crusade to bring us down but FAILS to report when the beloved John Lewis takings are down a whopping 12.1% on electricals.
john lewis free 500 years one covers acts of God(s) and alien invasion.
an its made of cast iron
Also i hate to pick but coverplan is a thing of the past, the extended warenty now goes under the name of; ‘Whatever happens’ and iv took it out on several things and never once had a problem, just repairs and vouchers!
Nice one ‘Whatever happens’ .. I have it on my 40″ LG Plasma .. My Ipod touch .. and my Lap top, my oriongal laptop was repaired 3 times for seperate faults, user faults may i add, and the last fault was a can of coke all over the keyboard, for which i got vouchers for a 3 year old laptop! The one they recomended wasnt in store so the managet called the voucher line and got me extra vouchers for a better laptop!
[...] our post yesterday on problems consumers have faced with Dixons ‘Mastercare Coverplan’, now renamed as [...]
I had a sont vaio tx1 laptop with whatever happens which i paid £1250 for. when it went wrong it couldnt be fixed within 21 days so i got vouchers for a new one. The t1 wasnt available so i got vouchers for the t5 at £1450
I bought an apple macbook for £700, a panasonic plasma for £700 and a digital camera for £50. I’ll never forget that shopping trip, thanks whatever happens! 
I’m pleased to hear such great stories about WEH. It shows that what we’re selling really is a premium service and that Bitterwallet really needs to get a grip and stop its vendetta against all things DSGi.
I am so pleased that someone out there has a good experience of the ‘whateverhappens’ cover plan. I purchased a DELL inspiron on May 27th this year, (please dont laugh) it has worked for just 5 weeks, many calls to numbers has resulted in someone at DSGi admitting that they cannot actually repair Dell machines, so why sell the warranty in the first place? I now have to provide proof of purchase to someone in Delhi before they can proceed. In fairness to PC World they did not press a sale of a cover plan for another laptop purchased two weeks ago.
Interesting that the good stories out there seem so at odds with my own experiences on two separate occasions (one way back in the early 2000’s under a PCWorld coverplan, and the second very recently when attempting to have a problem sorted out under a Currys whateverhappens plan).
Under coverplan, PCWorld insisted on conducting repair after repair to a PC, finally getting round to replacing the system after 11 months of constant problems (and only then begrudgingly after the same problem was not solved within 28 days). When the unit was finally replaced, there were very few parts in it that were original (replaced parts included 2 motherboards, RAM sticks, CPU and fan unit, PSU, HDD, CD Rom drive and most of the internal cabling.)
Recently I have been in contact with Whateverhappens about a Samsung DVD recorder/Freeview system, and over a series of calls I was given the same diagnosis every time, along with excuses over why they wouldn’t consider coming out to take a look at it … despite being given reasons as to why their view on the matter was wrong. After spending quite a few hours researching the problem, and various calls to Samsung tech support I finally got the problem sorted out (and it was about as far from their diagnosis as it could possibly be), again despite the unhelpful and ignorant attitudes from the Whateverhappens alleged ‘tech support’ team.
In my opinion both of these experiences seemed designed to draw the process out in the hope that the plan would run out before a replacement was needed, therefore putting the onus on the buyer of having the repairs done themselves. Also if, as in these cases, a support agreement that has been paid for in good faith does not provide support when needed, then surely it is akin to a breach of contract.
As I say, these are my personal experiences with the Dixons Group and DSGi products, and obviously do not reflect the experiences of most posters, but they have certainly made me wary of extended cover plans in general, and have most certainly put me against the coverplan/whateverhappens product.
Hiya
Looking for some advice on the ‘whateverhappens’ plan.
6 months ago we bought a ex display telly (42″lcd toshiba) Anyhoo 3 days ago it started going a bit wonky, Power button wont go on. I called the cover phone line to be told that the tv would be collected by a driver on monday coming. I asked as when we bought the cover we were told by the sales man that an engineer would come out with the nessessary part within 2 days if not it would then go and get fixed. Well last night on the phone i was abruptly told they they have changed it and they now dont have engineers they have delivery drivers. It states it on my brochure that ” an engineer will call with the part” Thats one of the main reasons i took out the policy what i thought would be a fast repair turnaround.
We have a disabled child who loves watching tv, and on the phone last night we were told our tv would be away for 14/21 days for repair. We were also told other b*llsh8t that we would recieve a replacement loan tv if ours needed to go by the guy who sold us the policy and last night the manager of our local store pretty much denied the guy would ever have said that and that 6 months ago they didnt have a policy that could do that. As i said it states on the brochure that they will come out with the part to repair it but i feel really cheated as they obviously completely missold us the policy.It doesnt say anywhere on the agreement subject to change or anything so i feel we should get what we orriginally bought on the brochure, Chances being its only a new power button its needing and if an engineer brought it out as promised on the plan it could be fixed in 5 mins let alone taking it away for 3 weeks!!!!
To make matters worse theres supposed to be a new policy that would give us a loan tv if ours needed to go get repaired but now we cant even upgrade to that (Even once ours is fixed?) as it would be classed as an ‘exsisting fault’ on our tv and wouldnt be covered. We also wouldnt be covered as our tv was ex display and not classed as ‘perfect’ The managers couldnt say anything other than ‘take it up with head office’
Weve called Consumer direct folk who are very interested in the brochure and were going to take the matter further, As i said i bought the policy due to the sales persons promises about how good it was and it covered what was really really important to us, Ill never understand him lying tho as from what i can gather he wasnt on commission or anything?!?! I just dont want to have to spend 3 weeks with 2 kids moaning watching a 19″ tv especially after only owning the thing for 6 months!!!
It looks like a good policy covering all sorts of crap you would never likely need but i feel so let down on something so simple. Ill be VERY wary of these types of policies in future and am seriously considering if we should cancel the direct debit for the policy and take our chances as after 6 months the fault would have been fixed on the standard manufacturers warranty anyhow?!!/.