This is a little long winded, so I've tried to split it up into sections for ease of reading.

The Background

You may remember when I broke my last Zen Vision:M mp3 player on a flight home from Houston.  Best Buy held fast to their belief that I was shit-outta-luck when it came to trying to claim the broken screen under their product replacement plan, so I had to suck it up and buy a new one.  Not wanting to give repeat business to Best Buy after such cruddy customer service, I decided to buy from Circuit City, which coincidentally had a special running on the same mp3 players at the time, making them $50 cheaper than the same product at Best Buy.

The Bait

Learning my lesson from my last player, I decided to go whole hog this time around, and buy the "Circuit City Advantage Plan Plus", which the guy at the register guaranteed "covers any kind of accident you have with the player…drops, spills, cracks, etc that wouldn't be covered under the normal warranty".  The plan cost an extra $40 for 2 years of coverage, averaging out to about $2 a month for accident protection, which I figured was reasonable, and would save me some money if I had another "what the heck happened to the screen on this player?" moment.  Here's where the fun begins:

The Switch

With the purchase of the plan, the guy grabbed one of the little pamphlets that covers the terms and conditions of the plan and put it in the bag with my new mp3 player.  I didn't get a chance to look at it until I got home, upon which time I discovered this was not the T&C for the "Advantage Plan Plus", but rather just the terms and conditions for the "Circuit City Advantage Protection Plan".  Blatantly printed inside this pamphlet was the following:

CC Advantage Plan
CC Advantage Plan

My Realization

Obviously, this was not what I had paid for.  But my receipt specifically called out the "Advantage Plan Plus", so I hoped that I had still purchased the correct thing and just been given the wrong pamphlet.  I went online to the Circuit City website to see if I could find the T&C for my plan there, and was directed to their advantage plan website.  NOTHING on this site provided any terms and conditions for the "Advantage Plan Plus" program, and I couldn't even register on the site with the plan # I had purchased, as it came up invalid when I tried.  I contacted customer service via email asking for the T&C for the "Advantage Plan Plus" and received the following response.

Dear Customer:
To register online you will need your Ticket Number (found on your receipt) and your Product Code (found in your resources kit). If however you did not receive a kit at the time of in-store purchase, simply take your receipt to your local Circuit City and ask to be given a resource kit. If you need further assistance please call (866) 442-3600.

Trust Me… We've Never Had a Problem

Due to work travel, it was a few weeks before I was able to make it over to the local store to get the correct resource kit.  I finally managed to brave the mall traffic to get in to see customer service yesterday, and asked for the "Advantage Plan Plus" resource kit that included the terms and conditions for the plan I had purchased, and showed my receipt.

The customer service manager there kindly informed me that there was no such kit, and that my receipt served as proof that I was covered under the "Plus" plan.  I agreed that the receipt was sufficient proof I had purchased the Plus plan, but that I also wanted the terms and conditions for the Plus plan to see what was covered and what was not covered.  She said there was nothing like that at the store, and all I needed was my receipt.  When I had to file a claim, I just called or logged on online and set it up, and sent in my receipt with the device to get my replacement/refund. 

When I balked at this and said that without seeing the terms and conditions, there was no way to know whether I had actually purchased something that covered accidental damage, she said that "this has always been the case" and "the fact that your receipt says you purchased the plus plan means you're covered for accidental damage".

I asked her, "What if the company has a policy change?  You wouldn't be able to go against company policy, and then I'd be out of luck."  To which she responded, "Well, you had purchased the product before the policy change, so the old policy would apply to you."  And I countered, "Exactly.  Now where can I find this policy written down, so I can prove exactly what coverage was included in the policy during the time of my purchase?"  Obviously, we were in a vicious cycle here – she was telling me that I should trust her verbal guarantee of my coverage, and I was insisting on something written to back up her claim.

Resolution…for Now?

Getting frustrated, she started pulling out piles of papers out of a drawer until she found another booklet of some kind.  She flipped through it and found something that said the following:

CCA Advantage Plan #2
CCA Advantage Plan #2

NOW we were getting somewhere!  I was about to happily accept this new booklet and head out when I flipped back to the front cover and felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.  This pamphlet was marked "Circuit City Advantage Protection Plan for Home Audio, Video & Car Electronics".  Nothing about small electronics, and in fact, explicitly made mention on the inside of the first page that this pamphlet did not apply to small electronics, which were governed by the T&C in the packet I had already been given.  I refused to accept this as proof of my coverage for my mp3 player, forcing our discussion back into a holding action.

An (Un)Happy Compromise

Sick and tired of fighting at this point, but willing to stand my ground indefinitely, I finally suggested an alternative that this manager was amenable to.  I suggested that she write out a formal statement that my small electronics purchase, bought with the "Plus" protection plan, covered accidental damage for my purchase as listed in the "Home Audio, Video & Car Electronics" Advantage plan booklet, backed by a promise of the store to provide me a replacement or credit for the device should the Circuit City claims process not recognize this accidental damage coverage during the duration of my plan's coverage period.  I didn't think she was going to agree to this, but surprisingly, she did.  I think mostly because she had more faith in the system than I did, at this point.

She wrote out the statement, signed and dated it, and added store # and phone number.  I apologized for causing so much heartache, but explained that while I might be willing to trust the word of an individually owned store, I would not and could not trust a corporation like Circuit City without having the terms and conditions in writing.  Her parting shot was, "Well, you should…we've never had a problem before."

All's Well That Ends Well

In order to take screen shots of the agreements to put in this post, I had to log back on to the Circuit City website and download their T&C .pdf documents.  Imagine my surprise when I found that in addition to the Advantage Plan documents, there was a new "Advantage Plan Plus" addendum document for small electronics!

Advantage Plan Plus Addendum
Advantage Plan Plus Addendum

Needless to say, I've downloaded and printed out a copy of these terms and conditions to stow with my purchase receipt.  So now, I don't even have to worry about the signed statement from the store manager to back me up. 

But I'm glad I made her go through that hassle – now that I caused such a scene (and called today to let them know that this was up on the circuit city website), maybe next time someone asks for the "Plus" plan T&Cs, she'll point them to this addendum, rather than asking someone to "Trust Us."  After all, "We've Never Had a Problem Before" just means you could have the dubious distinction of being the first such problem they've ever faced, right?

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