Best Buy Covering Accidental Damage to Apple Products?

If you haven’t heard, Apple is now selling most of their Mac line and even their iPhones now at your local Best Buy. Recently I made my way into one of the largest Best Buy stores in the local area to find one of the nice new Apple product displays. If you like visiting the Apple stores you will feel almost at home when you see the large chunk of the store adorned with a large black wall and a glowing Apple logo. They even have a real Apple sales representative there to assist you.

One thing led to another and we talked about Apple warranties and how Best Buy’s new relationship with them factors in. The rep. said that Best Buy actually offers coverage for not only the usual defective product or hardware failure, but also for accidental damage. As an example he mentioned at least one customer bringing in their Mac notebook after spilling coffee on the keyboard. Being impossible to repair, the customer received a new notebook since they were covered under the extended warranty.

When asked if they send the product out to Apple or if they service it inhouse (at the Best Buy store) he said that “some” of the Geek Squad had been Apple Certified and would do the repairs at the store with the support of Apple. The rep. also mentioned that many people were coming into best Buy to purchase their products or just the warranty specifically due to the extra coverage. Surely this extra coverage must cost an arm and a leg right? Well the price of an extended warranty on a Macbook Pro is $349 when I last checked. According to the Apple representative, the additional coverage for accidental damage would be only $50 more!

I did some additional research online to find many people discussing whether they should purchase Applecare coverage or Best Buy’s accidental coverage plan. They do not refer to them as the same thing or Best Buy’s coverage as something supplemental to the standard Applecare coverage. Further research on both bestbuy.com and geeksquad.com revealed even less information. No Apple specific performance plans were mentioned throughout their site. They seem to instead provide a list of manufacturer contact numbers instead.

I really should have looked for some documentation to back up what the Apple representative said. Apple is one of the few, if not the only major computer manufacturer that does not offer some sort of accidental damage protection. If this is indeed true then Best Buy must feel this is an incentive for new Apple buyers to purchase from them. If you hear anything related to this please let us know.

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