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3.0 out of 5 starsIt's everything you want for your child, except the 2 yr worry-free guarantee, which wasn't honored
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2020
I wanted the title to say: "It's everything you want for your child, except the 2 yr worry-free guarantee, which wasn't exactly honored" but that's too long, so I had to cut "exactly"
TL;DR: after two customer service chats and a lot of pressing, I got a refund of the original purchase price, which is less than the replacement cost, and less than the worry-free guarantee claims to provide. Also, I DID re-order even after this issue, so I'm clearly not claiming you shouldn't buy one of these.
I have seven children. The first three were kind of before the tablet thing. Then, I think each Christmas since has had a tablet for at least one of the kids We almost stopped buying them, though, because they always (I use that word decidedly) get broken.
But then in 2015 I noticed Amazon had a two year worry-free guarantee, and we hopped on board. With this purchase today, I've now ordered six Fire HD kid's edition tablets. I'm not sure how many I've had replaced under the warranty, but it's at least one, and probably three. I haven't found a way to look that up.
Now, we didn't ever send one back just because the screen got cracked, we waited until it got smashed enough to be unusable, then went through the slightly cumbersome process to get a replacement.
The hardest part is that you send it back, and wait for them to get it before they send another. When you've set up a screen dimmer and audiobooks for bedtime, this can be a disruptive couple of weeks going without. But still, it's far better than nothing. And at least once (which could be every time, depending on my faulty memory), they sent out the replacement first and let me ship back the old one in that box. That was nice. They might have charged and then refunded my card to do that? I can't remember, but I know everything always went smoothly.
Until this time.
Freddy's tablet screen got cracked almost immediately, but it still worked, so we waited. Then it got cracked more. Still usable, but not very good. Then, he became very careful with it, and after nearly a year with no further incidents (and he was also more careful with his other possessions), I thought he had earned a replacement screen (especially since I paid for it already as part of the original purchase price).
So I went to the orders page... no dice, there is no button for replacement. I was surprised, as it clearly shows the order date was March 1st, 2019, and it's May of 2020, well under the two year time limit. I dug through the help pages and found a chat option, got that started and asked about the two year worry-free guarantee. They said replacement is not an option, but that they would issue a refund and I could simply re-order. Sounds fine, I accept.
I then realized that the tablet replacement now costs $30 more than I had originally paid. Oops. But then, he will receive another year of Freetime and a new two-year worry-free guarantee, so I guess that's worth the extra $30 - sign me up.
So I sent it back, and got an email that they had processed a refund to my credit card - $6. Has to be a typo. I'll wait until it hits the card - $6. Yep, they refunded just the sales tax. Sound fair? Not to me.
So I fire up the chat again, and it turns out they're also refunding another $53 that is already in the works... and I continue to politely press, asking for any reason they're not honoring the two year worry-free guarantee. I did not receive an answer, but they eventually agreed to refund the rest of the purchase price, and they have now done so. I have the chat transcript in case anyone thinks I'm misrepresenting it (which you have to do yourself - keeping a record of the chat is not one of the options!)
I still ordered the replacement for my son, but I kept him informed of the process, using this as a learning opportunity to teach him that whenever dealing with anyone, you should plan for them not to honor their commitments. You should trust, but you should rely on yourself and on the things you control, only making deals when you can survive the effects of the other party letting you down, if you can help it.
So, for this trouble I get a couple of important life lessons for my son, a reminder for me to be careful when dealing even with the companies I trust most, and the realization that even Amazon, with the best customer service I've ever received from a big company, sometimes just won't do what it commits to. That one is still sinking in.
So now we've got a new tablet on the way, and hopefully this experience will make him careful enough with it that we won't have to find out if they'll honor this new warranty.
But if you're on the edge, and the warranty is helping to inform the decision... well, I suggest maybe you weigh it again.
Amazon is my go to for hundreds of products, I have 63 Subscribe & Save subscriptions (as of this writing), and I source many of my business's supplies from Amazon as well. But I will certainly rely on them less after receiving a "goodwill" refund (like they're doing me a favor), instead of the replacement they agreed to provide. Which seems crazy, too, because $100 refunded to me costs them at least $100, but a replacement tablet can't cost them nearly as much. So it's odd that they would pay MORE than they agreed and still leave me with LESS than they agreed. Doesn't seem like a good business decision - but hey, they're far more successful than I am, so maybe there's something to this losing money thing. I hope so, because I have skills in that area. ;-)
Perhaps they have a good reason for not honoring the warranty, and I'd like to think they do... but I asked directly, and they did not provide me with one. YMMV, but I know I'll be much more hesitant to press the "buy now" button for a while.
Trust takes a long time to build, but can be shattered easily. Shadoobie.
