Scott,

I can't believe you fell for that old con game. First and foremost, Best Buy, does not do their own repairs--they send them out to the nearest factory repair center. In fact, when my hard drive on my Compaq Presario crashed, the technician said it would take 6 to 8 weeks to get the computer repaired because during the first year, it was stil under Compaq's waranty, this despite the fact I had a Best Buy Warranty. The drive crashed during the first week of use. Consequently, at this point I cancelled the extended waranty, called Compaq, they overnighted a pre-formatted and loaded 80-gig hard drive and I was back in business the next afternoon. Now I have back-up computers, both laptop and desktop.

After examining most extended waranty programs, I believe you'll find most are not worth the paper they are written on. Additionally, most have limitations and nearly all require that you pay the freight charges to and from the repair centers. I'll take my chances with the factory waranty and hope for the best after it expires.

Cheers,

Gary