BabiesRus Buyer Protection Is a Rip Off! (Vent)

You paid $169.

You got a pump. Total so far: $169.

It broke.

You buy a new pump. Total so far: $338.

You send in the receipts for both the broken one and the new one.

They send you back $169, (the cost of the new one).

You now have one new working pump. Total so far: $169.

Plus the cost of the replacement plan (I'm guessing, $20 or so?).

Total spent so far: $189.

But if you hadn't had the replacement plan, the total would have been $338.

I think you still ended up with one pump for $169, plus the plan cost.

I agree it isn't very customer friendly to make you pay for the replacement, but it is even. You will have a new pump for the same price. It's not half. If they refunded the whole amount you would have a pump for free.

Hi M.-

I'm with Laurie...

Although inconvenient to pay $169 again...they will send a check to 'cover' you...so you are NOT out $$$...they are, in fact, replacing it.

Am I missing something?

Best luck!
Michele/cat

So you do not want a new one, You want to RETURN the pump? That is different.. let them know you want to return it because it never worked. They may just give you a store credit. for a full return..

Usually warranties are to REPLACE the broken one.

Well you will have a totally new one. That is replacing it.

you will throw the broken one away and have the totally new one.

They are sending you the check. so you will be even.

I am confused by your math. If you bought one for 170, then you paid 170 for a product you have used for several months & have kept. Buying another one for 170 and getting the 170 back weeks later means that you aren't out any extra money. You are getting a brand new pump for free, which is what the warranty calls for. You will never be refunded for the original pump because you bought it intending to use it regularly and you HAVE used it on a daily basis, I'm sure. I am not understanding how you're not understanding that.

I get what you're saying. You bought this pump, which is now broken. At the time you bought it, you ALSO bought a protection plan in case it broke (which it did). You'd like to go to the store with your broken pump and your protection plan, have a store rep take a new one off the shelf, hand it to you in exchange for your broken one and be done with it. Instead, you're being made to jump through hoops and spend MORE money before getting anything back. They're saying it might take them up to 10 WEEKS?!? before you get your reimbursement check. So they've got your $169 for 10 weeks...10 weeks where YOU could be using it or YOU could be earning interest on it. Basically for up to 10 weeks, you've given them a $169 interest free loan.

I can certainly see how you'd be extremely frustrated. I would be too. Unfortunately, when you bought the protection plan, there was probably some sort of tiny writing on a pamphlet explaining the procedure. You probably didn't read it carefully (I wouldn't have either) and simply went by what the store employee told you at that time.

It's a perfect example of buyer beware. If it's in writing that you have to do the extra purchase and wait for your reimbursement, that's what you'll have to do.
Super annoying and highly inconvenient. But at least, in the end, you WILL end up with a new working pump and your $169 back.

Sounds irritating that you have to wait for the refund, but once you get the check, you're not out anything... without the plan, you'd be buying a whole new one and NOT be reimbursed - still seems like a good deal!

No, you aren't "out" $169. The plan leaves you in the same position you were in before the pump broke, which is that you spent $169 and have a breast pump that works.

You seem to want a working pump and a refund of your purchase price. That just isn't realistic.

You're not out any money. You paid $169 for your first pump. Let's assume that it still worked perfectly. You would still have paid the $169. Because you have the plan, they are replacing your pump with a new one. Instead of just sending you a new one, they told you to buy it and they will reimburse you the cost. Just look at it as they are reimbursing the cost of the old pump and you bought a new pump with that money.

Look at it this way: if you paid $340 for two breast pumps, ended up with one broken one and one that works, and they sent you a check for $340, how is that right? you don't get free things because something was a huge hassle, although it would be great if the world worked that way.

I understand your frustration. I would call Babies R Us and speak to a manager. Explain to them that when you purchased the protection plan you were told by a store employee that they would replace the broken one with a new one. They can go through all the rigmarole of sending the defective one back to Medela. My sister just did this at Target. They told her that it was illegal to return a breast pump by state law. She got the manager involved and she told them that the illegal part is a crock and finally got them to take it back as defective and got all her money back. I would be as annoyed as you are to have to go and spend another $170.00 of my own money to replace a lemon, and then wait ten weeks for a reimbursement. How annoying!

Um you suck at math don't you. You are being asked to buy one for 170 and you will be refunded 170, that equals 0 our of your pocket for the replacement!

Why on god's earth would you think they would send you 340 so you didn't pay for the first one?

You know, I see exactly what you're saying, and I agree - it's not right. You paid Babies R Us for the protection plan, and they should make this right for you. Go to the store and speak with the manager. Often times, you will get a better result from a live person (who knows that s/he stands to gain or lose a great amount of money from you as a current and future customer), than from a customer service person on the phone.

Okay, stores won't take a RETURN on a breast pump, but you are not returning it. The store will return to Medela the broken pump, not put it back out on the shelf (they couldn't, it's broken!). So it's not a return, it's a warranty exchange. If the manager isn't seeing things your way, get the district manager involved. You paid the extra money for the protection plan through Babies R Us, their employee explained the terms to you, they should honor that, period. The way the person on the phone explained it to you means that you'll have to spend further time chasing down this $170, no doubt. I mean, what do you do if the check doesn't arrive within 10 weeks?! No thanks!! Raise hell with the manager on site at the store. Insist that this is resolved at the store level for you. Good luck!

ETA: Sweetie, I just read your SWH, and now I'm confused. You paid $170 for the pump, which is now broken. If they give you a new pump, they've made you whole. You don't get $340 PLUS a new pump. That doesn't make sense. Maybe I'm missing something? Seems to me that Babies R Us should simple exchange the broken one for a new one and call it good. Right??

You should be out 170.00 you have (will have) a working breast pump.

Now having you have to spend the extra money and then wait to get it back is annoying. The store should cover the lag in money for you.

I hope you don't take this as rude or nasty but I'm trying to make sense of your logic on mathematics.
You say that in the end you're out $170...but you were out $170 as soon as you bought it. If you are given the total you spent on both items then they are out $340, which means you would have gotten not 1 but 2 items free.
If you simply exchange the product you are still out the $170.
I understand you don't want to pay out of pocket for the replacement and then have to wait to get your money back, but either way you do it, exchange or refund, you are still out $170.
I hope if you go talk to the store mgr they can help you with an exchange, but don't count on anyone sending you a check for $170 just because you had to exchange it.
Best of luck to you.

Have you contacted Medela? They may be able to exchange the motor if it hasn't even been a year yet. Check their warranty.

The problem is if you wanted them to just refund it without getting a new one. What they're doing is giving you a replacement. You pay for the replacement and they reimburse you, which is getting the replacement for free. Sounds like it's doing what it needs to, even though they shouldn't make you go through the extra steps.

Before you send them anything, make copies and send it certified mail so they have to sign for it and can't say they never received it. I don't know that Babies R Us would do that, but I've had problems with other companies saying they never got my rebate request, but I had copies I could send them.

Did you call Medea directly? A part on my pump broke once and I called them and they sent me a new faceplate and overnighted it so I would get it sooner! They were awesome!

It sounds like the plan is a Replacement Plan. Buying a new one and getting reimbursed is the same end result as getting an exchange in the store.

Examples:
What you thought would happen -
Pump A is $169, it breaks, you take it to the store to exchange. You paid $169 total and have a working pump.

Reimbursement method-
Pump A is $169, it breaks, you buy Pump B for $169 and sent in receipt, they pay you back $169. You paid $169 total and have a working pump.

Either method is equal as far as money goes.

BTW, this is also how replacement value homeowner insurance works. It is a far better deal than cash value insurance, but comes with the pain in the butt of having to first buy the replacements in the event of loss.

Say your television (a 1080p LCD) caught fire. You bought it new for $500 on sale, but that was five years ago. Cash value insurance will give you perhaps $200 right then, if they determine that is the resale value on a used tv. Replacement value insurance will give you whatever the actual cost it is to replace it with another 1080p LCD, even it it is more than $500. You must first buy it and submit for reimbursement though.

That is some terrible customer service! I'd be upset, too.

My husband bought me a Kindle Fire for Mother's Day. It came with a 1 year warranty from Amazon, and I also purchased an additional plan through Walmart. A month later I accidently dropped it and busted the screen. My warranty through Amazon didn't cover User damage. They could have fixed it for me, but I would have had to pay $100. My Walmart plan, however, allowed for a 1 time exchange. The money ($200) was put on a gift card so I could purchase a new one. And then I had to send in my broken one.

That is pretty standard customer service these days, especially with electronics. What you described is crappy and backwards. What if you didn't have the money to buy a new one out-of-pocket? Then there's no point to the plan you purchased. I would call and raise hell until they offered a more feasible solution.

wow...yep, you guys are missing something. she paid 169 for the original. they want her to pay 169 for a replacement which they will reimburse her for. she's still out the original 169. they are paying for the replacement, not the original. i'd call back and talk to a different person. sometimes you just get a bad representative.

I hate toys R us costomer's service. This is worse than theirs. Bug the snot out of them. Go to your new channel's consumer reporter. Bad, bad businesses.

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