venta

Aw, bless 'em. Don't you just love insurance salesmen.

I recently took out a contract (with 3) for a USB mobile internet dongle. With it I automatically acquired a insurance policy (first month free! cancel at any time!).

So I rang to cancel it. The saleschap asked why.

Well, the original salesperson gave the cost of the dongle as £50. The cost of the insurance is £3.49 a month for 17 months. It's cheaper just to buy myself a replacement if I lose it.

Oh well, he said, obviously we wouldn't expect you to take the insurance policy for the full eighteen months. It makes most sense to have the insurance policy when the device is new.

It does ? Really ? Given that it's insurance against technical failure as well as loss, I'd have thought it made most sense to have insurance when a device is getting old and flaky.

Curious, I asked him why it made most sense to have insurance at first. Did he think I might get bored of it, and thus not care if I lost it ?

Yes, he said, I might get bored of it. Or I might find a different method of getting online.

I'm willing to accept that technical innovation or improvement might occur, but if I'm paying for this service for 18 months, I'm damn well going to use it for 18 months.

I told him I'd been using the internet for nearly 15 years and I wasn't bored yet, and cancelled the insurance anyway.