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Comment by beager | Hacker News Reader

I'm genuinely curious if credit card companies get involved with warranty-related actions, or really anything beyond the fitness and accurate representation at the time of purchase. As far as I can tell, thigs like AppleCare and EU VAT protections cover an almost entirely exclusive set of concerns, namely, the fitness of the product after initial purchase.

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I'm not knowledgeable enough to compare directly to VAT, but many credit cards extend a product's existing warranty (90 days to two years, depending on the card), and some offer things like 90-day purchase protection (if the price changes or if merchant/manufacturer won't accept a return, the credit card will).

Purchase protection took care of a theft I had in my house last month. They just needed a receipt and a police report, and the purchase price was refunded a few days later.

Thanks for the response. This is something that's not well known to me and in the age of retailers trying to upsell the same thing for a fee, I'm not surprised that it is obscured.

In all fairness, it's not a standard thing. Most of the extended card protections that go beyond purchase dispute resolution/defective product come from various premium cards more so than basic no-charge ones.

The Costco visa adds additional 2 years of warranty to all electronics purchased at Costco. It's a nice little feature.

I think there's some confusion here as to what VAT means.

VAT in the EU (or anywhere else really that has the concept of VAT) normally affords no additional consumer protections on its own. It's a tax, not dissimilar at a high level to sales tax in the US, applied to goods or services at time of sale.

I can only speak to my personal experience, but my Citi Premier card has pretty good coverage for theft and accidental damage, albeit with a relatively short coverage window compared to something like Apple Care. I'd have to look it up, but I think it was about 6 months post-purchase.

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