Last year I was asked if I wanted to purchase the plan when I bought my son's cleats for baseball. They were $70 and the sales clerk, Michelle, encouraged me to buy it. She told me that it was a no brainer because for a mere $9 I could get a new pair of cleats the following season. All I would need to do is call the number highlighted at the bottom of the receipt, they would send me a bag, I would send the shoes back to them, and then Dick's would issue me a credit for the cleats towards a new purchase. She said, "It's like getting a new pair of cleats for only $9!" When I proceeded to call the number, the too-cheery customer service rep told me that the cleats had to have a defect in them in order to return them. Had I known that I would not have purchased the plan because my son only uses the cleats for 2 months, and I'm quite sure I could have dealt with the manufacturer if there had been a defect. I told the cust. service rep. that I was not happy with this, and he cheerfully told me I could file a claim with Dick's to have my plan cancelled. Now I have to write a letter to Dick's requesting to have my $9 refunded, which I plan to do. However, I will NEVER again purchase any kind of plan with Dick's. I'm not sure I will ever shop there again. I will be purchasing from Bob's Stores or I'll drive the extra few miles to Sports Authority just to stick it to Dick's. In this economy I would think that the customer would be treated better than the way I was treated. Not only are the prices overinflated, the company is making money hand over fist with these bogus "insurance" plans. They really do live up to their name!
They got me with the same scam. My experience with this store's "No Sweat Protection Plan" was bad enough to keep me from shopping there ever again. I bought an expensive baseball mitt for my son there, and they HARD sell the protection plan to you at the register, saying that its broad coverage that replaces your glove if its lost or stolen or damaged for any reason. Literally we were told the plan is basically "a free glove". Well three months later my son leaves his glove outside, and we get a freak winter storm for a solid week followed by massive thunderstorms the week after that. Glove is destroyed in the weather. So I filed my claim online, which automatically redirects you to a dead end screen saying they won't cover this because the manufacturers warranty is still in effect. The manufactures warranty covers manufacturing defects, not accidental damage. That's why I bought the plan in the first place. So now I call them directly, but before I even finish explaining what happened, they tell me its not covered because it was damaged in a "natural disaster." I reiterated that this was a winter storm, not a natural disaster, and that the plan doesn’t have an exclusion for natural disasters anyway. Neither of those words even appear in the plan language. So he puts me on hold for awhile and comes back with his supervisor who now says its not covered because weather falls into the category of "dust, heat, and humidity." I'm a lawyer so I've read the policy and recognized the language he's quoting. It's from the definition of a covered "breakdown"... which is literally the one and only thing that IS covered by this policy. I pointed this out. He disappears on hold again. Finally he comes back and says that now it's not covered because the only thing that is covered is "normal wear and tear." So never mind that "normal wear and tear", like "dust heat and humidity, " is just one more of the five occurrences they list as the definition of a covered "breakdown"… another one is "unintentional and accidental damage from handling as a result of normal use of the product"... perhaps like a child unintentionally and accidentally leaving his glove outside where it gets worn and torn in the weather. Long story short, this protection plan is a scam and Dick’s is in on it. They had no intention of covering anything at all for any reason. The plan reps didn't even realize that they were quoting covered conditions from the policy to explain why they won't cover the replacement for those same things. A quick Google search shows that this is an entirely common experience, so if Dick's monitors their reviews they surely know this plan to be a scam yet they will still hard sell it to you at the register. I'm now out $160 on a glove we used for less than five months just to feel taken advantage of after wasting an hour of my time trying to use their so called No Sweat Protection Plan. I wish someone out there would have protected me from Dick's Sporting Goods. I will not shop here again.
The No Sweat Protection plan by Asurion is a scam and from Dick's Sporting Goods. They'll push hard on the warranty with the same comments that you can bring whatever you purchased with the warranty and back to Dick's within a year and the protection plan will simply cover for any damage and receive a gift card to be used at Dicks for any product. Problem is that the first year, any defect is covered by the warranty and when you take the product back to Dick's including the receipt, they tell you to call Asurion. Then Asurion routes you through a complex claims process only to deny the claim for various nefarious reasons. STAY AWAY FROM THIS SCAM. DO NOT BUY THE NO SWEAT PROTECTION PLAN OR ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH ASURION.
Exactly the same thing happened to me with football gloves. Only thing different is the designs on the gloves had delaminated and fell off making them look terrible. As I was filling out the online claim I knew there would be an issue when the drop down of preselected issues had nothing that describes my products failure. As soon as I hit submit, it said the claim didn’t qualify. Dicks is allowing Asurion to scam customers and promoting it at the stores training employees to promote how easy it is to get another for next season.
Scam indeed. Asurion plan is a “reject all” and Dicks is on it. Bitten once, never again