Welcome to Extendo Inc.

Welcome to Extendo, your marine extended warranty specialists. If you know your parties extension you may enter it now. Please press "1", for Human Relations, please press "2", for accounting, please press "3", for Sales and Marketing, please press "4", for IT services, please press "5", for Investor Relations, please press "6", for Purchasing please press "7", to file a warranty claim, please press "8", if you are a marine technician please press "9".

Thank you, you have reached the Extendo marine warranty claim support department. Please enter the 16 digit claim number followed by the pound key. Thank you, an agent will be with you shortly, There are 11 callers in front of you. Your business is important to us, please continue to hold.

"Hello, My name Maurice, what is your claim number?". "I just punched it in a few seconds ago." "I understand, but that is just used to track my phone call time, the number please." "Alright, let me find it. Okay are you ready, it's ZX9286H83 dash M71K47Z."

"Thank you, how can I help you?" "What is the procedure to do a repair for my customer?" "Let me see, ah yes it's a KVH television. That's easy. Just remove it and take it to the marine dealer. They will ship it in to be fixed."

"Maurice, it's not a TV set, it's a KVH satellite TV system." "I don't know what that is, but just remove it and take it to the marine store, and we only allow one labor hour for this." "Maurice, are you serious?" "Yes, just remove the gear, and take it to the store." "Maurice it will take about a day to get this out of the boat, another day to put it back in." "What do you mean it will take a day?" "Well there is a dome on the hardtop, two receivers, cabling and a bunch of other pieces." "I've never heard of that, let me talk to my supervisor."

"My supervisor wants to know if you're Garmin certified." "Yes, I'm Garmin certified, but it's not Garmin's equipment." "What's this thing again?" "It's a KVH satellite TV system. You don't own a boat do you Maurice?" "No, I live in Alamogordo New Mexico, there isn't a whole lot of water out here, and I don't even know how to swim." "Maurice, what I typically do is go to the boat, figure out what piece of the system is acting up, and then send that part in for repair." "How much will this cost?" "I won't know until I see it." "Let me talk to my supervisor."

"My supervisor says he needs an estimate for repair before we will authorize any repairs." "Maurice, tell me how this "Catch 22" thing works. I can't do an estimate if I don't make a trip to the boat and spend some time figuring out what is wrong. And you won't authorize the estimate unless you know how much it will cost to fix it." "Please hold while I talk my supervisor." "My supervisor wants to know how much will it cost to remove all of it and deliver it to the retailer." "Maurice, I can tell you that exactly, hang on, it will cost $1280.00." "Whoa, please hold."

"My supervisor asked if you can figure out what's wrong in two hours." "Yes Maurice, I can" "When you find what's wrong, will you be able to give me an exact estimate?" "No Maurice, I can't. I won't know what the repair costs from the manufacturer will be until they see it themselves." "Please hold." "My supervisor says he will authorize two hours work, and then we must be notified of the actual repair costs from the manufacturer before we will authorize any additional authorizations." "That's fine Maurice." 

In truth I didn't exaggerate much, it was excruciating. An hour on the phone with someone who was clueless about the product they warrantied. I was asked if I was Garmin certified for reasons that are still a mystery to me, and they wanted me to rip out the entire KVH system....until they found out how much it would cost. The problem is with the dome's rotary joint. I pulled the dome and off to KVH the unit went. Extendo should invest in some training for staff, and maybe take them to see a couple of real boats. It was almost as bad as dealing with DirectTV. Damn you Siri, I said a human agent, not your brother Hal.