My Blog, Your Money

Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You To Be Rich recently posted a video about how he ruined his brand new $1,300 MacBook by spilling coffee on it, but was then able to make the best of this situation by successfully recovering $1,100.  First, he sold the laptop as-is on eBay for about $661.  Then he made a claim with his credit card company which reimbursed him $533.  He only claimed $533 because that was the quoted repair price that didn’t come with a guarantee of success and he regrets not asking for a quote with a guarantee.  Had he done so he probably would have recovered the entire cost of the laptop if not more.  Even though it was entirely his fault, his credit card company reimbursed him his quoted amount.  This is a feature offered by most credit cards so just something to be aware of.  And if you are purchasing an item which can be broken or stolen, consider using a credit card so you can get the purchase protection.  This is just one of many reasons to use credit cards.

Here’s the video where he explains what happened:

I just wish I had learned about this earlier since I broke a brand new LCD monitor earlier this year as I was removing it from its box.