3rd party warrenties on receivers?

[Rav]

Hey guys - I had this buried at the bottom of my other thread but didn't want to keep that going since this was kind of a different topic:

In my research for the best prices on yamaha receivers I have noticed that some of the "unauthorized" dealers have started to include their own 3rd party warrenties as "assessories" you can buy with the receiver. Most of them are through Philips but I've seen some through a company called Mack as well.

My question is - since the normal yamaha warrenty is 2 years on a new receiver, do you think it is wise to purchase a receiver at an unauthorized dealer with a 3rd party warrenty for the same 2 years at a substancial savings ($100-$150 from retail authorized sites), or should I stick with spending the extra money just to get the manufacturers warrenty?

For all intensive purposes it seems like I would be getting the same coverage through the 3rd party warrenty that I would get with a yamaha warrenty but I don't want to make a mistake that might be costly and since I know nothing about electronics I'll defer to the guru's here :)

Thanks in advance for any input!~

[jasmit]

That wouldn't be a bad way to go if -- IF -- you ended up with a genuine, brand new, factory sealed unit. All too often unauthorized dealers ship units which have been opened and/or used and/or damaged, have had the serial number obliterated or are actually counterfeit. When you buy from an unauthorized dealer, you can never be sure what you're going to end up with. And when you do receive something other than a new unit, you end up having to go through the hassle of dealing with sometimes rude and unconcerned "customer service" people at the unauthorized dealer. If it doesn't work out to your satisfaction, you can always dispute the charge to your credit card, but who wants to go through all that?