Meade Sky Insurance Great Buy or Nigerian Scam?

Meade Sky Insurance Great Buy or Nigerian Scam?
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.... I am the proud owner of a Meade - 14" RCX400 Advanced Ritchey-Chrétien with UHTC Coatings, plus all the trimmings. Let me put this into perspective, I am a old disable retired gentleman whose life revolves around this scope.
.... July 11, 2008 the main board burnt out on it. I told the others in our group, “It’s not so bad, I have the Meade extended warranty including the optional sky insurance.”
.... Sky insurance sounds great and it is expensive. If your telescope goes bad Meade will send you a new box and Meade will pay all shipping costs, to and from California plus the repairs. Now 2 months after my initial claim, and after numerous calls, to vary help full and courteous customer service representatives. I still don’t have my box. Every time I call, I just get the run around. They told me yesterday, sounding vary forlorn that it would be another 4 weeks before they will even get that box in, let alone send it to me. This afternoon, after calling them, to see if I could make my own plywood box, I was told I couldn’t use my own box, it would be to heavy and that it would be 2 weeks before my new box was ready to be shipped to me. I asked why I was told 4 weeks the day before and all I got was silence and a lame excuses. I have been told at least 8 times that a supervisor would get back with me but only received one call back. I get plenty of sympathy and understanding from Meade but no box.
.... After waiting for 2 months with NO END in sight, just to get a box, so I can send my telescope to them, how can I recommend the added cost of sky insurance???
.... As in the Nigerian scam style, I keep expecting Meade to ask me for more money.

Sorry to hear about your plight. With all of Meade's changes and problems of late, I think you are just stuck between the rock and the hard place.
You have no choice except to wait for the box, they have told you that much.
Hope you do not have any more problems.

Ronald,

I sounds to me like you've been more than patient with Meade in attempting to get your scope fixed and they have failed to live up to their promises. If I were in your shoes, here's what I'd do.

I'd type up a nice, neat, one page letter to the CEO of Meade Instruments Corporation and explain what you included in your Astromart Forum post (minus the Nigerian Scam comments). Write it in a calm and respectful manner, without any nasty words. I would then go on to explain that you expect Meade's CEO to personally respond back to you in one of the three ways listed below that would satisfy you.

1. Provide you with the promised Sky Insurance shipping box within 7 days of receipt of this letter.

2. Ship you a brand new equivalent replacement telescope within 7 days.

3. Send you a refund of the purchase price of your scope, a refund of the "Sky Insurance", and a pre-paid shipping box in which to send the defective scope back to Meade, all within 7 days.

End the letter with: "Thank you for taking the time to consider my request", sign it and mail it to the address below, via certified mail. I would bet that you would get the desired response.


Steve Muellner, CEO
Meade Instruments Corporation
6001 Oak Canyon
Irvine, CA 92618

Ronald A Derkis said:

Meade Sky Insurance Great Buy or Nigerian Scam?
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.... After waiting for 2 months with NO END in sight, just to get a box, so I can send my telescope to them, how can I recommend the added cost of sky insurance???
.... As in the Nigerian scam style, I keep expecting Meade to ask me for more money.

Is it a "scam"? No. Plenty of people have had this warranty honored. The problem is the current state of Meade. They are still embroiled in issues raised by the move of all production to Mexico (your scope will be trans-shipped from California to Mexico for repair, back to California, and back to you). The company is also currently dealing with severe financial problems (their stock value is at 39 cents a share last time I checked). About all I can advise is "hang in there" and bug them weekly.