What do you do when a product breaks or stops working?

What do you do when a product breaks or stops working?

My friend Jen was telling me one day how she contacts companies anytime a product stops working, breaks or might need to be fixed. She does this even on older items over a year old. A lot of times they will send a replacement for free, charge for shipping or have a small fee to replace the item. 

I found this so fascinating and mind boggling as to why I hadn't thought to do it in the past lol I am the queen of bargains as Siri calls me. Usually when things break I just toss them and I am done with it. Some times if the product was great, I had it a long time I will replace it with a new one or I move on to a completely different brand if it was terrible.

I decided I was going to start trying this. Good thing she told me this within 2-3 months of our conversation I had some stuff break. 

I bought the Shark Robot Vacuum during the black Friday sales in 2018. This thing gets it's use around our house. I have it going at least once a day. It has helped tremendously keep the dog hair under control and all the crumbs from 2 kids picked up. If you have kids or an animal a robot vacuum is a MUST! 

My robot vacuum stopped working in October. I called up Shark, talked with technical support and we tried a bunch of things. The tech said something was wrong with the electronic part of the vacuum. They would send me an entire new one if I covered shipping. I said sure depending how much you charge for shipping....get this....they charged $25 to send me an entire new vacuum. The old one I just had to toss in the trash. I was completely shocked. I had the new one within 10 days! 

I bought the Revlon 1875W Smooth Brilliance AC Motor Hair Dryer during the Amazon Prime Days in July 2019. I needed a new hair dryer. I had the same one for 10ish years. I barely ever used a hair dryer before moving to Texas. See my hair post HERE for more info on that. Well I bought the hair dryer in July, but didn't pull it out of the box until around October. I used it two times. The second time I used it there were sparks, burnt smell and it stopped working. GOOOOOOOD LORD!!!!

I contacted Amazon, but they said since it was over 90 days I had to contact Revlon. I was expecting to fight with them. I called up Revlon, told them what happened and they send me out a brand new one at no cost. 

I have been using the hair dryer since I received my replacement every 7-10 days. I haven't had any issues with it. I honestly think that was a fluke with that one dryer. This one is amazing and I would happily buy it again. 

I will be contacting companies in the future any time products stop working before I replace them. Have you ever contacted companies to replace something that stopped working? I am curious if others have done this and what your experience has been!