When buying new and refurbished merchandise on eBay, oftentimes the manufacturer warranty is void because the seller is not factory authorized. In that case, it can be helpful to purchase an extended warranty. The problem? The warranty option either doesn't show up on the listing. Or it does show up but when you attempt to check out, it drops out.
What to do?
True, you can visit Square Trade or similar and buy a warranty without the assistance of eBay. However, it is often cheaper to bundle warranties at checkout. Therein lies the problem: If the seller sends you a Private Offer and you click the "review offer" link, the option to add a warranty — even if it appears in the listing before you accept the offer — will no longer be present in checkout.
Ultimately, this is an issue that eBay will have to fix. But until they do, there is a workaround.
I can't take credit for this solution because I found it on Reddit — but I thought I would pass it along for those who encounter the same frustrations I did recently while trying to add an Allstate warranty onto a NIB purchase. (The Reddit user, in turn, attributed this hack to eBay customer service). The workaround is to find an item on Ebay (preferably the exact same kind of item) where the extended warranty "add on service" appears as a tick-box in the listing right below the BIN and BO buttons. Check the box and add the item to your cart. Next, remove the item from your shopping cart, leaving behind only the add-on warranty. Now return to the listing where you have been asked to review a Private Offer that you intend to accept. Clicking "accept" will add the item to your shopping cart. You should now be able to "pay all sellers" and checkout as normal.
In my case, I wanted to buy a NIB Instant Pot electric pressure cooker. One seller had the extended warranty listed as a "service option" and the other did not. As it turned out, the seller of the one that did not have the add-on warranty on the page sent me a better Private Offer but when I reviewed the offer, the extended warranty was nowhere to be found in checkout.
I wrote a "feedback" note to eBay using the link at the bottom of the "Review Private Offer" pop-up to say that they really need to fix this so that an extended warranty can be added when moving from a Private Offer "review offer" window to checkout. Because otherwise, even if the listing has the option to add the warranty it will only show up if you pay the seller's full asking price — not if you do a Best Offer that the seller has accepted and not if you accept a seller's Private Offer.
Here's a bonus tip: Once checkout is completed, take the item number for your purchase and attach it as a "note" to your Allstate warranty purchase. Conversely, take the Allstate warranty invoice number and attach it as a note to the product on which it applies. (There is an option to add a Note to a transaction under "Purchase History".) Finally, be sure to save a record of what warranty goes with what purchase because if you buy more than one item with more than one type of warranty emailed to you after the fact, it can be difficult to sort out what warranty purchase corresponds to what item because the warranties are fulfilled by email, yet very few retailers/websites bother to link the warranty to the product on the customer's behalf.
Now for a word of caution: Not everything on Ebay qualifies for an extended warranty. If you choose to use this workaround, make sure the warranty "swap" is associated with the same product type, same product condition AND the same dollar value range. So, in other words, you would not want to add a random item to your shopping cart where the extended warranty is valued at $500-$1000 for a home appliance when what you are buying is a small kitchen electric valued at $100. (Not only will you end up paying too much for the extended warranty that was intended to apply to a higher priced item but you may end up buying a warranty for a completely unrelated product type, so if you need an extended warranty for a toaster oven, make sure you find a similar listing with a toaster oven — not a lawn mower.
In closing, the above solution is one of last resort. If you are not concerned about the item selling out from under you right away, send the seller a message and ask them to contact eBay support about how to get the "add on service" option for an extended warranty to appear in an updated version of their listing. Similarly, before you submit a Best Offer or accept a Private Offer, message the seller and work out the agreed upon price so that, if the warranty option is already present on their listing, you can simply check a box for the extended warranty, add the item to your cart as normal and checkout (bypassing the Best Offer checkout and the Private Offer checkout, both of which suffer from the same problem where extended warranty purchases are concerned).
The above-described hack is best suited for situations where A) the product is NIB or professionally refurbished, B) the seller does not know how to get the warranty option to show up on their listing, C) you are concerned that the item will sell out very quickly while you are waiting for a revised listing that won't require you to use the Private Offer or Best Offer checkout, and D) the extended warranty "add on service" tick-box is missing from the listing but there is a similar item — preferably an identical item in the same price range — also listed on Ebay where the warranty option does show up, and your checkout does not involve a Private Offer or Best Offer.
For information on Allstate extended warranty, what it covers and how to reach them for claim, see: https://www.ebay.com/cdp/help/protection-plan/allstate
Hope this helps!
