On Friday, June 15, 2018 at 3:10:29 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 9:52:42 PM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 10:14:05 PM UTC-4, Marty wrote:
replying to jack smith, Marty wrote:
After you purchase the item, make a photo copy. Regular home/office printers
normally do not use heat (thermo-copy) to make copies. No home printer? Go to
the local library, Office Max/Depot etc.
Copied receipts do not fade while in a file or attached to your owners manual
even if you keep it in the garage.


A timeless suggestion, which is a good thing considering that this thread is
over 14 years old.

Sometimes inexperience and ignorance go hand in hand. I shake my head in disbelief remembering at how some people thought a dastardly scheme had been perpetrated by big business with their disappearing ink. I used to think... "am I the only one that //owns// a fax machine?" Really? Am I the only one that has seen all images disappear from thermal paper in an afternoon in my hot truck? Seemed so at the time. I laughed my ass off at the conspiracy theory guys that professed from their bar stool throne that the lifetime warranty was nothing but a scam by big business.

They still use thermal paper in their receipt generation, as does EVERYONE else these days. Find a real, printed receipt on paper generated from an ink printer. Not even the little businesses have those.

HD had a few problems with their lifetime warranty registrations, but in my experience they always have said to make a copy of your receipt and keep it in a safe place. Likewise (having just registered more tools) they have a suggestion when you received conformation of registration that you print the conformation page and save that, too.

You can also go to their website any time and check your registrations (I have about 16 tools registered) and if you want, print their page from their website with all your information.

I have used the Ridgid warranty program 3 times, including once to replace batteries. The battery problem was easy to solve; I called Ridgid and told them the batteries wouldn't hold a charge. The looked up my account, and the lady on the other end started laughing while I told her the symptoms. She said, "well, I guess you got good service out of them. They're over 8 years old!". She sent me two new batteries and I had them in about 10 days.

I have called them when I couldn't get the registration to work right, and found out that I was reading the sticker on the tool incorrectly. I can't remember which it is, they don't use a "0" or an "o" (zero or o ) or the other way around to keep from having typos. Cleared it up on the phone and my registration verification was sent to me in about 10 - 12 days.

It is meticulous to have to register every single piece of a combo kit, but you only do it once. Their side of the story is that people try to register just a tool, and not its batteries. Or the tool and the batteries, but not the charger. Or they wait past the 90 days window of registration because they "meant to" do it. Or they get the information on the receipt wrong, which that information is more important than the serial numbers on the tools. When I lost my receipt from a recent purchase I just went to the email account I set up to get email receipts for my company purchases, and pulled it up and registered it from the pdf I downloaded.

Doesn't seem to me that they are trying hard to get out of the whole warranty issue. On my side, I will say that I bought two of their 5" ROS to sand down a mile or two of awful fascia. I bought them about 20 years ago based on price, not on warranty or performance. I listened to the group here and my boys as well and didn't register them, so no protection as I felt like they warranty would never be honored. So when the velcro sanding pads wear out and fall off, I have to buy them online for about $13 plus delivery. My amigo that bought one at the same time registered his, and about every 3-5 years he calls Ridgid as needed, and they simply send him a new one. Lesson learned.

Robert

Another option is to scan documents and create pdf's. These can printed, emailed to oneself,
stored in the cloud, on a cd, thumb drive, etc. A combination of methods pretty much ensures
that the information will be available when needed.

Yes, technologies change, but they also overlap, so even if you have to transfer the docs from
one type of media to another at some point, you'll be able to.