Warranty Elephant aims to make sure that you never again try to get your purchases repaired only to realize that the warranty has just run out. Signing up for the site is a simple and quick process and you can soon start to enter your warranty information. There’s no substitute for entering the item details by hand, but you can choose from a pick list of manufacturers and items to make the process easier. Once that’s complete, you’ll enter the purchase date, manufacturer’s warranty, along with any extended warranty information. You can also input the service contact information or add notes. A useful feature is the ability to scan in your purchase receipt and keep this copy attached to your warranty entry.

Once your information has been entered, you can forget about it until you need it or until Warranty Elephant sends you a reminder of an impending warranty expiration. You get reminder emails at six months, one month and one week before the warranty expires, so you can arrange servicing or repair in good time. That’s all there is to the site, and it’s a potentially useful service.

Practical Uses:

• Keep invoices and warranty information for your purchases online
• Service your products in good time before the warranty runs out
• Keep track of your valuables in the event they are lost or stolen

Insider Tips:

• Use the pre-populated drop down menus to add your items quickly
• Be sure to notate whether there is an extended warranty as service options are often different between standard and extended warranties
• Scan your receipts to keep all your warranty information together
• Fill out the form completely, including serial numbers and contact details, to make Warranty Elephant your one stop shop for keeping warranty information

What we liked:

• The interface is simple, with a one page form for entering information
• The drop down lists of manufacturers and products is useful
• Being able to attached scanned receipts to any item

What we didn’t like:

• It could take quite a while to capture all of our warranty information
• Another box for a photo of the item would also make the site even more useful for insurance purposes
• We would like to see the option of exporting/backing up all of our information

Alternatives:

• My Things – www.mythings.com
• Smarter Safe – www.smartersafe.com

Company Info:

• Launched: June 2009
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
• Founded by: Stephen Chesney
• Web site: warrantyelephant.com

Costs:

• Free

Rating:

• 4 out of 5 (great)