Dick Smith extended warranties still valid

Dick Smith extended warranties will be honoured, according to the company that provided the warranties. The Warranty Group confirmed that it will continue to honour all valid claims sold across Australia and New Zealand from 2008 up until the electronics retailer’s closure in February.

It said honouring the warranties is the “right thing to do by our customers.” There have been around 135,000 extended warranties that were feared to be rendered useless when Dick Smith went into receivership in January. This accounts to over $2 million in retail value.

“The closure of Dick Smith retail stores is unfortunate and we want to give our loyal customers peace of mind we promised when they chose to buy products from Dick Smith,” director of sales for Southeast Asia Hemeka Perera said (via NetGuide).

“In difficult times, it is important that The Warranty Group does everything it can to inspire market confidence and provide comfort to consumers who put their trust in retailers.”

E-commerce brand Kogan announced earlier this week that it has acquired all of Dick Smith’s online businesses for an undisclosed sum. It will run its online businesses from June 1. The extended warranties are not affected by the acquisition as they were sold prior to it.

Meanwhile, television sets worth $1.8 million were stranded at Dick Smith warehouses when it went under in January. Business Insider Australia reports that the fallen company has about six weeks to get rid of the TVs.

Chinese company Shenzhen MTC demanded the return of the 14 shipping containers with the TVs out of fear it would not get paid. However, instead of doing such thing, shipping company Toll sent the TVs to Dick Smith’s cartage contractor, and this necessitated a court decision to determine where the television sets should go to.

The Federal Court in Sydney found that Dick Smith should get the TVs. Judge Steven Rares also ordered Toll to pay damages to MTC on Tuesday.