London Drugs wins my customer service prize of the month for its speedy resolution of my camera dilemma. I heard right away from their warranty department. It turns out they were about as happy with VAC’s warranty progam as I was: they’ve since brought their warranty program in-house so that they can resolve customer issues themselves. While I was covered by the VAC program rather than London Drugs’ own protection plan, they offered to give me a very decent credit towards a new camera, as I requested.

I’m now the proud owner of a Canon SD600, and the previous Canon lemon is off to the great camera depot in the sky. And I did put it under London Drugs’ protection plan, since I figured if they were this helpful in a situation where they weren’t technically responsible for the warranty, their warranty must really be worth something.

The larger lesson here, I’m betting, is that it’s worth asking who runs the warranty program before you buy an extended warranty. From now on I’m only buying extended warranties from stores that, like London Drugs, run their own warranty programs.