As some of you might know, I have a shameful secret. Well, as some of you might know, I have several shameful secrets, but the shameful secret we’re talking about now is that I own a pair of obscenely priced headphones. Bose Triports, to be exact.

The sound quality on them is phenomenal (and, for around $200, it damn well better be…); I’ve greatly enjoyed them over the past year and a half. They’re the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever put on, anywhere, and they’re quite isolating (so, even if it’s a bit noisy about, my music doesn’t have to be blasting for me to hear it).

The trouble is that these god-like and crazy-expensive headphones are not indestructible. This fact was demonstrated to me very graphically when the right ear piece broke off from the headband. It seems as though the small bits of plastic that attach the adjustable part of the headband to the non-adjustable part decided that today would be a great time to flex and break off.

So, besides getting smacked in the side of the head with a piece of metal from the headband, I also had managed to completely destroy my $200 pair of headphones. The best headphones I’ve ever had. The headphones that I decided to amortize over 10 years to finally get the price into the zone of “reasonable”. Those headphones.

The warranty on the headphones was only a one year warranty, if memory serves. I remember moving into MKV with them, so they’re at LEAST a year and a half old; now that I think about it, they might be two and a half years old; since I think I bought them when I was working at Formet. So, 2+ year old headphones. Besides their being off warranty, just TRY proving that the break was caused by a manufacturing defect, and not wear and tear.

But, these were $200 Bose Triports, the best headphones I’ve ever owned, I wasn’t about to give up without a fight. And I would bring the fight to Bose; work my way up the product support chain. Get to the highest employee I could get to and state my case, beg my case, plead my case, scream my case at the top of my lungs. “I WANT MY HEADPHONES REPAIRED!” I would shout, again and again for all those with ears.

I steadied my nerves, and I called their tech support number. A technician answered immediately (I wasn’t even put on hold). He would rue the day he was efficient… I explained to him that just as I was innocently placing my headphones on my head, the right earpiece broke off. He asked me if I had an account with them; I gave him my name and postal code; he said that they didn’t seem to, so he took down my street address, phone number, and email address (he got the city and province from the postal code, why doesn’t every company do that??). I also gave him the serial number off of the headphones. Now was when the fight would begin. He fired his opening volley, “Well, sir, from the sounds of it those headphones aren’t in a usable condition. When you’re ready, I’ll give you the address that you should send them to and we’ll send you out a brand new pair as a replacement”. I fired back with… wait… what? My mind was racing, I didn’t have to shout, I didn’t have to fight or threaten, he just offered to send me a brand new pair of Bose Triports. In exchange I would send him my broken, 2 year old Bose Triports.

I have never in my life had such a positive experience with tech support. It was amazing! It was like someone had decided, “let’s do something nice for consumers; let’s not make their lives hellish. Let’s be nice to them and see what happens”. I mean, MY GOD! I’ve probably spent, literally, DAYS of my life speaking to tech support; and this was over and done with inside of 20 minutes. I didn’t even have to come up with a receipt to prove when I’d bought the things; it was just, “pack as much as you have that came with the headphones originally, and send it back to us”.

So, for the price of a box and a few bucks shipping (They have a depot in Richmond Hill, so I don’t even have to send it outside of the province!!) I’m going to get sent a new pair of Bose Triport headphones; the best headphones I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

I just love it when a company stands behind their products. It’s such a bizarre and amazing feeling.