For those of you in Florida who don't know about AppleCare issues I'll tell you now. It seems that consumers that buy any apple computer and/or the iPod can't get AppleCare extended warranties and this has been the case for quite a while. I'm bringing this up now because quite a few people have been reading the articles in the St. Pete Times. Basically Apple doesn't offer AppleCare in Florida because they don't pay the 500 dollar license fee. Now that is what the article says but they failed to say that Apple would also have to have a bond of 100 grand as well because that is what Florida requires of any company selling extended warranties in Florida.

Now with all this said if you buy a Mac computer and will not settle without a warranty you can buy your Mac and/or iPod at your local Compusa store and you can buy the Compusa extended warranty which they call their Technology Assurance Plan I think and remember this isn't AppleCare but a Compusa warranty. I bought my Powermac G5 computer about when they came out into the Compusa stores and I bought the warranty from Compusa that was a 3 year onsite warranty with free phone support for 199.99. Now with all this said they don't show this on the Compusa website so I was forced to go to the store itself and they gave me all their plans and prices which were the same basic plans and prices that are offered on windows computers.

I'm telling you all this because consumers in Florida who aren't buying Apple products because of their extended warranties they now can get those same mac products from Compusa with a Compusa extended warranty. Now I don't care for Compusa that much but I would rather deal with a Compusa warranty than have nothing at all that is for sure.

Or...

You could do what my wife and I did and buy your Applecare warranty from another state. In this case, it's a good thing you don't have to buy the warranty right away. This will mean you will have to ship (or drive) your computer out of state for warranty service (GA or AL), but this is better IMHO than either dealing with CompUSSR OR going without the Applecare warranty. You can also purchase the Applecare through a company (if you are in a position to do this) with a federal tax ID and that would also allow you to avoid this issue altogether.

Is AppleCare really not available in Florida?

I ask because I worked for CompUSA a year ago and we were selling AppleCare and/or the CompUSA extended warranty. So does this mean those AppleCare sold at CompUSA are non-valid for Florida residence?

Also, this is news to me because I just bought my iBook 3 weeks ago, and the employee told me I could purchase AppleCare before my 1 year warranty with Apple expires, so I find this odd.

That is correct, AppleCare agreements should not be sold and are not considered valid in Florida, unless purchased for a school or with a Federal Tax ID. Similar issue currently in Wyoming due to not meeting the requirements for "extended insurance". If you have been sold these agreements, you should take them back, and then notify apple that their resellers are not following the guidelines

You hit this right on the nail.

Damnit. This is outrageous.

I heard BestBuy warranty policies are pretty good. Maybe that's an alternative too?

What is funny about Best Buy is that they don't give you the option to buy their warranty online with the purchase of the Mac but if you drive to the store they will sell the warranty on the spot plus process your mac order and have it shipped out. But that isn't that bad considering something is better than nothing right.