Here's a happy story:
About 15 months ago, I bought some off brand cheap crap DVD burner from CompUSA. Turns out it was a Lite-On rebrand. It was a really good 8x burner that performed pretty well. When I bought it, I was able to purchase a 2 year exchange warrenty for $7.50. I did. 15 months later, it's not writing any more. Many errors and killed a handfull of DVDs. Wanted to use my warranty and get a new one. Problem was, I had NO idea where my receipt was, let alone the warrenty paperwork and then not to mention the box and original packing stuff. But, cause I was going there for other stuff, I took the drive back to CompUSA. Quickly told them that I bought the drive and warrenty over a year ago and thought MAYbe they had me in the system or something. They said, "We probably do." and looked me up. Sure enough, there I am with my drive listed. I said "However, I have no paperwork or even the drives box, etc." They said, "No problem." After about 15 minutes of them checking serial numbers and what not, they hand me an NEC 16x dual layer drive. Rock on man. Twice the speed, plus it's dual layer, plus it's NEC. Only draw back, the warrenty is only good for one exchange. So, even though there was still about 8 months left on the warrenty, it was now dead. But the good news was, I could get another two years for another $7.50. So I did.
CompUSA is cool in my book. I have a 15 month old drive, no documentation, no box, no nothing. Just me in their system. They give me a new drive with NO hassle or questions. I said it didn't work any more, they said ok. I now have more than twice the drive I originally bought and can exchange again in two years for another $7.50.