Lenovo Has Lame Customer Service...

So my Lenovo experience is already starting off on a very bad note. I always ship to my parents because it's safer and after 5 days of processing they canceled my order because the shipping address didn't match the billing address . Which defeats the purpose of even offering the "shipping address" section. Now they are telling me that instead of shipping on the 11th when it was supposed to... it's going to ship on the 19th. Instead of rush delivery to make it right they knocked 100 bucks off the price. They claim they "can't" do rush delivery.

If I don't forgive this in the meantime I'm going to cancel this order and go with another brand. Point of this thread is to ask if you Lenovo owners have had any experiences like this. I'm wondering if I'm the only one to go through BS like this.

 

Excellent idea. Move on. Be happy.

 

Lenovo's customer service has always been subpar.

 

I have had nothing but excellent service with the Atlanta division here in the U.S. Overnight delivery of CRUs (customer service replaceable units) has been hassle free for me thus far

Forgot to add the proverbial *knock on wood*

 

Until now, I've heard it's great, at least with their thinkpads.

 

Just FYI, alot of companies have that kind of policy, it "protects" them against fraud (eg someone steals a credit card, has it shipped to a different address than the billing address). Alot of companies will call you if the billing address doesn't match the shipping address.

 

I had a laptop and few accessories with the shipping address diff to billing address, but they were all delivered.

The reason may be I was using my Debit Card rather than Paypal or Credit Card. Which via. Paypal you have to confirm your shipping address.

They can't do rush shipping because it's shipped from China that fastest eco-shipping is 5 days, the ultra-shipping you are not able to afford it.

 

I didn't know it was shipped from China. I hope they don't bang it around on the way.

 

You didn't know that Lenovo was a Chinese company and makes everything to order? At any rate, they ship via UPS, and I find the overall packaging to be adequate. I received my laptop with no problems whatsoever.

 

Wow, $100 off the price? To me that's the best kind of customer service!

Lenovo definitely has issues with inter-department visibility, leading to stuff falling through the cracks like these CC issues. Combine that with the terrible 'Order Processing' status page, and you get unhappy customers like this.

Anyways, try not to be impatient. You'll survive without the laptop for a week. Mine was delayed a week because of similar credit card issues, but Lenovo quality is totally worth it.

 

To be precise, no. There are configure-to-order (CTO) machines and there are pre-built, sold-as-is machines. The latter may include large quantities built for one specific bid. (Individual orders are actually a pain in the behind.)

 

I just assumed it was Chinese made but in advance. I didnt know they make each as you.order like you said. Still irritated but if the product is great then ill get over it.

 

Eh. In my experience if you have a different shipping and billing address, you'd better be prepared for the occasional foul-up. It's usually (as Tsunade_Hime) pointed out due to anti-fraud measures, but some times it's as simple as a sloppy worker somewhere not checking if the shipping address was different.

Personally I wouldn't read into it too much. Not because it's not a screw-up -- clearly it is -- but because extrapolating from "cancelled order due to different shipping and billing addresses" to "company has horrible customer service so I'm never doing business with them again" just doesn't seem like a rational thing to do. But maybe I'm more relaxed about this sort of thing?

If it's any consolation you'll go through this sort of thing *all the time* if you have a CC billing address in a different country than your shipping address. You wouldn't believe the number of cancelled orders, billing screw-ups, messed-up shipments, etc. I had from all sorts of companies when I used to live in the UK and ordered things with my US card...

 

I'd gladly take the $100 off, that's a pretty generous move

Rush delivery won't make things all that much quicker, since a large fraction of the time is passing through customs anyway. Typically, build takes about 1 week, and shipping takes about 1 week with the basic free shipping, including customs time.

 

I actually just ordered a Thinkpad a little while ago, should be arriving soon. As far as the billing address mixup goes, that actually is pretty common among businesses. It looks like this may have been a slightly more disorganized event than normal, but I would take it with a grain of salt. I'd rather have this happen than find out someone has been placing orders using my card to a different adress. i actually know people who had that happen with Dell and it took three months to clear it up. And that looked like it was a case of an honest accident or wrongly entered number, rather than actual credit card fraud.

And yes, Lenovo is a China based company, but does maintain a co-headquarters here in the US. like any major corporation, the communication among its various components sometimes can be... interesting, but I've always found their reps to be very helpful in either helping you directly or pointing you in the right direction.

As far as every model being custom built-to-order, technically it is, and probably still is being done so right now with the new lineup of Thinkpads. However, once they have a statistical analysis done on which configurations are most popular and do updated sales projections, they will have pre-built orders on hand.

And $100? That's a pretty nice compensation, being that a lot of businesses are like "Tough luck." Although free express shipping would have been nice, you would have only seen it a day or two earlier, so you actually make out better this way.

 

Okay so last week I told you guys about them canceling my order due to shipping address being different and setting me back a week right? Now shipping date changes randomly from today to the 25th with zero notice!!! With arrival date of the 1st. Now let me remind you guys it was supposed to arrive the 13th of last week.

I have never had an experience this bad before where I order something I need right away and they take 3 weeks to ship it! Should I cancel my order tomorrow? Have any of you guys experienced this?

 

Cancelling your order is almost a sure-fire way to get your laptop shipped lol

 

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not but I just sent them an email that if they do not rush ship the laptop I'm canceling the order tomorrow. I gave them a deadline to make it right or I'm done.

I'm sorry but they are NOT building my laptop from scratch so in production for a couple weeks is NOT acceptable. I can swap the SSD hard drive on myself and that's the only customization I did.

 

I am kind of in the same boat as you Clippersfan86. I ordered my X230t on 7/7and it was supposed to ship out on 7/15 but, when 7/16 came around and I had not received a "shipped" email I checked the status and it said "Released to manufacturing." I immedietly called Lenovo sales and the rep tried to tell me that the shipping date of 7/15 actually means the week of 7/15 not the day itself. After I told her that this is not my first time ordering from Lenovo and that I am aware of how the system works she changed her story to there is a "parts constrain." After hanging up with the rep I immedietly checked the status again and it had now changed to "In production" and a new ship by date of 7/21 was given. Its almost as if they waited for me to call and inquire to send my machine into production, parts magically available!

 

Did you order a CTO configuration ? There may be a part backordered.

 

Don't be so dramatic. So because of your one bad experience you automatically deduce that Lenovo has "the worst customer service of all time"? Get real. You know, orders get delayed, they're a mass producer of computer systems and ship millions of them. Plus they come directly from China to your front door.
The fact is that Lenovo makes great computers, and have good customer service (atleast with thinkpads).

It's true! I had that happen to me once.

 

CTO? I got the most loaded model and the only differences between that and the low end are blue ray, 1080p screen and SSD.

I just don't like being jerked around on an item that is a necessity for my line of work/life. If it's going to be 3 weeks say that from the beginning. Don't screw up and change it a bunch of times randomly on me without telling me.

 

From my experience the Lenovo CS has no clue how or what the supply chain is doing. They (unfortunately) will give you stock answers to production issues. I'd dig into the parts you ordered as if you were buying them standalone and see what the website says as far as delivery time.

 

Unfortunately I think your situation is worse than mine though. As you said your system has already been built. What are they going to do with your x230t for one more whole week?!?!?!?!?!
Only thing I can think of is that they delayed your shipment to include it in a batch that is to be shipped on 7/25 to save money.

The only rush shipping they can do is to maybe include it in the same shipment as mine (7/21) or maybe earlier. The amount of time customs takes etc is out of Lenovo's hand.

 

It's the Y580 so I understand it's their hottest and newest model but damn man.. this is brutal! I'm anxious and excited as hell and that's being taken away and replaced by frustration, impatience and anger.

 

I understand that, but parts availability can affect ship times. Ordered are queued, there could be a ton of people in line ahead of you that ordered the same exact system. There are just so many factors that can affect ship time, and you have to remember that they are *estimates*. But to be honest I wouldn't put any stock into it until they actually ship your product.

 

Y580 - Nice!
FYI - Even if you do cancel the order tomorrow, its still going to ship & your card charged. Sales is going to tell you that once you receive the system, call and setup a RMA. Once you send it back, a week and a half for them to refund the money.

 

I feel your pain man. I waited 3 weeks and then had to cancel and reorder due to a smart card reader being backordered. I reordered without and got it in 9 days. That CTO(change to order or something like that ) cost me 3 weeks. The only way I found out the smart card reader was holding it up was by placing a seperate order for a Cherry smart card reader on the website, and seeing it was scheduled to ship in 4 weeks !! If you say you have a fully loaded order then you might have something that isnt in stock.

 

Well there isn't anything custom besides the SSD man. So it sucks.

 

so you ordered Y580? It seems that lenovo did not expect so many orders for some reason.

 

Yes. The top Y580 package with Blue Ray, 1080p and the SSD. I guess they are having trouble making enough right now?

 

Well to be honest with you, the FIRST holdup was the SSD...

 

Should I have not bothered with that? Is it even worth it?

 

Well I'm lazy when it comes to doing a hard drive install. It is MUCH cheaper to get a stock disk drive and then upgrade yourself (if you can). But SSD is definately the way to go. My system boots from pressing the power button(or swiping the fingerprint reader) to fully loaded in like 15 seconds. I got the intel 180gig.

 

Oh wow very nice... Mine is only a small 32 gig.

 

Let me just say this.. I have an X230t which is quite different from your order. I just wanted to point out , in general, the Lenovo ordering experience.

 

Thanks Gro. Seems like I'm not the only one...

I should have gotten it from a retailer...

 

I ordered a CTO X230T on 7/9..It shipped on 7/12 and is in KY right now on it's way for delivery in MI on Thursday. I made no changes to the base core i5 model other than deleting the fingerprint reader. Just my experience as a first time Lenovo buyer.

 

Hey ! I'm in MI. too !

I guess it all depends on what kind of CTO probably. Thats a great turn-around

 

Hello Neighbor!! Yes I am really happy with the entire process. Just a few hours and it will arrive. Sitting in Livonia right now! I am easily amused by tracking a UPS package, I guess I really need to get out more...Ha!

 

I think Lenovo did above and beyond to compensate OP by offering a $100 discount, I'd be completely satisfied if I'm in the same boat. However I understand that OP may need the computer by a particular date so the inaccurate shipping estimation can cause a lot of confusion and frustration. For a company the size of Lenovo it's just impossible to keep track of all the suppliers and having accurate estimate of parts' arrival time due to JIT SCM. My experience of ordering 10+ machines from Lenovo has been entirely positive, and for most of the time they ship ahead of the estimated shipping date.

 

Has anyone had an experience NEARLY this bad?

I ordered my X230t on 6/19. No SSD or anything fancy. Took a week for the status to say "released to manufacturing." The original estimated ship date was like 6/27. That came and went without notice. After that the estimated ship date changed on almost a daily basis. 7/4, 7/6, 7/8, etc. I've called Lenovo CS several times and they always assure me that it will be shipping soon, but they know next to nothing about their logistics chain it seems. Fast forward to today - my estimated ship date was 7/19 (yesterday). So I call and inform them that I THINK they might have missed the mark, again. The guy on the phone assures me it will be shipping TODAY. So an hour late I check the order status page and now it says the ship date is 8/7 with a delivery date of 8/14.

I need this laptop for medical school which starts 8/13. Also, I am moving cities on 7/31 so the address they have is wrong and they can't change it without cancelling my order, which I am about to do anyways. The CS rep I just talked to gave me $100 off my order after begging me not to cancel, but unless it ships out today (unlikely) I won't have it before I move.

 

Hashi,

Did you configure your X230t with either the smart card reader or 500GB 7200rpm HDD?

What is your overall config?

 

Both lol. I assume there is a parts shortage with those 2 items?

 

that 7200rpm drive is definitely holding a lot of people up..didn't know about the smart card reader.....

 

My own experience with Lenovo technical support has been largely positive, although along the way I have had a few snags. Purchased a x230t for personal use, but have ordered thinkpads for years for work. Over the years, a few have shipped with a couple issue and when I called things were handled appropriately. With this laptop, the "T" key keeps popping off so I called Lenovo and asked them to send another (I've done this in the past). Remarkably, the guy told me I'd have to send the laptop back or make an appointment with a Lenovo Business partner to have it replaced.

I'm, like, "What?" Dude, it's two screws and a plug....there is no easier laptop keyboard in the world to change."

He told me the keyboard is no longer considered a self repair part and I just couldn't believe it. I tried to get a hold of a couple local business partners, but didn't have any luck so I called them back. This time, I had the service manual and pointed out the part is still listed as self repair so they relented and sent me one.

 

Well I have an X230 I received yesterday that I'm going to return. If anyone is interested, I could possibly sell it to you. It's loaded (all options,i5, 9-cell 500gb 7200 BT, Cam, FP, 6205, etc). I did open it and used for about an hour before deciding to keep my Zenbook Prime. Paid $1090 for it and would sell for no profit (no loss either). Screen is IPS, perfect, no dead/stuck pixels.

PM me otherwise I'm sending it back today.

 

Yeah, I know that has been a big complaint among people who ordered that hard drive. i just received a w530, ended up with 500 gb instead of the 320 gb I ordered. Just hang tight, its possible they may be running on a shortage and may end up upgrading you

 

Finally the thing shipped! Arrival by next Wednesday (probably will show up Tuesday). It sucks that it's coming from Shanghai though.... that means lots of opportunities to get banged around and damaged by UPS.... PLEASE let this thing arrive without damage and nothing wrong with it and I'll forgive the drama about the delayed shipping.

 

Precisely.

The 500GB 7200 rpm HDD are back in stock (Mine was delayed due to this but, finally shipped last friday so I am assuming they are back in stock)

Smart card reader - No cheese
One other forum member cancelled his order and reordered without a smart card reader because Lenovo couldn't provide an ETA on the part.