Lenovo/IBM loses my computer - I pay

I just figured I would share my dissappointment at Lenovo/IBM's level of service when they managed to LOSE MY COMPUTER. I had a Lenovo T400 ThinkPad that fell apart after 5 months of use due to motherboard failure, WLAN failure, USB failure to mention a few which seems to be the norm these days with ThinkPad's. Lenovo was kind enough, after trying to claim these don't fall under warranty, to finally take in for warranty service. The service desk told me to leave my hard drive attached and disable any password protection to facilitate easy service.

The service was supposed to last 1,5 weeks. 2 weeks later Lenovo called me telling me I had sent them not a computer but a box full of some company's quarterly reports. After a few calls and another week Lenovo/IBM called me to tell me they had lost my computer. This is the computer that they asked me to disable the passwords from that contained all my personal data, passwords etc etc.

Lenovo/IBM was kind enough to tell me they would provide me with a new computer or reimburse me for the price I paid for the computer 5 months ago. When I asked them about reimbursement for my personal information which they had lost, all that is needed for identity theft (the fastest growing federal offence in the US) and more, they claimed they take no responsiblity for loss of data. Yes, loss of data when it dissappears from the hard drive but not when they due to their own mistakes allow my personal information to be handed over to a third party. Another 2 weeks went by and Lenovo/IBM kindly informed me now that their decision was final and I am left to spend 100 hours changing passwords, signatures and files at my own expense or just wait until someone steals my identity and empties my accounts.

Not even one apology was muttered during the whole course of phone calls and email exchanges.

What a wonderful company. Thank you Lenovo, thank you IBM - I just ordered a Mac.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles, but I don't know that you can draw broad generalizations form one instance. If you think Macs are somehow better, I think you're in for a surprise, see here. If Lenovo received a box of quarterly reports, perhaps it was not them who did you in. Even if it is true, at the end of the day people are human and make mistakes, but it does really suck that you're the one in million it happened too.

It's odd Lenovo would direct you to disable all you passwords. I've never had them do it with me. I always tell people unless it's the hard drive, pull it before sending it in. It's just safer all around. Lastly you might want to contact Mark@Lenovo over on the Lenovo forums. He's pretty good at cutting through the red tap and getting answers. I don't know if he can help in your situation, but it's worth a shot.

 

This is precisely why I always have a stable of hard drives. I would never send my machine with my personal data on it.

 

Wow, sending pc with personal data on it and with all protection disabled seems kinda stupid to me. Too obvious.
Its like with online banking - no matter who asks, never give out your private data, even banks tell their customers not to give out private data, thats their security policy to avoid phishing and thats how it should be everywhere else, its user whos responsible for identity theft if he gives out all his private information to the world.

 

Yeah regardless of the laptop that's being serviced I NEVER send in my actual drive. I'll usually restore the factory image to the drive after backing it up to an external, or more often the drive in there is an after market drive and I'll just stick in the old one that came with it.

Not to discredit your disgruntlement, it's still not good customer service. But this could've been avoided by just swapping drives or nuking and restoring it before you send it in.

 

why did you go for a mac? you didn't have to change the whole o.s. just because lenovo stuffed you up.

 

I know it has been hard! But I believe that the safety of one's data lies with themselves. I have owned 4 laptops in the past - the first thing I do is to buy a spare hard drive along with the laptop itself. As soon as I get home, I take out the original hard disk, put it away safely and then do a fresh installl / clone on the new hard disk. Only when this is done, I start moving all my data back.

Whenever I share this with people, the immediate reaction is - "you're wasting money!". I guess that's the price to pay to keep your identity safe in this age!

p.s - I have never thrown away a damaged hard disk as well - It's too easy to recover data from them.

p.p.s - If you have the dough, do it for your macbook too...new hard disks cost less than $50, its well worth it!

Enjoy your macbook, it's got one of the best track pads

 

So Apple would somehow have more reliable couriers that never lose products in transit? If that was the case then there would be no need for insurances.

I think OP should apply some common sense in these sort of cases.

1) Always have back up information of your HDD in some other areas.

2) If they are important personal information on your HDD then you should never send it in.

I mean if your personal information is so sensitive why would you send it in?

 

Hello everyone, it was nice to get so many responses to this thread but what I find interesting is that most of you feel that the fact that Lenovo lost my computer and thus handing my information over to thieves is my fault. I find this awkward. Perhaps I need to reiterate the process: 1) Lenovo told me to leave in the hard disk to enable service, 2) Lenovo told me to disable password protection to enable their service, 3) Lenovo lost my computer.

I understand that I need to re-examine my level of trust when dealing with the outside world but I do not quite understand why it is I who is to blame when another loses my data? This is the same as saying that if I were to walk in a gangland area wearing the wrong color clothes and end up getting jumped, it was my fault for not having done my research and put on the right color of clothes - or altenatively not have gone to that part of the city at all. I understand that there are many avid ThinkPad fans on this site but urge all of us to re-examine where to place blame, as I need to re-examine who to trust, before stating that it is the individual that should bare sole responsiblity for any actions he may face (especially if having been told to take a certain course of action by an expert in his field = Lenovo). This should not be so.

On the less ethical/moral side and focusing on the legal aspect of this issue, what I find most dissappointing with Lenovo is that they claim to have no liability as their warranty states they do not take liability for "data loss". Lenovo is therefore asserting that "data loss" was written with the intent of actually physically losing computers and not merely losing information previously stored on a hard drive. This is merely another example of lawyers being used to fabricate the truth in order to protect their own interests, rather than pursue justice.

As for moving to a Mac, I do not expect the service level or security to be any better but simply am so dissappointed with Lenovo/IBM that I do not want to fund them anymore with buying my 14th computer from them (yes, I have always been a ThinkPad fan but am not anymore). Actually I am so dissappointed I am having all the systems in my company changed to Apple - for better or for worse. And finally, yes, I know having a 100 or so computers in my company switched to Apples will not put a dent in Lenovo's regime, but perhaps over time individual acts can make a difference.

 

While I sympathize with you, it's always a good idea to backup your important data and to reformat the HDD before you send your system in for repair. That's something that I'm sorry to say is your fault for overlooking, and hopefully this will be a good lesson for the future. It would be good to remember that all computer manufacturers that I'm aware of state they are not responsible for any data loss on their part.
Hope you enjoy your mac...

 

The reason I bought a Lenovo is their onsite warranty.
Tech repair guy comes to your home and you can watch while the repair is being done. And no waiting 1 to 2 weeks, or more.

If I recall correctly, only Dell and HP had onsite warranty.
I never considered a MAC. Not sure if MAC's have onsite warranty.

 

It is not Lenovo whom lost your product, but rather the courier company that lost it. You have to make the correct distinction between whom actually lost your product. These things do happen, hence why there is insurance on these packages.

if you really have owned that many Thinkpads or laptops, then you should have known that IBM nor Lenovo ever covers you for data loss (no laptop company does) in the event of theft, loss, damage done by third parties, etc. No laptop company does, since you can't put a real monetary value on information and data.

You place too much blame on the action of others and take no responsibility for your own action.

It is not about an issue of trust here, since Lenovo and its service agents did not lose your computer on purpose or did anything to facilitate the disappearance of your laptop.

Lenovo service support did ask you to unlock the hdd, but did not tell you to keep all your important data on it. I guess it is prudent for them to tell people to not to have any important/sensitive data on it and keep a spare copy somewhere.

This is the same policy that applies in air transport industry. If your luggage was misplaced, you would get a certain level of compensation, but you can't ask the airline to replace those personal artifacts lost in that luggage.

Maybe you should have paid the extra money for onsite warranty instead, or get someone else in your company to do the warranty claim for you.

 

I don't think anyone here is blaming you, at least I'm not. What you have here is an unfortunate set of circumstances. Every once and a while things are going to go really bad, and you're going to have to deal with it. That's life. Whether it's Lenovo's fault or the delivery company or someone else, I don't know how much it matters. What you should focus on here is protecting your data and getting your new machine. Sure, you can ruminate on how you got hosed, justifiably so, but at the end of the day that serves no purpose.

 

Apple doesn't offer onsite or accidental damage protection warranty.

 

The courier works for Lenovo to serve the customers, they have contract. Even though they are two companies, the courier can be viewed as Lenovo's employee in this circumstance. The O.P. is not entirely wrong by blaming Lenovo, they lenovo still should bear some responsibility for not choosing a more reliable courier company.

There are countless examples of sub contractors ruining businesses and reputation of the principal contractee. The onus is on the principal company to select the right contractor much like an boss-worker relationship. If some delivery guy at Pizza Hut lost my Pizza, my whole impression of the restaurant brand will go down, next time I will order from Pizza heaven.

 

The OP is getting a new machine though, he's trying to hold Lenovo accountable for the data he sent them and didn't have backed up. Sorry but I can't see Lenovo as being liable for that. If so then any customer could load up a million dollars worth of sensitive data and send it to Lenovo and sue for damages. There's a reason these companies warranties say they aren't responsible for data losses.

I know it's frustrating but the OP won't find what he's looking for from any company, even Apple.

 

Enjoy your new Apple.

 

The main point people are making is:
1) It happens. To every courier. That is an UNAVOIADABLE FACT. They WILL lose packages.
2) Probably a lesson learned for the OP... but never ever send in stuff with all your personal information on it. It could get lost, just as what happened and they even tell you not to, as they might need to reimage the drive (in my experience they pretty much always do that).

 

actually IBM chooses the courier company, and i don't think IBM chooses the cheapest around. In Australia they use Toll Priority for parts delivery and DHL for machine pick up and drop off. I think they use similar quality courier in other countries too. This is also one of the reason, why IBM in some countries request that user responsible for the drop off and pick up of their laptop to the depot, which reduces cost and logistical mishaps.

But regarding Lenovo taking blame and such, well you are correct to a small extent, which is why they are paying the full purchase price to the OP. However, how could Lenovo guarantee what the courier person does, when they have no control over them? it could be a genuine mistake or other reasons. Mishaps, mistakes and unintended consequences happen, while you do try to minimize them, they do happen. This is the real world here, not some text book examples that discounts many important factors into the whole analysis.

Boss-worker relationship, well not every employers can read a crystal ball, and you can't really say what may happen in the future. If they could, then the work of law enforcement would be much simpler.

But obviously, you must have some sort of theory on how you should interview your potential employee on such things, so you could list them and see whether the courier company HR can pick up on it. Obviously, shipping company could use them too, since they wouldn't have to buy all those insurances anymore.

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Also, warakawa the way you write your post, makes it seems that OP have NO responsibility for his action. Lenovo and its sub-contractors have acted in due diligence in this case, while the consequences of losing the packages are unintended, a proper monetary value was compensated for the lost machine.

I find it funny that a person whom had 14 or thinkpads in the past, would not know the importance of data backup, and not removed the important data on the laptop before it is shipped off. When you would never know whom would look at the during the shipping and repair processes.

Maybe common senses is not so common anymore. Hopefully this is not going to be end up like Edison Chen's laptop repair.

 

Sorry to hear of your misfortune, but YOU made a big mistake with your data. If a gun shop employee tells you to point a pistol at your foot and pull the trigger, do you do it? Some of this is simply common sense—I would not put an unencrypted hard drive with my data in a machine and send it to someone. YOU took a risk with your data.

 

im a little confused.they said they would pay for your computer. yes they made a mistake and either them or the shipper lost your machine. outside of pulling a magic wand out of a hat and magically making it appear what do you expect. if its lost its lost. nothing else they can do. what exactly do you want from them at this point that is actually within their power.

 

Understandable to be disappointed, but there's not much Lenovo can do about data loss - even hard drive manufacturers do not take any responsibility for data loss whenever they do warranty repairs/replacements of hard drives, much less computer OEMs.

 

I think he's more pissed about the data theft than the loss of the data. The problem is that Lenovo's choice of courier can't be trusted anymore.

 

So Lenovo is going to drop a contract with a company based on one incident? That seems to be little extreme. How do you guarantee that the competition is not going to fair worse?

 

That isn't the problem. The problem is that people don't make the investment in a second laptop drive. A $40 160GB drive would have solved the problem. The machine could have been sent with the factory image and no personal data.

Then again, most people never perform backups either.

 

Let this be a tough lesson learned. Companies are never responsible for data loss. Whoever told you to send your hard drive in shouldn't have told you that. But on the same token, you shouldn't have listened to them. It's like someone telling you to dive into a dry swimming pool. They shouldn't say it and you shouldn't listen. So there's fault on both sides.

Perhaps this kind of issue is more apparent to me than others, but data is solely the responsibility of the user, no matter what anyone tells you. And that includes data privacy. This is not completely unrelated to data privacy issues on sites like facebook. People want to blame facebook when their privacy isn't protected, but I would still put a level of responsibility in the person's hands for posting sensitive information on an internet database in the first place.

 

The discussion in this thread has come about as far as it will go, thread locked.

warakawa, in the future, if you believe a thread should be locked, use the Report function, don't troll. Posts have been deleted.