Lenovo SUCKS...period~!!!

I'm starting get frustrated with how Lenovo deals with their customer.

I purchased my T410 back in June 2010 and it has been in and out of service depot since.

The first was BSOD, overheating, constant freezing, and currently it is in service depot for a bright spot on the screen and the keyboard warping (possible due to the previous heat problem).

I already purchased 3 thinkpads this year and this is how they treat their customer.

Plus Lenovo thinks somehow I magically created the bright spot on the screen and wants me to pay for it.

 

No they don't. I've had my T410 since early this year and haven't had one problem with it. Just because you had one bad experience doesn't mean Lenovo sucks. I know it can be frustrating, I've been there before, but with Dell. You have to remember that with mass produced items there are a few that have quality control issues that slip through. Unfortunately yours was one, but I can tell you overall that it's a very uncommon issue.
I'm sorry you're upset, but just try to take a deep breath and relax and look at this objectively. I'd suggest being polite but firm, and if you're not happy with how customer service is handling your issue, move up the chain of command. Ask to speak with a mananger, his manager, and his manager, until it gets resolved.
If push comes to shove you could probably just send it back and do a charge back with your bank.

 

The problem with my laptop is the main issue.
However, the way the customer rep handled my problem angers me even more.

I bought 3 Thinkpad T-series laptops this year.
And yes, they have been working pretty well, but I think they should have at least considered giving me a replacement unit before telling me to buy another one.

 

True, but that's why I suggested moving up the chain of command. If you don't like how someone handled it, ask to speak with someone else. Keep trying until you get the results you are looking for. The resolution you are looking for doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Just be polite and don't give up.

 

While Lenovo should certainly handle your case with care, you should note that your having bought 3 ThinkPads this year actually makes no difference to their warrranty policies. The two are separate issues.

Hope things work out for you. What Roger says is perhaps your best option. Push the matter - politely - up the decision-making chain.

 

Aren't there lemon laws for this sort of thing? Sure sounds like a replacement is warranted in this case.

 

"lemon laws"

I think the problem with lemons is not so uncommon as we'd like to think, though. Quality control in mass production is done by random sampling of a small number of machines, so most laptops we get in our hands are not quality control tested, with the strick definition of the term.

 

As roger suggested let's look at this problem objectively and don't rush to conclusion just as of yet (even if you are unhappy with how things have turned out at the moment). You got 3 thinkpads this year and you are having issue with only one machine and how low level tech support personnel dealt with your complaints.

This is how you should handle the problem.

1) type an email or word document documenting all the concerns and problems that you have had with the laptop. Try to be precise in your description of hardware problem and don't use any rude languages. Also include any concerns that you have with the support and in what way do you they fAiled to address your problems.

2. Call up the support again ask for customer satisfication officer and request to open a complaint case, ask for the person's name, email and direct contact no. (some may not willing to give that out in the initial conversation). Then forward the prepared emails to the customer satisfaction officer.

3. If that dont work out there is other avenues too.

 

consider how fast Dell replaced my U2711 twice, both within 24 hours (with only one phone call each time) and how lenovo still have not fixed up my warranty entitlement after almost one month (after around 6 calls now). I have to say Lenovo service does suck big time, it's like they don't give a bleep about my problem, an idiot at lenovo stuff up my warranty and don't bother fix it up.
Every time I call Lenovo, the guy comes up with some bullcrap reason, and his only form of compensation is to send another email and I can NOT speak to his supervisor because Lenovo only can communicate through Email internally. Email my balls, if you really want to help me, you would help me. The guy that's "looking after" my case is Sandra from lenovo customer.


This will be my first thinkpad and seriously considering it to be my last.

 

@warakawa, you should not post the worker's actual email address or full name on public forum.

 

That does suck.

However, I would not take personally how the cs rep treated you. It is not worth getting upset over.

 

Whether *some* of the CS reps suck or not, Lenovo still makes great notebooks. That's how I look at it. Every company has some bad CS reps, it's unfortunate but the truth.

 

Never use chat for any customer service regardless of company. I have a feeling most of them are outsourced based on various experience with them.

Have you tried calling Lenovo? The phone reps have always been extremely helpful in my experience.

I've had mixed results with depot service. Finding a local lenovo service provider to do the work has worked better for me. All they need is the case #, or maybe even not that.

Lenovo Support & downloads - Find a service provider

 

With my bad experiences in the past with using Apple's depot repair service, I would never use any depot service again. Especially if it's outsourced to a third party.

 

So, you have tried ONE THING and come to the conclusion that Lenovo sucks. How about calling them up and then escalating the issue. You won't get anywhere with such a quitter (and whiny) attitude.

If you're anywhere as defeatist as this in real life, you must be a joy for your friends and family. (Not really, was being sarcastic).

I've had an overall positive experience with them so far, including their support. I haven't tried a return however. Dell, when I bought my 27" monitor from them last year have been awesome. Call them up "my panel is slightly off color to one side" and "here you go sir, a new one is on the way".

 

JameZ (a Lenovo employee) is trying to help Titan0111, it would be nice if OP update the thread to mention that someone from Lenovo is on his case.

Re: possible to return my T410 after 4 mo. ? - Lenovo Community <-- the op has a thread on the official Lenovo forum too.

 

I had a panel replaced on a 2 year old T61p (still under warranty). I used depot service. Zero problems on that service call.

Trying to get a warranty updated on a new T400s was a different story. IBM screwed that up soo badly, I returned the machine.

Then again, it's the reason I now have the T410s. So they did me a favor. It cost me more and I had to wait months but it's looking like this T410s Optimus is a keeper.

 

That's 512MB plus shared memory. I don't think any laptops on the market have 4GB dedicated.

 

I should be getting a call from another rep. on Monday.

My two other thinkpads (T510, T400) are also T series but they have integrated video cards. Both of them seem to have no problem.

This particular model (T410) has been a pain in my butt.
1. BSOD
2. Heat
3. Freezing
4. Bright Spot on the screen
5. Keyboard bent

I don't know what's gonna happen next.

 

If they can't fix the problem on multiple attempts, then i don't think there are many other options other than refund or give you an exchange, etc.

 

i'm afraid they will continue to ask me to send it out for repair.

 

I am afraid we'll be seeing this thread for another 4 months.

Seriously though, I hope you get this resolved ASAP. None of the issues occured during the initial return period?

 

yeah, i really hope i can get this resolved soon....

 

after multiple calls to lenovo, i was told that my case would take up to two weeks.

or i can just pay like $750 for LCD replacement. total bs~!

then i called back and spoke to a lady who's going to have my t410 sent back to me without being repaired.

she informed me that sales department can't issue a refund nor request a replacement unless i have the laptop with me.

i guess i will be calling sales department when i get it back.

 

Was all that in response to Jamez' PM, or are you still just twirling around in a circle and not following his instructions?

 

JameZ told me that I would get a call in few days

but I was also suppose to get a call from this guy today, which I did not.

so instead of waiting, I called him and left a message but no call back.

so I just called other rep to see what's going on.

I didn't have my laptop for nearly two weeks now cause it was in & out of repair on top of constant problems before that.

considering I'm an engineering student who need my laptop all the time to run simulations or to write codes, you can probably see where my frustration is coming from.

 

You'd probably do better to just take a deep breath and let Jamez handle it. Multiple calls to multiple people getting different answers just confuses the situation and, apparently just winds you up.

 

Not to be "that guy", but if it's really critical that you have constant access to your laptop, why didn't you get an on-site warranty?

 

well, i didn't think it was going to have constant problems for this long.

maybe one, that i can understand.

plus when i'm in a lab doing running simulations then my laptop freezes then what good is an on-site warranty?

 

well onsite warranty does decrease the amount of turnaround time for any repairs, also you can direct the technicians to what sort of problems you think need to be addressed.

 

If I were you, I would get 2nd laptop from friends/family and let JamesZ take care of it. Otherwise its kinda, as JaneL said, running in circles and maybe even wont make the situation resolve quicker nor longer, IMO.
Tho my laptop is still with me and Im not a student, so I do understand your frustration that you might have about this situation.

 

i received a call from Lenovo

and my lcd will get replaced for free.

once i get my T410 from repair, i may just sell it and get something else.

 

That's cool! But now that the LCD will be replaced, why would you want to sell it? Though I can understand if you have lost confidence in your machine. This is actually a big deal for me. If I can't rely on a machine, I would be continually bothered by it.

 

Perhaps I'm missing something. It seems to me that if your laptop is indispensable, then an onsite warranty makes sense. I mean... you don't buy a warranty or insurance because you *expect* problems -- you buy one to help protect yourself *on the off-chance* that there are problems. Such it is with an onsite warranty: you don't buy it because you expect you'll have hardware trouble, you buy it so that if you do have hardware trouble you reduce the amount of time before it's fixed.

What good is any warranty at the exact moment that you experience a problem? Well... technically, none. It's what happens in the day(s) after that make a warranty worthwhile (or not.)

Given that the price difference between the depot and onsite warranty is something like $75-$100, it's always seemed like an obvious choice for machines for which downtime is a serious problem.

As an aside, if your machine wasn't hard locking due to heat (which ought to be pretty obvious), I would suspect faulty RAM. That's easy to verify with memtest86+, and if it does end up being the issue, is easy to replace on your own (IIRC, RAM is a CRU). In fact, you can simply call up Lenovo (or, if in the US, IBM) and place a request for the appropriate FRU. You ought to wind up with a box with the requested part within about 48 hours.

 

Never purchase anything this company. The heartache I have had to endure getting a brand new laptop replaced from Lenovo is almost surreal and traumatic to put it mildly. I should be suing for psychological damage the amount they have put me through. Here's my case, two months ago I bought a Y560 IdeaPad, within a week the display started to abruptly display a blue error message screen and would crash the computer unexpectedly, I didn't think this was a hard ware problem at the time (as I have never had this with a brand new laptop) continuing to start the laptop in safe mode each time. After about a month of this, I called technical support who asked to do a display driver upgrade after I told them of the problem. After each attempt to reinstall the display drivers, they told me to observe for a couple of days and call back. After trouble shooting in this manner on four separate occasions, I asked to have the laptop exchanged as there clearly seemed to be a hardware problem. I was given a number to ring and began liaising with an officer by the name of MF (whom I assumed was in Singapore) as I am reaching out from the Asia Pacific region in Sydney, Australia. After telling him the problem, he said he would look at the notes by the tech support team and would get back to me. Two days passed and there was no response. I called back and asked the agent to put me through to MF, he asked my name and after a short wait came back with MF is away at lunch. He asked to take a name and number down and would get back to me. By end of business day I still had not received a call and the next morning I called again. The operator once again asked for my name and after a short wait, he put me through to MF.

After a brief detour into the case notes, MF asked me to send proof of purchase. Which I also did promptly. After waiting 5 more days and still not having received a response. I called him up again, this time he said he was trying to get approval from 'the finance department' and I would hear back from him at end of business day. I waited and there was no response. The next two days were weekends and I waited till Monday morning to call him back. When I contacted him on Monday morning, I was once again told he was away. I hang up and called back and was put through to him. This time he said he would take it up with the finance department that day. I stressed that as I needed this laptop for work it was taking far too long the process. I asked for the number of the 'finance department' so I could contact them myself. He gave me the HQ number of Lenovo in Australia and the name of EC to contact. I rang through and explained the situation to her. She said she would look into it and would get back to me "in half an hour", after waiting for 1 hour, I called back EC only to get her voice mail. I tried after another 30 minutes and it was the same case. I then called back MF and he said that his manager J was looking after the case. And that I would receive a call from her before end of business day. This did not occur and I once again had to call back that service department the next day. This time I was told by the manager that they would need to inspect the laptop even if they were to receive a replacement. I was still happy to cooperate given the fact that I had already been jerked around for two weeks by this company. I promptly took the laptop into a service centre not wanting to lose anymore time in the transit between couriers and the repairs centre. It took an hour to drop the laptop and come back and I waited two days for the repairs centre to come back with a response. Yesterday, I called up the repair centre and they said they had done the work and we were to call Lenovo in order to find out the status of the report. I called and once again the operator said J was away in a meeting and would call me back. This did not occur and I was to call in the afternoon once again. This time I reached her. I wanted to know if it was possible to pay for an upgrade, after some speculation in regards the actual cost, she said she would call me back and let me know if the reseller we had purchased it from would be willing to give me an upgrade. She said she would call by end of business day. (I start to shudder when I hear these words now). Yet I gave her the benefit of the doubt and said I would wait for her call. She did not call me back.

This morning, I received a call from J and I told her I have decided against the upgrade and would settle for the replacement of the laptop. She said that if I wanted a replacement, she would need permission from the "finance department" as it was more than a month after I had purchased the laptop when I had first reported the error! I told her it had started the first week we had purchased it but she ignored this information and seized on the point that they would merely have to replace the hard drive and I would have a new laptop. I insisted on having a replacement and she became very rude saying that if she had 100 customers requesting this if she would still be in business! What a shocking lack of accountability for their poor manufacturing practices.. blaming the customer because of a legitimate problem with their own products. Sickening. I have never had to call this many times for any products or services I have previously needed service on and frankly will never ever be purchasing Lenovo again. I'll also be posting in every forum related to this issue and letting all friends and family know what terrible customer service I have encountered at the hands of the 'service team'.

For now, I am waiting for her to get back to me by end of business day about whether I'll be granted a replacement......the saga continues.

 

Oh geez. Another overly dramatic post. I don't know if you could call that "traumatic" or "psychologically damaging", but to each their own.

 

I'm sure you'd feel just as if you'd been put through what I have. And looks like countless others would second my exasperation given the run around Lenovo gives you. Which I should add is what they are continuing to do with the manager J calling me up this afternoon saying the finance team has rejected my request for a replacement and will only issue a repair - for a brand new laptop! I've since filed an application with the consumer tribunal since they have so much time to people around.

 

I understand you're upset, but that's not an excuse to use foul language.

You might want to post this over on the Lenovo Forums, where you'll get access to some Lenovo Staff. They're probably in a better position to help you than anyone here. I find pleasant, but firm persistence the best path to getting what I want.

 

Absolutely agree!! My own x200 BSODed on first boot! Not to mention a number of other small problems. For a long time, I couldn't figure out what other x200 owners were (and continue to) raving on about. I thought it was mediocre at best especially given the price premium that I had paid only to find it worse than the machine it had replaced. Unfortunately, I got this during the busiest time at work I can ever recall so I had no time to deal with it persistently and just needed to use the hardware to limp along as long as it (just about) worked. Of course, by the time I was less busy I was so accustomed to the various problems that I didn't want to waste more time trying to get Lenovo to fix them! When I became properly unbusy the warranty expired

I have since bought (my mother!) an S10-3t which is, admittedly, excellent (once you do a clean install) and also, with trepidation, replaced my old x200 with an x200s. I can finally, after three years, see why people have been raving about the x200 series - this one actually works properly!

I can understand the guy's frustration. I had a fairly dud machine out of the box. I even had a three year next day on-site warranty. However, I never successfully got an engineer to come out to me. The quality of customer service seems to vary quite drastically, especially from region to region. I'm in the UK and had had no previous experience with IBM/Lenovo although, at the time, my impression was that they were supposed to be the best of the best (hence the price of stuff!). Disappointed is perhaps the most polite way to describe my experience with Lenovo customer service. Given that I had forked out the equivalent of over US$2k for a laptop and warranty, I never understood why they put me through so much red tape and, ultimately, not sending an engineer - completely defeating the purpose of an on-site warranty (at least from a customer's POV but good money making business if you can sell on-site warranties and hardly ever send anyone out).

I had an x200 that did a BSOD on first boot. It crashed constantly - either complete lockup or BSOD. I threw out the RAM and put in my own which got it going. I then told Lenovo this but they weren't happy that I'd done that without telling them first - "err.. I was on the phone forever but nobody I spoke to could successfully diagnose the problem(s) (because they most likely just reading instructions from a sheet)?" - but they didn't like that either. I recall a number of other calls covering other relatively small (but unacceptable really for a new machine) issues. I had to endure lengthy processes of "try this, press this..." each time and they wouldn't send out an engineer until I had exhausted their list of 'tries'. Unfortunately, I never had the patience to actually exhaust their list so I never got a visit. Not to mention that each phone call took forever and I was in a very busy period of my career. I must add that I remained professional in my conversations with them and was never rude (perhaps I got a little impatient whenever I had to hold for lengthy periods) so the (lack of) service I received wasn't because I was being an a**! To cut a long story short, I gave up!!

I knew/know enough about PCs to fix the immedite problems and keep going. I couldn't do with sending it back (what's the point of on-site warranty?!) so just ended up accepting the fact that I'd spent a lot of money on something sub-standard and there was naff all I could do about it under my own circumstances. I'm sure that if I had jumped up and down about it enough (and to the right people) that I would have got the unit replaced. However, my point is that I should have gotten a decent service level in the first place.

This is all left me with a very bitter taste and I was mentally opposed to buying anything with a Lenovo badge ever again - "...put more money in their hands!? pah - I spit at thee!!". However, as with all things, there's always the exception rather than the rule - I have since accepted that I got a lemon and I got lemon service to go with it. If I had the inclination and persistence I would have got it sorted out but I was more interested in just "getting on with it" so I just sucked it up and moved on.

The truth is now I look at Lenovo as just another manufacturer. I wont ever pay premium price for any piece of kit - not will I ever bother with an on-site warranty. I do what I have always done and shall do until I find a better way. I research a machine, decide on it and find it at an outlet refurbished or on FleaBay. Personally, I prefer refurb because the chance of getting a dud are almost none - most have been fixed. The added bonus is the reduced price. Most non-catastrophic issues can be dealt with by self-help given the kind expertise available in forums such as these.

The bottom line is - yes, customer service can be useless from Lenovo - same can be said for Dell, Toshiba, HP... you name it. It shouldn't be but that's just the way of the world. If the OP can (somehow) keep his calm, maintain a professional dialogue (doesn't mean one can't be professionally pushy) and persist at it then a company the size and stature of Lenovo/IBM will eventually do the right thing. Once it's fixed (somehow) just chock it up to a learning experience (a bad one at that!) and move on.

 

Phone your credit card company and have them cancel the charge. State that the goods are faulty and the company is not replacing them.

You'll get the charge credited back to you and Lenovo will loose the money until they fix the problem.

 

Well the problem is that we are self-centered.

Rational Thinking: Lenovo sells these products to millions of people. All do not have issues. If a product did indeed have massive hardware issues, ala the original XBOX 360, most reputable companies will do damage control by offering free repairs and replacements to affected customers.

Companies would lose out tremendously if they gave out refunds or replacements willy nilly. Unless they ripped you off to start with. This may be an offensive statement to the followers of this brand, but if you bought an Apple product you better get fantastic CS because the prices of the products are crazy. $150 for an oreo-sized MP3 player? Seriously?

I owned a Y550p for a month and sold it to a friend. Almost a year later and still no issues. I am on the fence between the new Sandy Bridge Y560p or an Asus. Your bad experience does not make the whole company suck period, but I do feel your pain for your bad experience.

Hopefully you do not sell it and buy another brand and end up in the same boat.

 

I agree - I'm sorry that people have bad experiences, too. I can't help but wonder, though, whenever I read an overly dramatic Worst-Experience-of-My-Life epistle, how that person copes with a life crisis such as a child's illness, a spouse's death, a elderly parent's decline and death, a house fire or a job loss. It seems to me that if all energy is used up on something like a notebook purchase gone wrong that just takes a little persistence to get solved, there's nothing left for a real crisis.

 

My question would be why would you make such an emotional investment over an inanimate object? In couple years it's going to be be a piece of junk anyway.

 

Well the Internet is a place of excess due to anonymity and lack of apparent consequences. Sometimes you type away freely without inhibitions.

We got a synopsis of the frustration of the OP during his whole order. I would assume that the OP can handle other real life situations the same way we all would. The Internet is just a crazy place.

Just look at ZaZ - showing off a webcam pic of himself at the PC. Would he do that at the office?

 

I don't think the emotional investment is over an inanimate object. I think it is over the people he is interacting with.

When you phone people and they say they will get back to you, it is incredibly impolite and frustrating when they don't.

Once or twice is not an issue, but when the probably appears to be systemic in that whoever you talk to basically treats you like, well, they don't care about you, then you will have an emotional response and prejudice against that company.

 

+1 agree totally with this I was really pissed off and disappointed when I was turned away and said that my machine is not faulty
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/526468-r400-quick-overview-build-quality-experience.html - long posts, perhaps too long, but if some of you have some free time to kill, be my guests

What I think, that every upset customer has his/her rights to feel such way, I mean, after all, we all want to get our goods in perfect visual and working condition and when that doesnt happen we are slightly upset, but when company makes you do more to get your laptop/goods fixed or replaced than they actually are willing to do themselves, then it can really make you mad.

I personally might as well sell my ThinkPad and see what good comes after CES, I might replace it with some pimped out slate with multi touch or it could be some newer ThinkPad/Latitude/Elitebook as well.
Or ultraportable X200/s/X201
Either way, I understand those, who feel cheated and upset about faulty products and their own precious time and little bit of nerves spent to get things done!
Luckily for Lenovo neither HP nor Dell have anything comparable to offer in 12" range (2540p is loud and quite heavy for my taste) so I might as well as many others stick with Lenovo for a while
Also, I really dislike current Elitebook/Latitude design, so lets hope they make something rather good with new refresh so we have bit more of a choice.
So if Dell/HP make something really cool, I might steer away from, perhaps overhyped, ThinkPads

 

"I don't think the emotional investment is over an inanimate object. I think it is over the people he is interacting with."

Is it really? Would you like to punish them? Or is it about their making and not honoring commitments they have made to you?

Renee

 

I'm not taking sides here Renee, but I can understand ZaZ's point. I've been there before though, I know how frustrating it can be to get an issue corrected, especially when it's the company's fault and not mine. But it's not worth getting so upset over, and quite frankly it makes you less productive. If you're getting upset and screaming and yelling at the CS rep on the other side of the phone, they're less likely to help, don't you think?
That's an extreme example, but it still makes my point. In the end, it is just a computer, it's not the end of the world.

 

Roger,

I know your not taking sides. I just had a warranty payment first split by lenovo and then appararently they accidently cancelled the part of the split order. In the mean time my warranty expired and it was HARD to make the order again for various reasons.

At the same time I doubt the the OP is a vindictive person. I was endeavering to help him verbalize what he was angry about.

Renee

 

If the fan wasn't so damn noisy in Dell's Latitude 4200 I would have gone for that instead! I can cope with lesser build quality and performance, call me a sucker but, I've hankered after a backlit keyboard for ages. The thinklight was an acceptable alternative but when it stopped working it became yet another gripe about my whole Lenovo experience!