WARNING: Doublecheck your Lenovo Canada warranty

If you bought your laptop online from Lenovo Canada in the last few months, you should doublecheck your warranty coverage. There was an error in the configurator that could have resulted in your getting warranty/accident protection coverage that is "incompatible" with your computer.

I bought my Thinkpad at the end of February with what I thought was a three-year depot warranty service and three years of accident protection. When I tried to register by email for Lenovo warranty services, I was informed after a two-week wait that my three-year warranty+accident-protection warranty was "incompatible" with my ThinkPad.

Upon phoning a Lenovo Canada CSR, I learned that the configurator on the Lenovo Canada website had not functioned correctly and basically allowed me to buy a three-warranty plus accident-protection package for too little. He informed me that for an additional $200 or so, I could buy the additional protection I thought I had already purchased.

In the weeks before the original order, I visited the Lenovo Canada website many times. This particular configurator error was up on the site for some time. No doubt others have been similarly misled.

 

Hi!
do you know if it has anything to do with that?
ThinkPlus 4 Year EasyServ Total for 3 Year EasyServ ThinkPad [add $109.00]

is it possible, 4 years of warranty for 109$?
looks too good to be true

 

Lenovo's website in Canada is messed up. Please read here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=238058&page=2

 

That is too good to be true. All the warranty options that said "for 3 Year EasyServ Thinkpad" are invalid for Canadian machines as they now only come with 1 year EasyServ standard. They recently changed that but didn't change it on their website. Surprise Surprise.

 

Ya you need a warranty for a 1 year easy serve. Then the accident prevention is another seperate thing. If you are ordering a warranty just phone a sales rep. In my experience they explained things in an excellent manner, and it took no time at all to get things straight. Plus when I talked to them they said it was impossible to get an extended warrant, and accident prevention online.

 

I'm concerned about this too. I just sent in my registration last Friday. How long did it take for them to reply telling you whether or not you've registered your warranty.

I purchased the T61p with a 3-year 9x5 next business day warranty for ~$80. Do you know if mine is compatible or not? I really don't want to have to deal with this..

 

If you're unsure about your warranty, you should call the main sales number on the Lenovo Canada site. This is how I found out about the problem and the configurator error -- almost six weeks after my original order.

The first clue came a week ago -- when the Lenovo services registration process responded with an email to the effect that my service package was "incompatible" with my package. What was meant was that I hadn't paid enough. I received the email response a little over two weeks after I'd emailed in the registration form.

At the end of February, I'd used the configurator to purchase for $179 "3 Year EasyServ + 3 year ThinkPad Protection for 3 Year EasyServ ThinkPad." I took this to mean that I had purchased three years of in-depot warranty service and three years of accident protection.

According to the CSR, the configurator was wrong. He offered to sell me for an additional $200 the service package I thought I'd already purchased. He said he was giving me a 10% discount. Because I'm semi-retired and on a tight budget, I took only the three-year warranty and even then it cost me an extra $10 or so.

This entire experience has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. I feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch.

I'm only thankful I hadn't dropped the ThinkPad and discovered then I had no accident protection.

 

I had a problem with my t61p warranty too.

On Jan-4th I ordered a CTO t61p plus a 3yr ThinkPlus upgrade. All CTOs come with a standard 1yr warranty in Canada. After I attempted to activate the warranty upgrade I received an email about a week later telling me the 3yr upgrade was not compatible with my model. For some reason the Lenovo warranty site "Warranty lookup" was showing my CTO came with a 3yr warranty.

It took several phone calls before everything was fixed. Eventually Lenovo Canada convinced the Lenovo Warranty group that the warranty upgrade was compilable.

 

They must have changed their policy. The CSR told me it would cost another $200 to get the service package I thought I'd paid for.

 

It looks like I'm in the same situation as you are. I also purchased at 3 year onsite 9 x 5 next business day warranty. I registered for the waranty on April 4 after recieveing the notebook on April 1st. I guess it's April fools day for me!!

I'm going to wait to see if they contact me with respect to this issue.

What do they usualy do in this case? Refund?

 

Wow that's pretty cheap. They should honor the warranties. It was their mistake after all. It's not like you guys tricked the system to pay less.

 

I had a feeling that it was some sort of mistake on their behalf. With all of those horor stories concerning Canadain orders, I should have known better. I registered my warranty a few days after recieving my T61 and will post if Lenovo decides to contact me.

 

The CSR said he has given my credit card a credit for the full amount of the "incompatible" warranty/support package. Whatever package I buy now would be dealt with as a separate transaction.

 

Same thing for me.

 

I guess I was lucky. Ordered my T61 in March with "3 Year EasyServ + 3 Year ThinkPad Protection" for CAD $140. Registered the warranty by email and received reply a week later indicating the registration was successfull. Checking on the Lenovo website confirms the registration. I think they should honor the warranties, you paid for it.

 

"...and thus, the Lord renamed Canada "the Land of Job", for everyone there had to have the patience of him..."

You guys are saints. I am glad that they are refunding you, though they really should honor the warranty since it was their mistake.

 

I just receieved a mesage with the following confusing info:

"-Registration Accepted - Your Lenovo ThinkPlus Maintenance Service has
been registered and there is no further action required
-The machine type/serial number was not found
-The machine type is not compatible with the purchased services.
-The machine type/serial number has already been registered
-Quantity of machines is greater than the quantity of services remaining
to be registered"

WTF does all that mean - "It is registered, but we can't register it. The serial number and machine type were already registered, but we can't find your serial number/machine type."

What a great idea to beta test a new ordering system on an entire country!

 

Isn't it a beauty, though? This was the same email I got. It seems they are listing all their possible responses in the message. If you look in the attached .csv file, you'll see the actual response on the far right of the page.

 

Thanks Wrighton...

*sigh* it says: "Not a compatible service product for the machine provided" Time to contact my service rep!!!

 

That's exactly what mine said. Believe me, I feel your pain.

 

i agree... for a while during that spring saving time, r61 configurer did not work on my firefox... the canadian site is lack of maintenance

 

I just recieved this email message as well from a sender named 'Angel Wu'. As expected, sending a reply to 'Angel Wu' created a delivery failure but at least it went to [email protected].

So, what do we do now? Will they instantly credit us back the amount we spent on this phantom warranty?

 

I forwarded the message to a service rep at Lenovo Canada whom I have been dealing with - I'll post what I hear bcak from him

 

Here is a response that I got about getting a refund on the non existant warranty:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for contacting Lenovo, the makers of ThinkPad and ThinkCentre products.

We will submit a request to have a credit for your warranty processed. If you want to book an order for the correct one, please contact us below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Service rep dropped me a line last night to say he is investigating with the warranty people... I'll keep you posted

 

Though nothing has been finalized, my understanding from Lenovo customer relations is that the terms of my original warranty purchase will be honoured.

 

Do you have any contact info for Lenovo customer relations? I wouldn't mind letting them know what a crappy ordering system they have.

 

This all happened through Mark@Lenovo on the Lenovo community site. I've only received a call from customer relations.

 

I finally got this screw up figured out! I had to call Lenovo Customer Care (1-800-565-3344) a few times however to achieve this. I ended up having to fax my Order Confirmation Email (proof of my 3 year Warranty Purchase) to a number that one of the CSR's gave me (1-800-373-4920). I was expecting a call back from whoever was in charge to let me know that it was resolved but no one did so I just called today (over 24 hours from my previous call) and was told to visit http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/SITE-WARNTY.html. From there I was able to put in my Model and S/N and it now shows that I have the three year warranty that I had originally purchased

Clearly I should have bought my warranty over the phone rather than the online store.

 

I recieved a refund for the non existant warranty. It took them 3 days to do so after I emailed them about it.

$74.76 back on my credit card.

 

I just want to report that as of today I'm registered with Lenovo support services as the possessor of a three-year EasyServ warranty and three years of accident protection.

This was the service/support package I'd originally bought back on Feb. 29. As noted here, an error in the configurator on the Lenovo Canada website had allowed me to purchase the package at a greater discount than Lenovo was prepared to allow and the package was deemed "incompatible" with my system. I have not paid any more to achieve this level of coverage now.

My good fortune came about because Mark@Lenovo intervened in my case. A very able customer complaints advocate took up the case and carried it to completion. I'm very grateful to both of them.

If Lenovo retains a solid reputation for customer care, I suspect it will be very much because of efforts by people such as Mark@Lenovo and the company's customer-complaints advocates.