Has anyone else had a Lenovo customer support experience as bad as this?

In late August of this year I ordered a Z61t specifically for use on a product training trip to Eastern Europe, beginning in mid October. The unit arrived in late September but within ten days it had ceased to charge or operate off of the battery.

I called Lenovo technical support and after going through the diagnosis routine the support person suggested that the battery might be defective, and indicated he would have a new battery shipped to me. It arrived about a week later and upon installing I confirmed the problem still existed.

I called Lenovo technical support once again. The individual I spoke with indicated that it was doubtful they could exchange or repair the unit in time for my departure date. I said that I would take it with me to Europe, operate it off the external supply, and return it for exchange upon my return.

Upon my return I called Lenovo for a return authorization and I was told that it could not be exchanged because 30 days had passed since purchase. I explained the situation and the individual I spoke with was sympathetic but indicated he did not have the authority to authorize an exchange. I was given the phone number of a Mr. Greg Brewer who did have the authority to authorize an exchange.

I called Mr. Brewer who firmly and arrogantly told me he would not authorize an exchange but he would personally handle the paperwork internally and would email the RMA information. A week passed and nothing from Mr. Brewer.

I then called Lenovo customer service and started again from ground zero. I was shipped a return shipping carton and overnighted the unit back to the Solectron facility in Tennessee. Lenovo does not do their service inhouse. It is all outsourced to Solectron, a contractor.

Two week passed and nothing. Finally, I call Lenovo once again and the support individual tells me the unit is on 'customer hold'. He isn't exactly sure what that means but says he will call and find out and call me back. As youmay have guessed, no return phone call.

After two days I again call Lenovo and I am told the same thing! The unit is on customer hold. At this point I am irritated and ask to speak to a supervisor.
I am transferred to a lady named Pat. She says she will find out what the situation is and call me back. Surprisingly she does and indicates the unit will be shipped that day. Unknown to she, the unit had already been shipped, showing up at my doorstep by DHL one hour later.

Excited, I unpack it, plug in my hard drive, attach the battery. The unit will not fire up. It is dead out of the box and the bottom of the unit gets extremely hot after a few minutes. Something is obviously catastrophically shorted internally and the titanium cover has scratches on it that were not there when I originally returned it.

I call Pat, the lady I had spoken to about an hour and a half earlier. I left a message on her voice mail. The weekend passes and by Tuesday of this week Pat has not returned my call. Again, I call customer service and demand to have the name of a supervisor at the highest level I can speak with.

I am given the name of Greg Brewer once again. A call to Mr. Brewer is not returned by the end of the day yesterday. Today I called once again and left a voicemail. Mr. Brewer called this afternoon and was just as arrogant as ever. He declined to make any decision and referred me back to Pat, whom he claimed had the ability to make a decision regarding exchange or repair. I said that I was on the verge of contesting the purchase with my credit card company. He said "you do what you have to do and we'll do what we have to do".

I called Pat and left a message. At this point I deeply regret ever considering Lenovo. It appears that the new Chinese owners of IBM consumer are well on their way to destroying a proud brand. It also appears to be a company that couldn't find it's butt with both hands. Has anyone else experienced service this bad from Lenovo, or any other company for that matter?

Dell is starting to look attractive again.

 

That pretty much says it all, though I'm sure someone will chime in with something close to or worse than your experience. Unfortunately, customer service is now an oxymoron on par with "airline food" and "amish technology".

Do yourself a favor and put an end to the misery ASAP. Call your cc company and contest the charge. Don't let the bastards get you down! If Rocky can make a comeback, so can you...

 

Sounds like you got a raw deal. Perhaps the Better Business Bureau could offer some assistance. I personally have always have gotten great support with my ThinkPads, but there are always some people who shouldn't be in customer service at every company. I have had some customer service experiences with other companies that were just as bad. Though ThinkPads are now owned by a Chinese company, many of the people making the decisions are genuine Americans as is the Lenovo CEO. I don't think it is in Lenovo's interest to trash their new acquired brand. Unfortunately I think this is the cost of driving the price of everything down. A notebook that cost $2500 five years ago now costs $1500. Something has to give. I hope you get everything ironed out. I would suggest the next time someone says we'll take care of it to get it writing. Good Luck.

 

i had won worse with toshiba... way worse they evne accused me of 'not owning the computer legally' more or less they accused me of stealing the computer... on that computer i had almost that same problem, i can tell you know there was nothing wrong with your battery, its your motherboards.

my tip of advices call your credit card company and fight back, and DO NOT settle for repair because this cycle will continue as long as you own the system, i know if fought with toshiba for 7 months until Staples agreed to help us out (not toshiba...) and they gave us store credit...

don't let leveno with get a refund, only!

 

With any system I have purchased (many it seems, bad luck ey) if there is a big problem out of the box it gets returned and another new system is ordered. This resolves part of the issue off the bat, as you dont have to deal with repairs. Another thing after many of the Selectron horror stories, is to spend the extra hundred and get onsite service. Better off in the end if it never leaves your hands or site.

So far I have only dealt with over the phone technical support ending in parts shipped to me to replace myself. Obviously, things like the mainboard they wont let me change myself, but that is why I am upgrading to onsite service.

Lenovo's inhouse support is really top notch, but it is shat on by the company they decided to outsource to... Selectron.

Oh yea, the first laptop I ever purchased.. I believe it was a m55 or something from Toshiba. It too had a bad charging circuit. Luckily, I returned it almost immediately, not having to deal with an exchange outside of the return window.

 

Why not just carry the laptop to an authorized service center rather than pay for the onsite repair?

 

Some of live far from the authorized service center.

 

I can't even find an authorized service center. The page is no longer working I think.

 

After seeing people using ThinkPad in my company and I was having very good impression about IBM thinkpad, I planned to purchase Lenovo Thinkpad. I wasn't aware that thats going to be worst decision taken by me. When I received it, everything was working fine. Suddenly after 4 days wireless stopped working, it was new laptop indeed. I called to customer care. It took me 2 hours of time to resolve driver problem. Then I realized that my Ethernet connection was not working since beginning because I always used wireless connection. I called again to customer care, they simply asked me to send Laptop to service center. I sent it service center and I received it after 4 days. Still Ethernet wasn't fully functional. I called to customer care again and again he suggested me to update the Ethernet driver.

*The Worst*
I never realized that after receiving my laptop from Lenovo service center, left mouse button above the Trackpad was completely out of order. (Button was completely down, Hardware problem). Before it used to work fine. So it was spoiled by technicians of service center.

I called again to customer care, the asked me to send my laptop back to service center. Now here is the worst support. It was completely their fault. Since I use my Laptop extreme, I decided not to send it to customer care because they might create new problem again and asked me to send my laptop back....So my laptop always travels from my home to Lenovo Thinkpad service center and service centers to my home. And I will have to live without my laptop.

-> Customer care always asks to send your laptop to service center. (They don't know why we have purchased the laptop, to run our business or to use it as personal machine. Each time it is difficult to take a backup of your complete data, erase them from drive and restore them to laptop since data can be personal or confidential. Customer care don't know these things)

Let your company deal with all these problems but personally never ever go for Lenovo Thinkpad laptops. You can go for Lenovo Thinkpad laptop if you are luckiest person of the world. It was IBM Thinkpad which used to be considered as good as Apple laptops.

After Lenovo acquired it, they are like ordinary laptop now.

 

No Lenovo ThinkPads are every bit as good as the IBM ThinkPads build and performance wise I would know I have a couple of both. But when Lenovo bought IBM the service went downhill now from what has been going around it is better than alot of other companies but you will always have the unlucky few who just get screwed.

P.S. rohitmal Lenovo ThinkPads are par to Apple if not above them.