Don’t know if this is the right place to post this… but here’s a horror story for people considering Lenovo. After three unsuccessful warranty repair attempts for an acknowledged factory defect in their display, Lenovo disposed of my laptop, won’t replace it, and will only refund me half of what I paid for it.
Get a quick overview in this imgur album or read on for a lengthy timeline of the whole saga. With pictures!
April 30th, 2014 – I bought a sweet new refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad Laptop through Amazon. I love Thinkpads and have been using them since before they were Lenovo. Hurray!
It was sold through an Amazon marketplace third party but despite being refurbished, it specifically says it has a full factory warranty.
July 23rd, 2014 – My laptop starts having ghosting/image retention issues. It is a very common issue on the forums. Lenovo has no official solution and mine is still tolerable during every day use, so I wait.
November 4th, 2014 – Lenovo officially acknowledges that there is a defect in their hardware. Some users have been reporting that the replacement panel also shows symptoms of ghosting, but Lenovo denies it.
November 24th, 2014 – My display has deteriorated quite a bit so I call Lenovo tech support. They are very friendly and overnight me a box to ship my laptop in to the service depot for a screen replacement.
December 2nd, 2014 – I receive my laptop back. They have replaced the display with the updated panel. A quick test shows very mild image retention still, but it is much improved. However, now there are two dead areas in the touch screen that don’t respond. One of them is right over the start button. Several other people have this issue in the forums.
December 3rd, 2014 – Called back tech support. They are not quite as together this time but ship me another box to send my laptop in again. I send it in December 9th.
This time they hold onto it for a week. The status says “Hold for customer information” instead of “Repairing” but support assures me that’s just a placeholder and that they don’t need more information from me.
December 17th, 2014 – I get an email saying the repair was complete and the laptop was shipped back to me. UPS tracking shows the laptop was delivered to North Carolina somewhere. I live in California.
Here’s what the nice lady on support chat said:
Tiffany
Per David O** sending machine to lenovo for investigation. SBU
You should recieve a call for a posible replacement.Me
do you have a number I should call?Tiffany
They will contact you.
Is there anything else I can help you with?Me
Will they contact me today do you think?Tiffany
maybe not today unsure.
Is there anything else I can help you with?Me
So there’s no ETA on when the laptop will be repaired or replaced at all?Tiffany Snadon
NO
You will be contacted the just recieved the machine it’s a process.
Is there anything else I can help you with?Me
Okay
That’s all, thanks
December 19th, 2014 – Still haven’t heard anything. I call Lenovo customer service. Same number I’ve always used. The guy says that he doesn’t do Thinkpad support, but he’ll transfer me. He transfers me, I wait on hold, another man answers. He says he’s in Ideapad support and doesn’t do Thinkpad support. I tell him I was just transferred here BECAUSE he did Thinkpad support. He’s like nope, let me transfer you back to Thinkpad support. He hangs up instead of transferring me.
I call Thinkpad support again. The lady on the phone is baffled and calls the support depot for me. We wait on hold for about 30 minutes, finally the support depot answers. The customer support lady hung up at some point during the wait and is no longer on the line. Whatever. The support depot says “yeah we sent it off to engineering, someone should have contacted you.” I was like “no one contacted me.” they were like “huh!” then they gave me the number of the guy they sent it to. I call, but no one answers. I call back the support depot, wait on hold for 20 more minutes, then explain the situation again. They use phrases like “this is so weird” and “I’ve never seen this before!” She calls Lenovo HQ for me, and eventually comes back and says that the guy who has my laptop is one of their top engineers but he’s out of the office for the day already. It is… 1:16pm. They have no idea what he’s doing with it or when I will get it back.
Right after I hang up, amusingly, FedEx knocks on my door and delivers my laptop back to me. I open it up. It is exactly the same, same screen ghosting, same dead spots in the touch screen, and also now the covers that hide the screws are missing.
I call back Technical support, explain the whole situation. Since they have tried twice to repair and only made things worse, I ask for a replacement laptop or for a repair tech to come to my location instead of sending it to their depot (a service they offer for more expensive warranties.) They refuse. The lady says she will escalate this to their “top techs” this time. I explain that it was already sent to their “top engineer” at Lenovo HQ and still wasn’t fixed. She says she can’t do anything except put a note on it for the service depot to escalate it. I ask why that didn’t already happen after they didn’t fix it the first time. She says she’s positive they will fix it this time if it is escalated. I ask what happens if they don’t, she says then they would discuss a replacement but she’s positive it won’t come to that.
December 23rd, 2014 – They’ve had my laptop a few days, the status is back at “Hold for customer information.” I’m also not getting email confirmations this time for some reason. I call the service depot, wait on hold, and finally ask if they need any more information from me. They say no. I ask why I’m not getting emails. She says that no email address is listed for me, even though they had my email the last two times. I ask her to add one, she says she can’t modify service requests, only view them. Great.
At some point after the first failed repair I filled out one of those “How are we doing” automated surveys regarding their customer support, and later that afternoon, a Customer Satisfaction Advocate emails me. I reply within 20 minutes explaining the whole situation. She replies immediately:
I am out of the office until 12/24/2014.
I will respond to your message when I return.
She never responded. Hilarious.
December 29th, 2014 – I receive a call from a new guy in escalations asking me to call him. I call him back twice, no answer.
December 30th, 2014 – I call him back again. He asks why I called. I said… he left me a message asking me to, and I was just checking on the status of my laptop. He says he doesn’t know but he will contact the service depot.
January 2nd, 2015 – Haven’t heard anything. Call back escalation guy. The second time I call, he answers, says he hasn’t heard anything, but he will email the service depot manager.
January 5th, 2015 – Haven’t heard anything. Call back the escalation guy. He says they can’t fix my laptop, but someone should contact me about a replacement.
January 12th, 2015 – Haven’t heard anything. Get a call from escalations guy. He asks if I’d been trying to call him, because they changed his number. He says the service depot has said they can’t repair my laptop but they haven’t officially marked that down on the service request yet. Lenovo can’t proceed with a replacement until they officially say they cannot repair it. He says he will email them again.
January 13th, 2015 – I miss a call from a new Customer Advocacy Case Manager in the morning. I call her back and she doesn’t answer. Over the next few days, I call several more times.
January 15th, 2015 – Finally get a hold of her. She says because my laptop was purchased through a third party vendor, they can’t replace it, but they can refund me what I paid for it. She has to request a refund, confirm the amount, and then money is coming from China so it will take a couple weeks. I tell her they’ve had my laptop for months and ask if there are any other options, she says no. This is the first I’m hearing about the “can’t replace laptops sold through third parties” rule. She says she just needs me to ship my laptop back to them to get the process started. I tell her that it is… still in the their repair center. Where it’s been for months. She’s like “oh good that will speed things up!”
January 16th, 2015 – I emailed the customer advocate lady back (she specifically told me to email her since she was too busy with customers to answer the phone.) I explained I had been thinking about her refund offer and decided I thought it was unfair. Even if I got my full purchase price back, because I got a deal on it originally, it wouldn’t be enough money to replace it with the exact same model without spending additional money out of pocket. I requested a replacement of my exact same laptop, if not the newer version that was just announced that would presumably fix this hardware issues. If that wasn’t possible, at least a discount on a new laptop that would bring it down to the $1400 I paid originally, especially considering the length of time this had taken and the fact that it was a known hardware issue in the first place exacerbated by the service department.
She never replied. She also never contacted me to confirm anything.
January 27th, 2015 – I receive a check from Lenovo for $864.06. I originally paid $1399.99 for my laptop. I call back the customer advocate, she doesn’t answer. I call the escalation guy at the depot, he tells me to send him my original receipt and he will forward it along.
January 28th, 2015 – The customer advocate rep calls me back. I recorded it, but in summary she says that they only refund the amount that Lenovo was paid for the laptop, not the amount I paid, and they won’t replace the machine because it was refurbished. Literally she claims if I bought a Lenovo laptop at Best Buy that they couldn’t repair they would only refund me what Best Buy paid for it.
I say I never would have accepted a refund had I known it would be for half of what I paid for it. She maintains my only option is to go back to the original vendor. I tell her fine, send me back the laptop so I can return it to Amazon. She says she will email the service depot to see if they even still have it.
I ask for a discount on a new one, she offers me a 15% discount. That would make a new laptop of the exact same model cost roughly $1500, which is more than the $1400 I paid originally and much more than the only $860 I have now.
She tells an unrelated story about a lady in Afghanistan who bought a Lenovo laptop off eBay and received one that had been opened and parts swapped out. She claims in my case that they can’t prove that Lenovo caused the issue, because maybe my seller modified the laptop before I got it. I say that’s ridiculous because it’s a known hardware issue in this model and also the service depot caused the second issue. She says she is “baffled” that I never got an email about the refund price.
She claims the seller lied about it coming with a new factory warranty, even though their own refurb factory outlet specifically says all computers come with a full factory warranty. She promises to send me the warranty information but never does.
She refuses to believe the service depot made the issue worse after the first repair. Exact quote: “They’re in the service of fixing your computer, why would they break something?”
Anyway. I continued our communication with emails, to get things in writing.
You can read the whole email chain here, but some select quotes:
Me
Are you saying if I bought a Lenovo laptop from Best Buy, and it had a hardware defect that couldn’t be repaired by the service depot, Lenovo wouldn’t replace the machine and would only refund the amount Best Buy originally paid Lenovo for the laptop?Lenovo
We would only refund you the price Best Buy purchased our machine from us
and
Me
Can you show me these policies somewhere? Because as I said in my first email the outlet website specifically states the laptops come with a standard warranty and… Doesn’t make any mention of only replacing refurbished with refurbished or similar.Lenovo
These are internal policies.
Anyway, of course the service depot had already scrapped my laptop, so they can’t return it, and won’t pay me more than $860 for a refund that I never agreed to in the first place.
Her final email:
As already stated, we will not be giving you any further compensation for your machine that was purchased from a third party vendor. Buyer beware.
TL;DR Buyer beware indeed.
UPDATE: Lenovo responded to a BBB complaint, should be resolved in another month.
