Can anyone help me with lousy lenovo / IBM product support?

[lparsons]

I am hoping someone can help me get through lenovo / IBM support. They are currently playing "pass the buck" regarding warranty on a new battery I purchased last november. The battery of course has a 1 year warranty and has recently stopped holing a charge for more than 10 minutes.
I called both the IBM and lenovo help lines and they kept telling me to call the other one. I purchased the battery through what was then the ibm website. I have the purchase date, which one person told me would be enough information. I of course can no longer be fortunate enough to get through to that person over the phone. Everyone else now demands the order number. I cannot find my receipt, and none seems to have been sent to any of my email addresses that I can find.
Is there any hope for this situation? Any way I can get ahold of someone over the phone (presumably at lenovo, since they took over the web sales) who could help me as the earlier person I spoke to had promised?

FWIW, I ordered the battery straight from IBM / lenovo (for my thinkpad R32) because I found that aftermarkey batteries don't fit properly. Even though I would have loved to had the additional 10% mAh. If there is a truly well-made aftermarket battery for the R32, I'm there...

[pianowizard]

I can't believe that they couldn't just look up the order number by looking up your name. It's total baloney in my opinion.

[NS]

BTW: Which country are you in now?

[mattbiernat]

one advice on lenovo customer service:
when ordering my t60 i talked to 1 jerk, 1 guy who placed wrong order for me and finally i managed to get thought to somebody nice and professional. the point is: keep on calling until you get someone nice and if you even hear them complaining just hang up and call again.

[BillMorrow]

you can examine the battery with POWER MANAGER/BATTERY INFORMATION and print the screen to a file and email it, print it and fax it or otherwise send it to lenovo or ibm..
and prove the first use date and current condition..

just keep trying..

[lparsons]

So are you saying then that there is a way for the battery to report the first time it was used? I suppose I could boot windoze to get that information...

you can examine the battery with POWER MANAGER/BATTERY INFORMATION and print the screen to a file and email it, print it and fax it or otherwise send it to lenovo or ibm..
and prove the first use date and current condition..

just keep trying..

[lparsons]

If this question is directed to me, I am in the US. Pretty much always have been.

BTW: Which country are you in now?

[GomJabbar]

So are you saying then that there is a way for the battery to report the first time it was used? I suppose I could boot windoze to get that information...

Yes, in windoze.

This begs the question however....
Could your low battery life be attributed to using non-IBM/Lenovo battery charging and power management software & drivers

[lparsons]

Allow me to clarify this.
When my original battery died last summer, I tried purchasing aftermarket batteries for it from ebay. They all worked well, but none of them fit properly.
I then ponied up the ridiculous amount that IBM charges for their batteries through their website, and have been using only an IBM battery ever since. Charged only with IBM power supplies. There is nothing non-IBM/lenovo involved, nor has their been ever since I received this battery from them.
I'm just trying to get them to honor the 1 year warranty terms that the battery was sold under.

Yes, in windoze.

This begs the question however....
Could your low battery life be attributed to using non-IBM/Lenovo battery charging and power management software & drivers

[pianowizard]

Sounds like Lenovo's customer service isn't that good after all. I haven't dealt with them yet, but have only heard people rave about them. I have, however, dealt with Dell's customer servicers twice and they were very helpful both times.

[christopher_wolf]

Well, "try, try again" seems to be the best approach to it for the most part. I really can't see any other way to handle it. That is perhaps the best way to handle any requests put into support and/or helpdesks given that it is extremely difficult to control the homogeneity of every single support individual.

So far, all my calls to IBM/Lenovo support have been pretty good; although I have heard both the horror stories as well as the raves about excellent customer service, mostly the latter. So....

[lparsons]

This is exactly their method of passing the buck tonight. I just wasted another 20+ minutes on the phone only to get stonewalled by people telling me they cannot verify the date of purchase by anything other than the printed order which I evidently need to fax them a copy of.
I have found the box that the battery came in, which has a manufacturing date on it, as well as a serial number (which they claim batteries don't have). I just have not been able to find any sort of bill of sale.

I can't believe that they couldn't just look up the order number by looking up your name. It's total baloney in my opinion.

[lparsons]

I spent a little more time this morning trying to find information on the purchase I made of the battery. I expect that they would have sent an email somewhere referring to the battery purchase.

However, it appears that the email address I used has a concrete 6-month email deletion policy. No email is allowed to stay on their network more than 6 months, period. So it is gone and I can never get it back.

I then tried to see if I could log in to either IBM or lenovo's web site as a customer to view my past orders. That didn't work, either. I tried the "forgot my password" function with the username and email address that I belive I used (tried numerous combinations) and they said invalid.

I'm at a loss of where to go now. It seems like I'm just SOL. Any advice would be much appreciated. I've spent a total of at least 2 hours on the phone now with IBM / lenovo. It seems like they just keep running me in circles.

[JohnDrake]

The problem is that old legacy order system of IBM's...that Lenovo will eventually dump, now that they can get something better...

All they want is proof of purchase to show a date. If you didn't keep that, it really isn't their fault...

What about a credit card statement? can you check back with that?

You can check the battery date of manufacture by going to Thinkpad Configuration in Control panel, System Information, Details, View Battery information....but if that is over a year, its back to you keeping a receipt for the term of the warranty...

[tfflivemb2]

All they want is proof of purchase to show a date. If you didn't keep that, it really isn't their fault...

While I do agree that there should be some kind of tracking system, if for no other reason that to make it easier for IBM/Lenovo, this type of policy is the same with many retailers, too, regarding electronics. (ie. Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.)

[lparsons]

What about a credit card statement? can you check back with that?

Tried that. They weren't impressed. They want their own receipt and nothing else.

You can check the battery date of manufacture by going to Thinkpad Configuration in Control panel, System Information, Details, View Battery information....but if that is over a year, its back to you keeping a receipt for the term of the warranty...

Again, they don't seem to be willing to accept any substitute. I even have the original box that it came in, which has a manufacture date of 10-12-2005. They won't accept a copy of that, either.

While I do agree that there should be some kind of tracking system, if for no other reason that to make it easier for IBM/Lenovo, this type of policy is the same with many retailers, too, regarding electronics. (ie. Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.)

I don't know how retailers work in your area, but I don't give them my address or have them ship things to me. If IBM had a retail store, and I walked in and paid with cash, leaving no paper trail whatsoever, I could understand them not having record of the transaction.
But instead, I purchased through their website. I filled in the shipping and credit card information. But yet they claim that they can only look up the purchase by the purchase number and nothing else.

[lparsons]

Someone suggested to me that lenovo should be able to send me a copy of my invoice. So I called them up, and told the sales guy I needed a copy of my invoice. Low and behold, he faxed it to me pretty much immediately.

I then called IBM and re-re-reported my battery problem. They then gave me a new problem # and a fax number to send the invoice to so they could verify my purchase date. I therefore of course faxed the same fax that was sent to me, with a little added information (as in the new problem number).

Now we wait and see. Hopefully this should solve the problem. I love how the sales department evidently can search the database in ways that are strictly forbidden to customer service people.

[GomJabbar]

I love how the sales department evidently can search the database in ways that are strictly forbidden to customer service people.

I've had the same experience when dealing with Cingular. Why don't these departments link their computers or databases?

[lparsons]

Well, being as the customer service people I talked to last night said they could do it with the invoice number, they obviously have some way to query the database. However, it appears that different departments, which accessing the same database, are restricted in how they can each do it.

I love how the sales department evidently can search the database in ways that are strictly forbidden to customer service people.

I've had the same experience when dealing with Cingular. Why don't these departments link their computers or databases?