T21 serial number

[Philippe Laurichesse]

Looking at one on eBay, I asked the seller for model number and serial number. Seller answered willingly enough. Model number matches up, but the serial number turns up nothing. Lenovo support says :

Information for Warranty was not found. Please click back and try again or you may navigate clicking on 'Warranty'.

Should I be wary ?

[Harryc]

Wary of what, a stolen item? It is common for some of the older model Thinkpad serial numbers not to show up in the warranty database. I've heard that it was due to them not converting over properly when IBM sold it's PC Division to Lenovo, but that is hearsay IMHO.

[Philippe Laurichesse]

Never bought a Thinkpad from eBay before so perhaps I'm a bit overcautious (having read previous threads here about it).

[andyP]

.... It is common for some of the older model Thinkpad serial numbers not to show up in the warranty database....

I agree with Harry, my T23 doesn't show up in the database and I'm the one who opened the box it first came in.

[RealBlackStuff]

Ajkula66 reported somewhere, that all TPs before (I think) the T4x series have been purged from this database.
Don't remember exactly where I saw it.

[rkawakami]

I had contacted Mark@Lenovo and asked him about this (a little over a year ago???) and my recollection was that the information was removed from their database because the systems had been out of warranty for some time. Too bad.... it was a good way to check on some eBay hardware when the TYPE number was not available.