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T60p 5-Year Onsite Upgade Refused By Lenovo

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:46 am
by doherrick
I purchased a new T60p from Lenovo on 12-13-07.
The TP came with Vista Ultimate and an offer to upgrade the warranty from 1 year depot to 5 years on site for $199 and I got a 10% off coupon. So I orded the warrany upgrade for $179.10 and received a confirmation Email from Lenovo.

After a few weeks , I called to check the status of the order and couldn't find out anything. I received a call back asking me to confirm my model number and serial number which I did. 1 week later I called and was told the order was in process.

On 02-14-08 I received an Email saying the order was rejected beacause of an incompatible part number. Huh?

I then received a call from a rep "Joe" asking me to call him about the order. I finally called today and was told that Lenovo did not offer 5 year onsite warranties anymore and he offered me a 4 year onsite upgrade for $296.65.

I told him that Lenovo was offering 5 year onsite warranties today on the web site and his response was that the web team needs to take care of that.

I told him Lenovo needs to honor my order and asked to speak to someone higher up. He said he will push my request up one level but the response will be that Lenovo does not offer 5 year warranties and hasn't for "a while"

Am I the only one that doesn't know this? Any suggestions on how to get Lenovo to honor my order?

Thanks

DanO

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:10 am
by jdhurst
Two things:

1. I have ordered a T61p, and selected the 4-year depot warranty. A 5-year option was most definitely available.

2. I ordered a T43 XP machine a year ago through my Canadian Vendor with a 3-year warranty. Lenovo claimed the same story "wrong part number". It took months for the Vendor to clear it up.

I don't know what is wrong with Lenovo and warranties, but my experience is poor. I will wait and see what happens with my T61p order and adjust my opinion from there.

I can only advise to push hard on Lenovo. Post back if they will not honour their committment. ... JDH

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:37 am
by doherrick
Thanks for the advice.

The Email I recieved informing me that the part number was not valid was from from XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. I will respond to his Email when I get home today.

One thing I left out of my post is that I would have been OK with the 4 year at the price I was offered for the 5 year but I was told I would have to pay the current 4 year price of $296.65 and that the facts that Lenovo accepted my order and the 5 year is still offered on the web site are irrelevant.

DanO

Note from Moderator: Do NOT post names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc in this forum without the owner's permission.

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:49 am
by cj3209
I think, essentially, what happened is that Lenovo.com screwed up on the price for the 5-year on-site warranty. $200 is way to cheap for that kind of warranty. So it will be a fight whether they will honor their on-line mistake or make you a compromised offer (like a reduced cost warranty).

Good luck and let us know what happens.

CJ

doherrick wrote:Thanks for the advice.

The Email I recieved informing me that the part number was not valid was from from XXXXXXXXX. I will respond to his Email when I get home today.

One thing I left out of my post is that I would have been OK with the 4 year at the price I was offered for the 5 year but I was told I would have to pay the current 4 year price of $296.65 and that the facts that Lenovo accepted my order and the 5 year is still offered on the web site are irrelevant.

DanO
Note from Moderator: You, too.

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:33 pm
by Johan
I may be wrong, but according to Warranty Service Upgrade (WSU) - Mobile Products e.g. T60/T61's which came with a 1-year base-warranty (and which are still covered by this) can be upgraded to e.g. 4-year On-Site warranty (41C9171) whereas the same ThinkPad models (and many other) which came with a 3-year base-warranty (and are still covered by it) can be upgraded to e.g. 5-year on-site (43R2162).

But - and this is where I think it becomes even more confusing (!); if you look in the Personal Systems Reference - Lenovo ThinkPad Notebooks - February 2008 - Version 335, on a random page, say page 30, listing some T61 TopSellers with only 1-year base warranty, then a whole different picture is painted: Here it seems that both a 5-year EZServ warranty extension is possible (41C9174) and also that an upgrade to 5-year onsite is possible (41C9173). Try Google a bit yourself for these warranties and see how many shops they are offered by, and for what ThinkPad's... all this seems to point in the direction of that the Lenovo rep "Joe" is not correct in what he is saying!

To see which warranty extensions were available for the no-longer-sold T60's e.g. Personal Systems Reference - Version 330 - October 2007 and look at some random page describing T60's covered by 1-year base warranty... e.g. page 20 - and, again, you will see a whole list of available extended warranties, incl. "ThinkPlus 5-year LOR 9x5 NBD, 41C9173" and ThinkPlus 5-year P&L P/U Depot - 41C9174". In all fairness, the IBM/Lenovo employess have a good deal of opportunites to make mistakes when selling these warranties, so the question in such (hypothetical!) case is: Who is to "pay" for such (hypothetical!) mistakes; the person making them - or regardless of that, always the customer? I know what I surely think!

Very, very, very confusing how Lenovo has put together their warranty extensions - even their own employees cannot find out what is right and wrong?!

Good luck with getting then to keep their promises!

Best regards,

Johan

PS: I cannot help wondering how Lenovo believe that they can maintain (intact!) the former IBM-reputation of making the most durable, reliable laptops... if Lenovo won't ship them with more than one year (!!) of base-warranty? It's like saying: "We don't actually trust THAT much in the quality our high relaibility products?!" Doesn't make much sense to me...

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:18 pm
by cj3209
Johan wrote:I may be wrong, but according to Warranty Service Upgrade (WSU) - Mobile Products
Good luck with getting then to keep their promises!
PS: I cannot help wondering how Lenovo believe that they can maintain (intact!) the former IBM-reputation of making the most durable, reliable laptops... if Lenovo won't ship them with more than one year (!!) of base-warranty? It's like saying: "We don't actually trust THAT much in the quality our high relaibility products?!" Doesn't make much sense to me...
I don't know of any notebook maker that includes more than a one-year warranty. Getting an additional warranty is a matter of choice. Look at Apple's Applecare for their notebooks: it's one-year hardware and 90-days of phone support which is really laughable. I mean, are they going to charge you for calling them in month 4?

LOL...

CJ
:)

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:53 pm
by bill bolton
cj3209 wrote:I don't know of any notebook maker that includes more than a one-year warranty.
Quite a lot of lenovo ThinkPad configurations come with a 3 year warranty. The ThinkPad I'm typing this message on has a three year return to depot warranty.

One of the reasons for lots of different ThinkPad sub-configurations (let alone CTO) is to cope with a variety of warranty coverages for different market segments and price points.

Cheers,

Bill

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:36 pm
by marlinspike
Does anybody know what Lenovo's principle place of business is in the US? In most jurisdictions, they can't rescind the offer until allowing you reasonable opportunity to accept, though there are still some states that allow a offeror to revoke the offer up until the moment acceptance is completed.