Shipping Delay!?!?!?

[medevilenemy]

This morning i recieved the following from lenovo:

>Subject Line: Your Lenovo order has been delayed.

>We apologize, but we are unable to ship one or more items on >your order but anticipate shipment within 30 days of this >notification.

>Our online order status tool displays the latest information on your >order, therefore a revised estimated ship date is not included in >this notification. Please continue to visit the online order status >tool, available 24 hours a day, to view the latest information on >your order status:
<i'm omitting the link for security reasons>
...
>You are a valued customer and we apologize for any >inconvenience this delay may have caused.
>Lenovo Customer Support
>NOTE: Please do not reply to this message; it comes from a >notification-only address that cannot accept replies.

The odd thing is, the estimated shipping date on the order status page did not change. It has been 5/19 since 5/4 and remains 5/19.
What should i make of this? Does anyone know of any reason why shipment of my order might be delayed?

[wayrad]

My experience was that shortly before the order was due to ship, a new date was posted. When that date approached, it changed again. And again. And again...

I'd suggest talking to the sales rep with whom you placed the order if this should happen to you. Mine shipped rather quickly after I did that.

JoAnn

PS. This is pure speculation, but I'm guessing there is a higher priority queue for corporate customers, and the trick is to get into it.

[medevilenemy]

well, i know i ordered through the EPP, which is their Employee purchasing program... i was hoping that would speed up the order a bit...


anyway, i assume their customer support is not available on mother's day, so i will have to wait until monday.

[Shahafg]

save yourself the trouble, thier reps know nothing about the order.

when mine was late (2 month total), they came out with really strange explanations for why mine wasnt shiped on time, shell was in sohrtage \ chinese new years (1 week delay) \ shortage in memory dimms of 512 when i ordered 1024 in one dimm.

if you call three times on the same day you will get 3 diffrent explantations.

what you can do in this situation is
1. come to terms that your thinkpad will be there sooner or later and that there is nothing you can do to expedite it.

2. make a complaint with them which will result in a call back from an execturtive customer relations rep and demand a 'little something for the damage caused to you by thier 'inaccuracy' about delivery times. (they can go up to 10% on your order if you push them hard enough).


i hope it helps

[medevilenemy]

I got a response from my rep yesterday. He says that my thinkpad is "On track to be shipped at the end of the week". Hopefully that means something.

In their defense, i'm compelled to inform you that through the online forms you cannot order a single 1024MB DIMM. ordering 1GB of RAM always means 2 512MB DIMMs. [to the best of my knowledge]

[wayrad]

Yeah, they gave me the line about a "worldwide shortage of 1GB chips" too. Pointing out that other manufacturers didn't seem to be having this problem, and in fact were reducing their prices, didn't do much good. Mentioning to my rep (who undoubtedly got a commission on the order) that I'd need to cancel and buy a Latitude did. He got back to me within a few days with an amended ship date, and it actually shipped sooner than that. The website date never did change to reflect that. Furthermore, they kept postponing the ship date for the free case that I had already received shortly after placing my order. It seems clear that something is badly messed up with that online ship date system.

JoAnn

[archer6]

It seems clear that something is badly messed up with that online ship date system.

JoAnn

I agree that the system which updates the ship date is wacko! This pertains to parts and accessories (I know I buy a lot) as well.

My experience is that it's best to just place your order and try to ignore the fluxuation in ship dates that appear when you check your order status online.

As far as calling the rep, I believe they get so tired of those kinds of calls that they will tell you anything. Reality is (I know my corp. rep well after 5 years & over 150 ThinkPads for my co.) not even the reps are kept correctly informed.

As recently as last week I ordered a slim battery for my X60s, was told it was on back order for 3 weeks. Two days later it arrived at my office! This is not the first time that I have had this experience.

My T60 had an initial ship date of 4 weeks. The following week I went online to check the status and it was pushed out to 7 weeks.
The computer arrived 23 days after I ordered it....go figure?!