Oddly, at Lenovo cash takes longer!

[dep]

First, what a wonderful forum this is. I've used ThinkPads since the 700C (and still have, among others, a 500 and a 240 that I'd do the happydance to be able to put a faster chip and more memory in -- and, okay, wireless -- so cool a little machine is it). And I remember somewhat fondly the days of *begging* IBM for OS/2 preloads. Would have been great to have a forum like this back then. Hey, it would have been great to have the Web (instead of Prodigy) for support back then.

Anyway, a kind of peculiar story that might be of interest. On April 21, after talking with the Lenovo sales folk and having emailed by one of them the correct address, I ordered an X200 pretty well tricked out. Until there's a lot better security with online credit card transactions, I use this once-popular stuff called cash. My order was,, therefore, accompanied by a cashier's check. The cashier's check was deposited and credited as cash to Lenovo on April 24. I had been assured by the sales rep that this manner of payment was fine and, because it was a cash instrument instead of a personal check, the order would be expedited.

A follow-up call -- actually, several, in that they said they needed to check -- the following week led to a surprising disclosure: a cash transaction, even a wire transfer, results in an automatic and immutable three-week delay. What this means is not that they wait three weeks before *shipping*, but that they wait three weeks before even putting in the order. So, ordering a ThinkPad from Lenovo and paying in cash in 2009 results in delivery in about the same time period that ordering a car did in 1965!

So. My order is scheduled to be placed on the 13th, 19 days after Lenovo had my cash in their account. And a couple of weeks later, maybe, I'll get my machine.

Amazing. Hope the order is at least right.

[archer6]

I use this once-popular stuff called cash.

Greetings and Welcome to the Forum!

Cash? ... *takes a deep breath, stares out in space, attempting to remember what cash is*

Oh... that's right, it's that green paper stuff wadded up in my pocket...ha..ha..ha..

OK. A comic I'm not, but I must admit that your story is certainly an interesting / frustrating one. As I shake my head in disgust, reading yet another very real story of how Lenovo chooses to treat it's customers. On one hand it's not the least bit funny, but on the other hand what's a ThinkPad lover to do? I know, I am one. If these flippin people ever get their ducks in a row, I will need CPR...heh! Just when I think I've heard or experienced most of it, along comes another story like this. Welcome to the world of Lenovo.

Kudos for keeping your composure and writing a very controlled report, of an out of control situation.

Cheers...

[dep]

That's the thing . . . once you get the TP bug, you just kinda put up with it. The X200 resulted in a lot of ways from my annoyance that this otherwise just fine Acer Aspire One has no Trackpoint! (I cannot see how anything can get done with the skidpads that someone who must be found and killed invented.)

What I would love to know -- though hope I never have occasion to find out -- is if Lenovo service is anything like it was with IBM. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I had a keyboard get kind of flaky -- just a little flaky -- on my TP 500. I called tech support. Next day the delivery company showed up with a box. Actually, a box within a box. This thing had a polyethylene sling in the middle. Fold the flaps in and it opened, and one put his ThinkPad in it. When the end flaps were bent back along the outside of the box, the sling closed around the computer, suspending it securely in the middle of the box. Then that box was placed in the outer box, which held the flaps in place, and sealed up and handed back to the delivery guy. And three days later the delivery man returned, with my machine and its new keyboard. Amazing.

(And the inventor of that box deserves a Nobel prize. Unless he went on to invent the skidpad pointing device . . .)

Anyway, we put up with what we have to put up with in order to get our TPads, don't we.

[archer6]

Anyway, we put up with what we have to put up with in order to get our TPads, don't we.

Very true. The packaging of computers and parts is not as robust as it once was, however they seem to survive just fine. I received my new T500 from Lenovo late one afternoon. Upon taking it out of the box and using it for about 45 minutes a key cap fell off one of the letter keys on the keyboard. Upon close inspection the mechanism it snaps onto was defective. I called tech support, they were courteous and said they would send out a replacement keyboard. 9:30am the next morning, just 15 hrs later I had the new keyboard in hand. Now _that's_ service!
A similar situation occurred with my new MacBook Pro out of sheer coincidence. Apple said I had to send the computer into them, which I did. It took them a whopping 12 days to fix it and return it to me....heh! Hello Apple? Anybody home?
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If I could only have one laptop it would be a ThinkPad without a second thought.
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Cheers...
posted via BlackBerry Bold