Bent X201T chassis - a question about warranty

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator]

Hi kvirtanen,

I'm really sorry for the trouble you were having and all the confusions. But I'm glad they took care of your case now. Please let us know the outcome when you get back your machine.

Thanks!

Best regards,
Cleo

[kvirtanen]

EDIT: SCRAP THIS, EXPLANATION BELOW.

I'm writing this feeling quite excited: Lenovo will replace my unit as dead-on-arrival (DOA) and with nothing less than....

A brand new X220T with full on-site, 3-year guarantee.

...because Lenovo doesn't manufacture my specific X201T model anymore (2985-FWG, October 2010). I was even given the chance to negotiate the specific model I wanted, in this case the fastest model equipped with a 128GB SSD and i7-2640M processor (4299-4TG). They offered me the i5-version first, but since the prices have gone down a lot lately, and because I had paid a lot more for my X201T, I got to pick a model myself. It's still not as valuable as the X201T was (frankly not even near), but this process has been going on long enough, and I need a laptop to continue working. Today it has been exactly one month since the initial electronic service call.

It required a lot of patience, waiting around, arguing with the customer service, but in the end, this worked out FAR better than I ever could have anticipated. Once you get all the way up along the chain of command, things seem to start happening.

Thank you Lenovo.

[kvirtanen]

I would hate to take this all back but...

While in talks with the DOA process-handling company, I received an automated message from the Lenovo Repair Center. I asked the DOA folks if I should ignore it as an automated message, because it said the X201T was repaired and ready to ship back — which is not what the DOA folks said.

The DOA folks told me to ignore the message and confirm the X220T model I wanted to have them order. I did it, and I was told the order was done, and it would take 10-14 work days to arrive.

I went on to prepare my migration to a new platform, so I started deactivating all my software licences. For instance, I contacted Adobe customer support to have them deactivate my serial numbers because I wouldn't be able to do that now that there was going to be a whole new hardware and I didn't have access to the old.

While I was away from home, the DOA folks had sent me an e-mail, 3 hours after the order confirmation, saying that in fact I should have after all noted the automated message I had got, because it was in fact a real notification about my old X201T being shipped back to me. Now it seems they are trying to persuade me to receive the X201T and sweep the talks about the exchange unit under the rug, after I already started preparing the migration to the new system. I'm being blunt, but that is how I feel about all of this.

What's worse is that it seems that they've now sent me two shipments, one containing the repaired unit, one the X220T.

I have been tossed around by different Lenovo customer service staff for a month, during which I've gathered quite an elaborate archive of material I will present to the Finnish Customer Agency if the confusion doesn't end here, right now. My material is so extensive, in fact, that I expect to get a full refund as stated by the Finnish Consumer Protection Law.

This is completely unacceptable. I'm in complete shock as I witness a big corporation like Lenovo struggling to keep a simple warranty issue in control. Like one hand wouldn't know what the other was doing!

[lak_sg]

I'm sorry to hear about the situation, kvirtanen!

I would like to see if I can help and I've PMed you requesting some details. Do let me know.

thanks!

lak_sg

[kvirtanen · Accepted solution]

An update:

We have officially settled the matter. Today I received instructions to refuse the repaired unit and send it back, and wait for the X220T to arrive. It has been ordered and will arrive in 10–14 days.

Thank you, also to lak_sg, for responding to this. If any problems arise after this, I'll let you know.

[kvirtanen]

On a partly unrelated note — to lighten up this thread a bit — after Lenovo made a change to their shipment to return it back to their repair center, UPS decided to cancel the shipment of my Yamaha GL-1 ukulele too, which was scheduled to arrive in a few hours (+facepalm) Tracking claims that I 'refused the delivery'. Probably because the delivery address was the same on both Lenovo and Yamaha's, mutually unrelated shipments.

*sigh*

Big companies work in mysterious ways Back to calling another customer support...

[kvirtanen]

As of today, I've been without my X201T for nearly a month and the promised replacement unit has not even been dispatched yet.

MKCL, the German company that handles this DOA process, claims that they ping Lenovo daily for updates on the matter, but so far nothing has happened. There is no expected delivery date nor any signs of the computer having been shipped.

What I find most disappointing is that I don't have any idea what causes this month-long delay. The promised handling time for the DOA process was 14 workdays. Even though Christmas was in between, I would at least expect the computer to be dispatched already (even if not delivered necessarily).

So far this process has lasted nearly two months (counting all the way from about 6th—10th November).

Many people around the net are asking how long the Lenovo DOA process can take. With my experience, at least one month — and that's not even counting the preceding arguing with the customer service for three to four weeks plus a formal complaint filed to the Consumer Agency.

[kvirtanen]

In short, the X220T arrived today!

...with what appears to be a Chinese keyboard. It's QWERTY, but doesn't have Å, Ä or Ö, which I need. Not a big deal though, I usually don't stare at the keyboard anyways. This didn't come as a surprise, with all the confusion that's been happening around this issue. The DOA company never brought up the subject, so I assumed the localization of the laptop would remain the same (Finnish). The computer had been ordered already, so I didn't bring up the subject myself, afraid that it would prolong the process even further.

Oh well. I do like the computer so far! Chrome, my favourite browser, was preinstalled, nice touch

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

there is traditional text Chinese keyboard in ThinkPad shipped to Taiwan, but in Chinese Mainland the keyboard is same as the US. So i assume you got the standard US keyboard, unless there is strange texts on the keys.

[kvirtanen]

I'm not sure what this is, but I suspect that it's not the US one. I couldn't find any pictures, so I'll name a few special markings on this keyboard - maybe you'll recognize it right away?

• Button to the right from "L" has plusminus and plus signs.
• [ and ] signs are next to the left shift, accessed via the same button, together with  ¦, broken vertical bar
• Pipe, |, is found next to the big blue ENTER key on the same key as the asterisk (*)
• Button to the left from backspace has the tilde (~), degree sign and a squiggly-looking diacritic mark I don't recognize.
• Apostrophe (') is together with the 0 key (zero).
• The em dash (—) or a similar long line is accessed with SHIFT-7.
• < and > signs are next to the big ENTER, inside a single key, above the left SHIFT
• R key also has the Pilcrow sign (¶)
• S key also has the letter β
• M key also has the letter μ
• C key also has the ¢ sign
• AltGr + number from 1 to 6: subscript 1, 2, 3, 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4

Sorry that I couldn't input these straight from the keyboard. My current layout is Finnish.