Lenovo Certified Repair Facility Wanting CC

[mrchip]

Banging my head. I'm a var & purchased a new laptop from my supplier. It's DOA. Called supplier...bumped to lenovo. Lenovo does some quick troubleshooting then says take it to the local certified repair facility. I'm happy...saves shipping back to supplier. Go to local repair facility (another local computer company) and explain it was doa, here is the lenovo ticket number its warranty and to repair. They ask for a credit card number & wont fix it until I give them one? Ummmm NO! I explained it's brand new, doa, lenovo sent me to you with a ticket # & it's under full warr. They pass on some bs story about how they had other customers drop off "warranty" work but wasn't covered so they are now responsible for the customers laptop that isn't picked up and don't want that responsibility & can't recoup the costs. Place call to lenovo & explain to them their refusal. Lenovo can't understand why as the repair facility can look the ticket up and see it's covered. Now escalated with lenovo & waiting to hear back from them.

Drives me nuts the arrogance of some companies and how they think the customers are idiots. In the meantime the doa laptop is guess where...at their depot where they are liable for it & with no credit card number waiting for a CC # so they can cover there liability. This makes sense. Who would buy a new laptop have it doa and then abandon it. At least come up with a decent excuse to grab clients CC info.

To make matters worse while at the counter one of their techs tells me it's probably a HD.
ME: the computer power button lights but nothing shows on the screen. Hold the power button in for 10sec and the power light flashes then stays solid...wont shut down
him: Yah...HD.
me: It wont boot from a USB drive
him: Yah...HD
me: the fan doesn't even come on
him: Yah...these lenovo's do that when the HD dies
me: The screen doesn't light up...no bios
him: defiantly HD
me: runs into traffic to end the pain

 

[HCHTech]

2 thoughts:

• It is completely reasonable for a company to take a credit card number for all drop-offs...for exactly the reason they stated.

• I wouldn't be thrilled by the instant diagnosis you described either. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to fix it, though. If this guy works on it, he'll replace the hard drive, it won't work, then he'll order a motherboard like he should have in the first place. This is no different than having to grind through the questions on any level 1 tech's checklist to get support for something. If you're lucky, the guy who took it in won't be the one working on it and they'll do proper troubleshooting before throwing parts at it.

and one experience to share:

I have an architect client that made a company decision to move to a more "mobile" setup. Instead of purchasing $2K workstations from me, they started buying $2.5K laptops directly from Lenovo. 7 laptops purchased since August last year. So far there have been 3 motherboard replacements this year alone. They pay for onsite support, so there's that at least, but still, a lot of problems.

 

[roborobs computer repair]

2 thoughts:

• It is completely reasonable for a company to take a credit card number for all drop-offs...for exactly the reason they stated.

• I wouldn't be thrilled by the instant diagnosis you described either. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to fix it, though. If this guy works on it, he'll replace the hard drive, it won't work, then he'll order a motherboard like he should have in the first place. This is no different than having to grind through the questions on any level 1 tech's checklist to get support for something. If you're lucky, the guy who took it in won't be the one working on it and they'll do proper troubleshooting before throwing parts at it.

and one experience to share:

I have an architect client that made a company decision to move to a more "mobile" setup. Instead of purchasing $2K workstations from me, they started buying $2.5K laptops directly from Lenovo. 7 laptops purchased since August last year. So far there have been 3 motherboard replacements this year alone. They pay for onsite support, so there's that at least, but still, a lot of problems.

Believe it or not I've actually seen a lenovo do this before and it actually was the HD. - I do agree in most situations this would tell me it was the Motherboard. When I did a DOA service I was surprised it was the issue as well.

FYI: I am a Cerified Lenovo Technician myself.

 

[mrchip]

"It is completely reasonable for a company to take a credit card number for all drop-offs...for exactly the reason they stated."
I get it, if I diagnosed it myself I wouldn't have a problem with the CC. However it was Lenovo that diagnosed and told me to take it there. That's on them. If I flip the tables around and there wasn't a repair facility close by and had to ship it in there is no way they would request a CC. Could you imagine any product you buy that needs warranty work but to get it they need a CC. Balderdash (...oh I'm riled up...the language)!!!

In the big scope of things it's a lil problem & in fairness I did just come off the phone from trying to deal with Microsoft. Bought server essential but a custom software the client runs needs std. Trying to see if MS has an upgrade. Well 3 chat windows, a phone call with 8 transfers...each of which having degrading call quality only to be put back into the beginning loop. Although I'm told they have an upgrade, it's the same price as the full version. Arrrrghhhh!!!! There's 2+hrs I wont get back. As my dad says, "Sometimes your the windshield and sometimes your the bug"

"Believe it or not I've actually seen a lenovo do this before and it actually was the HD" - that's crazy weird. I wonder if it would have kicked up bios without a drive at all?

Guess we all have those weeks

 

[roborobs computer repair]

"Believe it or not I've actually seen a lenovo do this before and it actually was the HD" - that's crazy weird. I wonder if it would have kicked up bios without a drive at all?

Guess we all have those weeks

Yes it did end up allowing me into bios once I unplugged the drive. I'll be the first to tell you it was very odd. I had never seen a HDD affect a pc in that way before.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I've seen a lot of things that made me scratch my head. As far as them wanting a credit card on file, here's a possible way to handle that.

I have some cards with capital one. If you use their app on your mobile phone, they have the option to lock the card from within the app. So just be sure you lock the card. Anything they try to run should bounce like a rubber ball.

 

[roborobs computer repair]

I've seen a lot of things that made me scratch my head. As far as them wanting a credit card on file, here's a possible way to handle that.

I have some cards with capital one. If you use their app on your mobile phone, they have the option to lock the card from within the app. So just be sure you lock the card. Anything they try to run should bounce like a rubber ball.

Honestly, as someone who has done warranty work. I can fully understand them asking for a CC. I'll admit it is a little odd with a DOA unit though. I agree with Ohio_Grad. If you have a card that can be locked or something like privacy.com that would allow you to create a one-time card that would be an option to stop them from charging anything to you.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Just give him the stupid CC and stop whining about it... How can you call yourself a business owner when you think like this?

And all of you trying to setup a Visa so that it fails... stop being dishonest pricks. Do you work for clients that pull this crap? No... you don't. Knock it off.

 

[roborobs computer repair]

Just give him the stupid CC and stop whining about it... How can you call yourself a business owner when you think like this?

And all of you trying to setup a Visa so that it fails... stop being dishonest pricks. Do you work for clients that pull this crap? No... you don't. Knock it off.

To be honest I fully agree with you. Simply giving options. As a business we should expect other business' should protect themselves from unseen costs.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I can understand about businesses protecting themselves, but you also have the right to do the same. If Lenovo says it's under warranty, then doesn't seem in that situation there's a lot more to be said.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I can understand about businesses protecting themselves, but you also have the right to do the same. If Lenovo says it's under warranty, then doesn't seem in that situation there's a lot more to be said.

Lenovo doesn't have the right to speak for contractors acting as its agents. If you don't like how a given agent conducts themselves, you find another agent.

And if I owned that repair shop that was doing warranties, I'd not take a unit without a CC either. I suspect everyone here that does repair work is very much the same, if they aren't... well they'll go out of business at some point, because that's how you get burned.

Besides, that CC is basically an ownership token too... The authorization is proof of receipt of the device. Have you considered that reality protects you as well? Along with the turn in ticket, it forms a 2nd factor of authentication to prove ownership.

 

[Raymond Payne]

While you may not like the requirement for the credit card, I think this reflects more on the arrangement Lenovo has with its partners. Agreements with partners tend to only pay on tickets, not overhead costs. You can bet if they are that worried about a CC to cover their charges, it's because they have been burned before. If their agreement is that Lenovo covers the warranty repairs, but they find water damage when they open it to service, who pays? You demand it back without repair or any cost since they didn't repair it and "it's under warranty", and they are still in time for diagnosis. Unless Lenovo has an agreement with them that covers the diagnosis of warrantied machines for non-warranty work (which is pretty unlikely) it works as both a way to get paid for their time for invalid warranty claims and to reduce the number of fraudulent claims they have to deal with.

Just confirm if your new laptop is DOA, and there is nothing that Lenovo wouldn't cover under warranty, the CC isn't used.

 

[Porthos]

The last time I spoke to a connection at an authorized warranty center, Lenovo only paid $75 flat plus supplied the parts for warranty work.
That was several years ago.