Incorrect Order Status Information *Updated 6/20*
Updated Wednesday June 20 at 6:55 PM EST
I have some new information for everyone, so let’s dive right in.
Our rebooking process took longer than expected. We invested in the auto rebooking approach because we believed that all orders could be processed virtually overnight. This has proven not to be the case. As you are aware, complications with pricing arose and we suspended the auto-rebook process until we were confident we were honoring the original order pricing. With further refinement, we did resume and concluded it last night without further incident. The number of orders that we have had to process manually, due to part of the order already having shipped, or to correct the pricing issues, was larger than expected and lengthened the total project.
Order completion is still being affected by internal rebookings as well as changing component availabilities. So while some of you have already received your systems, others continue to see August ship dates. We still expect the remaining delays to clear before the end of June.
A lot of you have noted that other people who have ordered after those affected in this group have gotten shipment notices for their orders. I know this is extremely frustrating, but please understand that while we have people working hard on fixing all of these orders, other orders which don’t require rebooking can be processed in parallel and stopping them would help no one. Our production capacity is not the bottleneck here and these new orders are not delaying the processing of your orders.
The big question then is: why can’t I cancel my order and place a new one? The answer is that you can. But why wouldn’t you want to do that? Regardless of what path you take, we will have to modify your order. Right now we are about 80% through all of the affected orders and pending any further issues, will have rebooking completed before the end of this week. Cancelled orders take resources away from those working to fix everyone else’s orders and the reality is that by the time your new order is processed, your original order would likely have been processed. The net result is that cancelling & re-ordering will likely not get your order processed faster and only serve to delay others.
As we are nearing the end of rebooking these orders, more details are emerging and I will continue to share more concrete information as quickly as possible. I know many are running low on patience. I do believe the finish line is in sight, and appreciate all those that stay and cross it with us.
Updated Thursday June 13 at 8:17 PM EST
I owe everyone an update and I do have some more answers to your questions. There are numerous other questions we are pursuing to answer for you and I will have a more comprehensive update soon.
Q: What is the current status on resolving the orders with the bezel hold up?
A: We have successfully tested the automated rebooking solution, and have processed approximately half of these orders. We have paused briefly to make some adjustments to ensure the pricing reflects all appropriate promotions and discounts during the rebook, and will resume and complete the balance of these orders shortly. A subset of remaining customers have split orders, or orders for which portions have already shipped. We will be contacting those customers directly through our sales team.
Q: I received an order confirmation email, and my order totals were different than on my orginal order. Will you still honor the promotional pricing I orginally had?
A: Your original order price will certainly be honored and we have noted that a portion of customers received new order totals which did not reflect the orginal pricing. If this has occured with your email, simply note it in the response back to the critical@ca.lenovo.com email ID, and we will update your order totals to reflect your orginal amounts. As noted above, we have paused rebooking briefly to ensure this is addressed in our solution prior to processing the rest of the rebookings, in order to reduce confusion.
Q: I didn’t get any email, but I believe my T60 or T61 order is delayed by these issues. What do I do?
A: We received “email bounce” notices for some of the email addresses we distributed to. If you didn’t receive a communication, and you believe you are affected, please send a note to critical@ca.lenovo.com with your order number and your request. A team is working to receive and process all emails being received. Please allow 24-48 hours for a response. You may see either critical@ca.lenovo.com or critical@ca.ibm.com when you receive your e-mail: both addresses go to the same place and we will receive them.
Updated Saturday June 9 at 12:10 PM EST
We are still working to answer the big question, when everyone’s orders will be re-booked properly, but a lot of questions were asked and I wanted to answer everything I could at this point.
Q: Will all the orders have to be rebooked?
A: No. Approximately 64% of the backlogged orders placed between 5/10- 5/25 are due to the bezel / data entry isse. These will need to be rebooked to correct the error on our end. We are working this weekend on an automated solution for this, and failing that, we will need to resolve the orders manually. We hope to have the solution early next week. The 36% of the delayed orders are due to a variety of issues including component contraints of the 15.4″ WXGA LCD panel referenced in our 6/7 update, and miscellanous issues like credit holds and the NVIDIA / XP configuration. These will not need to be rebooked, and will ship as the issues are cleared.
Q: When will you tell us more?
A: We plan to send direct email communications next week, with updates. We will also continue to post updates here next week.
Q: Why are some people reporting that orders placed outside this window of time appear to be shipping sooner?
A: This is occuring in some cases. We are attempting to prioritize the orders that must be rebooked to ensure logical priority by original booking date. Orders that do not need to be rebooked — the 36% affected by panel and other shortages — will continue to be fulfilled as parts or other delaying factors are resolved. Attempts to cancel orders and rebook them now could actually delay your delivery further as we are giving priority to existing orders.
Q: I’ve seen mentions of this Meyers-EPP order. What is the deal, and is this adding to the delay?
A: Lenovo offers an employee purchase program where access is based on the employee’s last name and company serial number. Employees are only allowed to share this program with friends and family. Unfortunately, an employee’s name and serial number were widely shared on some public sites and discussion forums. The number of orders placed using the Meyers EPP access were small and this incident is irrelevant to the outstanding issues.
Q: For the orders that must be rebooked, will customers be penalized if special promotions have now expired?
A: No. We will work our customers on a case by case basis to honor these orders.
Q: What about expedited shipping?
A: These orders are custom configured and will ship to the U.S. from China. Once landed, they will pass through customs and then be delivered. Moving to expedited shipping would only reduce total delivery time by 1 day, and would require 100% of the orders to be altered. The time to change all the orders manually could actually delay them more than the 1 day gained in shipping.
I hope this helps answer some of the concerns everyone here has. I understand it doesn’t answer all of them, but every question or concern voiced here is being noted and worked to provide a concrete answer. We do have a team working over the weekend on solving the re-booking issue, but please just understand that it will be until Monday or Tuesday before I have anymore information to post here. Thanks for bearing with us.
Updated Thursday June 7 at 11:26 PM EST
Lenovo customers: here’s the story as we know it now.
Because of a data entry error, the bezel – the frame that surrounds the LCD panel – was omitted from the bill of materials for certain T61 & R61 14.1” widescreen orders which is sent to our factories to specify how to build the products. This omission caused a majority of the orders taken between May 9th and May 24th to “hang” or get rejected by the manufacturing process. The missing part problem was discovered and we began to work with manufacturing to fix the rejected orders and get them fulfilled ASAP.
We are now working to resubmit the orders and get them built and fulfilled. If we cannot resubmit them efficiently, we will have to manually re-enter the orders. Until we resolve the rebooking issue, we’re not able to provide any updated shipment dates.
An additional set of T61 orders with the 15.4” WXGA screen were constrained by shortages of those screens. They will be built by June 20th, but I don’t have any more specific information at this time.
These issues address 97% of the T61 orders in our backlog. The remaining backlogged orders are delayed for various individual reasons separate from the overlying issues. Two examples of these issues would be something common like a credit hold or something like the previously referenced NVIDIA and Windows XP configuration validation, but the point is that these remaining 3% of the orders have individual, unique issues that are not due to the two larger issues previously discussed.
I pledge to keep you informed of all developments as I learn them. Customers will be contacted by email as soon as we have a definitive solution. If you wish to cancel your order, please email websales@ca.lenovo.com and provide your order information. Our telephone support staff currently has a large number of calls coming in and email is the most efficient communication method at this time.
To say we are sorry is not enough. We intend to conduct a thorough post-mortem of this incident to ensure it does not happen again. Thank you for whatever patience you have left.
Original Post
A lot of customers noticed a recent email which erroneously stated their orders would not be shipped until August. The slip in those dates was the result of an internal glitch that caused estimated ship dates for these systems to change unexpectedly. We expect to have more concrete dates for everyone sometime this week, but rest assured this was only a glitch.
One specific configuration is confirmed to be delayed, T61 and R61 models with NVIDIA graphics and Microsoft Windows XP. We expect to have more information soon on when that configuration will ship, but stay tuned for the latest. We will offer Windows XP as an option through web purchasing on these machines again once all issues are resolved.
Thanks for understanding and bearing with us.
Tim Supples
June 4th, 2007 1:25 pm
Thanks for the updates. Sorry for asking this here, but I can’t seem to get an answer from Lenovo any which way I try.
Is it possible to get some confirmation on the X61 Tablet screens? The CTO page offers “12.1″ MultiView WVA SXGA TFT” which doesn’t seem to be a valid screen choice based on the specs page. Is this screen the same as what the specs call “SuperView 12.1″ SXGA+ (1400×1050) TFT”?
June 4th, 2007 1:28 pm
Shouldn’t this be on the Main web site And or send by email to people on order?
June 4th, 2007 1:58 pm
It is not totally truth.
Someone order the intel-GAM on 5/9 and windows Vista they still have no idea when will they have laptop.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/vie.....c4cd75eff7
Should Lenovo provide a better excuse?
June 4th, 2007 3:41 pm
When you say “NVIDIA graphics and Microsoft Windows XP” you mean that if both are selected, the order is delayed? If one orders a T61 or R61 with Vista + Nvidia or XP + Intel graphics, it would not be delayed, correct?
June 4th, 2007 5:09 pm
No matter what you choose, it will delay for sure.
Take a look to the discussion
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....mp;page=17
LENOVO provided a ton of excuses. Choose one you like
1. Shell of the system
2. Nvidia chip
3. LCD
4. System bug
5. High volume of orders
6. No delay, all si customer’s illusion
7…..
Take one you like. No matter what your configuration is, no one really get laptop from LENOVO.
LENOVO keeps accepting orders and coming with more delay.
Either this blog or the customer respresetives are cheating. Maybe both, who you believe?
June 4th, 2007 5:17 pm
One more thing.
By law, a company should ship your order within the time stated in its ads.
They have no idea about “when that configuration will ship”
But the website still can DECLARE it will be shipped within 1 – 2 weeks.
Such a good company. Can Lenovo honest to customers?
June 4th, 2007 5:24 pm
This should fall under the why not t61 post as well…
Thanks for the explanation but it really doesn’t satisfy.
June 4th, 2007 6:05 pm
Please keep in mind that with a configure to order system, there are any number of causes for one order taking longer than another. I don’t have enough information to concretely list which configurations are affected and which aren’t. The purpose of this post was to let those around the web who have expressed concern over the shift in shipment dates know that it was an internal glitch and ship dates are NOT going to actually be in August. We are working on a way to let those affected know a more accurate shipment date.
pittmath,
That listing is a typo. If you select that option, it will order a SuperView SXGA+ (1400×1050) screen.
June 4th, 2007 6:44 pm
Here are some FACTS about how Lenovo treats its customers:
1) I placed an order to a T61 (integrated graphics cards, Vista Ultimate, with camera) and the estimated ship date was 6/2. As soon as I hit “place order”, the estimated shipping date changed to 6/8.
2) Currently, it still shows up as 6/8 on my order status.
3) I had called Lenovo customer service last week and accidentially, the representative told me that shipping might be delayed by another week. (order status still showed 6/8).
4) I just (2 mintues ago) got off the phone with Lenovo and now I’m told that it is more likley that the computer will be shipped by the end of the month (order status still shows up as 6/8).
5) That’s how Lenovo does business and here are some quotes from this last phone conversation that show, how the company thinks about its customers:
- question: “So when were you planning on telling me that my laptop won’t be shipped until the end of the month.” Answer: “now, when you called.”
- question: “What’s the point of an order status if it’s not updated?” answer: “You can go by your order status but I’m telling you that it won’t be shipped until the end of the months”
- final comment by the customer service representative: “So what do you want to do? Do you want to cancel your order?”
I didn’t cancel because I really need the computer and didn’t want to go through another order process with another provider. However, I’ll make sure to tell as many people as possible about the customer service at Lenovo (directly and by posting on various forums). Maybe some people at Lenovo are familiar with word-of-mouth effects and CLV. If they are, it should make them realize that you can’t treat your customers like that or it will backfire eventually.
June 4th, 2007 7:00 pm
I just wanted to add that I’m not even that mad about the fact that it takes 6 weeks to get a laptop from Lenovo, I am mad about Lenovo’s way of dealing with this delay. Any company can run into supply problems (especially during the roll out of a new processor). However, at leats inform your customers so we can plan accordingly and definitely don’t treat us with arrogance and sarcasm.
June 4th, 2007 8:02 pm
I think Lenovo should do something for their responsbility.
1.Have a public announcement and apology to their customer in the official websites.
2.Clearly and honestly state the problem and let people know when they can solve that. If cannot have the exactly time, they still have to let everyone know how do they try.
3.E-mail to all customers involved in this order
4.Temporarily stop to take more order, you don’t know when you can ship the product but you still goon to take more orders? Unreasonable.
June 4th, 2007 8:07 pm
That is what has bothered me the most. I can’t seem to get a straight answer out of any representative I call, and all of them have an attitude. I can understand that they are sick of dealing with these questions, but it’s not the customers fault that they are being left in the dark. I’ve called 3 times in the last week to try to really find out was has been going on and all 3 times I’ve gotten a different response as to why there is a delay. Finally, today the guy tells me that my computer has an estimated ship date of june 8th and that it will be shipped out by that date. I don’t really believe him because lenovo has already given me false information quite a few times, but I guess we’ll see.
I’ll give a perfect example of how I would’ve liked lenovo to deal with this. About 5 years ago I ordered a dell dimension. I purchased it with a LCD and was given a date for when I would recieve my order. I got a call a week or so before I was supposed to recieve my computer saying that their was such a high demand for the LCD’s that it would be quite a long wait and that they couldn’t give any accurate time of when I would recieve it. They offered me the option of getting a generic brand lcd at a reduced price. I decided to wait and I appreciated them being upfront with me.
June 4th, 2007 8:33 pm
Tim,
Thanks for answering the first question in this column from Pittmath about the x61tablet superview screen as the one which will be ordered if you request the sxga mutliview screen on the order.
This was not what I was told from one of the phone order takers when I tried to place my order for one of these on the day it launched (June 1). He told me that there was a 1 month delay on the superview screen and the one that would be supplied until then was the prior sxga non-superview screen (multiview only).
I’m glad you cleared that up.
June 4th, 2007 9:39 pm
What is most irritating is that lenovo gives conflicting information. If its delayed then say it’s delayed. If its particular options which are causing longer delays then say what those options are. People prefer honesty and if we’re aware of the delays then it wouldn’t be as problematic as promising a system that you can’t yet deliver…and then having people wait on a daily basis to see what the status is.
June 4th, 2007 10:49 pm
This may be obvious, but when my company needs machines fast we just buy from the stock of Newegg or CDW. Through Lenovo we can generally get a slightly better deal, though rarely a great one. We buy probably 90% of our machines direct, but when time matters we don’t bother with that. Our rep is always apologetic about the lead times and realizes that it puts him at a big disadvantage to, say, Dell. But obviously he can’t do anything about it.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t like it either, but I don’t order a tweaked out X61s for my CEO direct from Lenovo, knowing that he needs it in a week and a half. Lenovo has order fulfillment problems (Matt said they were replacing 43 different logistics systems with an SAP system?), we all know that, and there’s no point setting ourselves up for failure again and again. It will probably take 12-24 months to improve significantly.
June 4th, 2007 11:09 pm
I ordered from Lenovo because it is a good deal. And I know it get fulfillment problem.
Well, the website delcares it will ship within 1 – 2 weeks. All right, I can wait another two weeks. However, what wrong with delay more than 4 or 6 weeks?
Whatever, it happens, then do we have the right to know WHY and HOW it will be solved?
If it is hardly to get signficant improvemet for the supply chain with one or two years, it is ok. But is it so difficult to be honest? Why canot they just announce that it will ship with 4 to 6 weeks. Why cannot they provide the exact reason of delay to Tim or all customers? If it is always take more than one month to deliver the laptop, the just say that.
As Thomas said, we are not even that mad about the fact that it takes 6 weeks to get a laptop from Lenovo, we are really mad about Lenovo’s way of dealing with this delay
Tell the customer appropriate ESD when they order. Be honest to provide the clear information while delay can not be avoided.
Is is so difficult for a company? Maybe..
June 4th, 2007 11:38 pm
Ethan, I see your point but again, it seems to me that the bigger problem is not the waiting time (even though it stinks) but the fact that we are left in the dark and treated with an attitude by the reps. If you mess up (and Lenovo is messing up big time at the moment), take responsibility and deal with it intead of treating customers like crap just because you can afford to do so (because demand is so high). Right now I have no choice but waiting because there’s no better option out there. But believe me, I won’t forget how Lenovo treated me and for my next laptop, I’ll be looking for other options.
June 5th, 2007 12:11 am
This is my first time ever to buy from Lenovo and I am absolutely sure it will be the last. I decided to buy a Thinkpad this time because I am being told of thier superior quality. However, quality is not everything, customer service is far more important to me. For this reason, I am going back to Dell, they provide the best customer support I have seen ever.
June 5th, 2007 12:18 am
Does this delay have anything to do with the Meyer EPP orders? there are tons of people ordering new lnovos and id be damned if my order gets delayed due to all these fake EPP orders before me!
June 5th, 2007 9:35 am
Lenoovo has proved to me to have some of the absolute worst customer support I have ever seen. Although it would be incredibly easy for them to just email everyone whos laptop has been delayed with a legit reason and a more concrete shipping date, they instead choose to do nothing and leave things be while customers like myself are left in the dark not knowing when their laptop will arrive. This situation reminds me of three years ago when I purchased a Dell Dimension 8300. Dell was in the midst of switching over to the 8400, so we were told upfront they would delay shipping and switch our order to an 8400 at no cost. The machine took a few weeks extra to arrive, but it was worth it. With this laptop, I specifically ordered it because of the 1-2 week est. shipping time. I need this computer by mid-June. Now, I am left in the dark wondering whether it will arrive by the time I need it (I doubt it will). I would love to cancel the order, but Lenovo computers are so solid and no other companies have patently lied to their customers about being able to fulfill orders for the new Santa Rosa technology. All I can say is that this post was completely unsatisfactory. Instead of releasing this info on a company blog, email it to all customers. You may have the best built laptops, but that doesn’t make up for horrendous customer service. Fix this problem ASAP and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
June 5th, 2007 10:11 am
I am not going to make an excuse for CS at Lenovo, but I must say they don’t have that much power to tell you straight out that, we are expecting delays until “this date” because “this” is in error at our company. They are forced to say what their superiors tell them to say which will try to avoid direct blame toward the company.
Thank you kindly for posting this explanation as this is what most people want, but most companies are not willing to post directly on their website.
June 5th, 2007 10:13 am
Don’t worry guys. Lenovo might laugh now because its quality is still superior and we’re willing to accept this kind of customer service. However, chances are this advantage won’t last forever and then it’ll backfire big times. Just make sure you tell as many people as possible about your experience with Lenovo. In particular your friends who purchase for their companies. That’ll do.
June 5th, 2007 10:55 am
Bcoz of this incorrect shipment date,I cancelled my order on 4th june as I expected not receive it by 20 June.I was told by customer care executive that the order will be cancelled but today when i check the status, it showed that the order has been split into two and the carrying case has been shipped.
Can u guys cancel the order immediately & stop the shipment as well as no will be there to collect the shipment as I’ll be leaving the country.
Calling up the customer care is a harrowing experience as I had to be on hold for almost 1.5 hrs.This was when i called them the 5th time.Earlier 4 times too I was on hold for around 30 min and finally I used to disconnect the call.
If someone at Lenovo care enough, then Please help me out on this.
Regards,
Manish Guliani
June 5th, 2007 11:28 am
I Agree, I have ordered mine 05/09 , and the ESD was 06/04.
just yesterday it jumped to 07/19… This service stings.
They delay, and delay, and they don’t explain nothing anything.
I called for 10 minutes and noone answers. Other people call for 1 hour until someone picks up the phone!
I will wait a few more weeks, if there are no answers I will cancel.
LENOVO DO SOMETHING!
June 5th, 2007 12:24 pm
There seems to be a problem with the CSRs. Frankly, customers should not be talked to that way. There’s just no excuse for that, nor should there ever be. The job of the CSR is to be the link between the customer and the business. Sometimes it’s smooth, sometimes it’s rough. They have to be ready for the rough and take it in stride.
The logistics issues are another problem. Anytime there’s a new chipset, there will be problems. The website could’ve had more accurate information, but it seems like sometimes the information changes by the hour.
Overall, if e-mails had been sent to the customers with specific EST for their system configuration and if the (more polite) CSRs had accurate information for the customers, I think that this could’ve been a better situation.
June 5th, 2007 12:30 pm
I’m wondering why customers in Canada have ordered their CTO T61s from Lenovo and received them already. I don’t think anyone has received a CTO T61 from Lenovo in the US.
Why haven’t Canadians been subject to these delays? Are their laptops not manufactured in China?
June 5th, 2007 2:34 pm
My order date was 05/09 and probably one of the first orders. I have called the CS three times since then and been on hold anyway from 30-45 minutes each time. The answers are delay due to LCD shortage to huge demand. I understand that the shipping date will be corrected but still I was told that it will be mid to late June for delay. That will be 1.5-2 months!!! The main reason I am buying Lenovo is because of the specs and quality of the system and I am a first time buyer of Lenovo. Maybe I am just too spoilt from buying Dell all these years but at least they update the shipping dates correctly and ALWAYS in or early in their shipping (2 weeks or less). Now that is customer service. Like everyone else, I just want an upfront info on why it takes so long on the shipping!
June 5th, 2007 2:39 pm
I ordered a T61 with the NVIDIA card and Vista and it has been delayed as well. Should we consider chainging the pending orders?
June 5th, 2007 3:27 pm
One observation/ question:
If demand is really soooo overwhelming right now and you can’t handle it, why do you have a father’s day special?….just so you can make the situation even worse? It just doesn’t make sense and I consider it a slap in the face for people who are waiting and are told that they are waiting because demand is so high. How can demand be too high if you’re actually trying to increase it by introducing a new special? BTW, Tim, are you actually forwarding these comments to somebody? It seems to me that there are a ton of VERY unhappy customers out there and Lenovo doesn’t seem to do anything about that. They might try to fix the shipping problems (as they should) but the customers are still left in the dark. No reaction whatsoever! (I don’t consider this blog as a reaction as it refers to the internal glitch and not to the fact that CSR is not able to Tell us when we’ll get the PCs, leave alone update the order status)
June 5th, 2007 3:41 pm
This is my 1st lenovo purchase and it will be my last. I am keeping my order open for now but trust me…if I see another manufacturer release a system that has specs I like I will cancel this one (assuming it hasn’t been shipped) and order from someone else. I have never seen a company treat customers like Lenovo is doing. No one can give you a straight answer, no one is helpful and it’s taking almost 2 months for the system to get built. This is just insane.
Lenovo…you have lost any future sales from me and I will never recommend anyone to buy directly from you
June 5th, 2007 4:20 pm
Tim,
I appreciate the post and the attempt to share information. The problem you guys are having is you are setting expectations and then failing to deliver. Thats where the anger is coming from.
As someone who has had their shipment date moved I can only hope that you have been conservative rather then optimistic in moving my date. For me to wait another 3 weeks to get my laptop would be acceptable but to wait 3 weeks only to have my date slip again would destroy the confidence I have in your brand completely.
June 5th, 2007 6:33 pm
I for one have already lost all confidence in their shipping dates… as far as I can tell a random number generator might do a better job. Everyone here has hit on the horrible way that Lenovo has treated their customers and I would like to second that. It’s bad enough that it takes so long to get a custom built machine but the inability of the company to recognize this is the final nail in the coffin.
I am keeping my current order; however, I am actively looking for alternative laptops.
June 5th, 2007 7:28 pm
Why doesn’t Tim reply to any of our comments?
June 5th, 2007 9:36 pm
This is just great:
You’ve got one Lenovo blogger yammering on about Formula 1 Racing, another puffing himself up about Corporate citizenry, and a third hyping some kind nonsense about leather and computers.
And you, Matt, are online admitting that the latest T series doesn’t fit your needs, and that you have no control over the disingenuous ship dates on the Lenovo site.
Guys: You’re blowing it. A month ago, you promised cutting edge notebooks. Matt’s job description is “World Wide Competitive Analyst.” So far, you still aren’t competitive (how about a 17″ notebook?) you can’t deliver, and you’re not doing such a good job communicating.
I keep waiting to buy a bunch of new Thinkpads, but I’m now getting ready to go with HP.
June 6th, 2007 3:15 am
I am tire of waiting. Base on the shippment delay of the other buyer, the estimate shipped date doesn’t mean but only a disappointment. If my order don’t ship out by the end of this week, I am going to cancel the order and get the new macbook pro instead. This is my 1st time to shop in Lenovo, but the experience is horrible, never come again.
June 6th, 2007 4:11 am
Tim,
regarding your comment that selecting the Multiview SXGA screen option will get us the Superview SXGA+ screen… how come when I finished placing my order, the link that’s emailed to me so I can check on the status has a detailed parts list and it shows the screen/processor as:
42X0464 SBB 12.1″MV SXGA TFT L7500LV
even this is still saying it’s a multiview (i’m assuming that’s what MV stands for here) SXGA…. is the typo that deep into the system that even the detailed parts list shows it wrong? What about the part number 42X0464 .. any way to confirm what part number that really is?
Thanks,
-james
June 6th, 2007 4:21 am
Tim responsed in another post: “I make it a rule not to comment unless I have concrete information on the topic.”
Guess what, I believe that Tim does not have exact information about the delay shipment. This explains something, even they are in the same company. Lenovo does not tell them the exact reason of delay shipment. Without saying customers. It seems to me that the top-level attempt to cover the truth to everyone, Tim, CS, and us.
June 6th, 2007 9:21 am
Is there a problem with the new factory? i learnt from BBC lenovo moved their factory quite recently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6675739.stm
June 6th, 2007 10:01 am
Also my first time buying but I don’t hit my estimated ship date until tomorrow. However, this type of customer service might explain why Acer has moved into the number three sales spot!
June 6th, 2007 11:51 am
I just want to assure everyone that we are taking this issue VERY seriously and will be posting more information about this soon. We have seen everyone’s cries of pain in customer blogs, discussion forums, of course on this blog and are working on a resolution at the highest levels in the company. I understand you all are very frustrated and fed up at this point – I can’t blame you. But I promise we will make this right, just bear with us a little longer.
June 6th, 2007 12:44 pm
Tim,
Thank you for this update. I am very excited to receive my first thinkpad ever (T61 widescreen). I’m happy to wait an extra 1-2 weeks as long as i’m kept up to date on the status.
June 6th, 2007 1:55 pm
I forgot to mention: those asking about any X Series or X Tablet Series questions, please send those over to the Tablet post to help keep things on topic here. Thanks!
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=67
June 6th, 2007 2:34 pm
I just got contacted by a customer service manager and there is an “invalid configuration” in my order and they’re “working on the deviation”. 1st off…the configurations are directly from your website. If certain options aren’t available or incompatible then don’t allow those selections. 2ndly, what does invalid configuration mean? What is the deviation? Unfortunately the email from Lenovo was so cryptic I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about
June 6th, 2007 3:23 pm
I am feeling the frustration as well with my T61 order (XP-Intel 3100) placed on 5/29. The Lenovo website said 1 – 2 weeks so I thought, no problem getting it by 7/13 when I leave for vacation. Placed my order and ESD was 8/31. Called Lenovo multiple times and each time got a different answer … 1 – 2 weeks, 2 – 3 weeks, by end of June etc. Many times I will NOT order something if I know it conflicts with my travel plans. At this point, I don’t know who to believe and just hope my laptop does not sit on my porch while I am on vacation.
To add insult to injury, Lenovo authorized my Credit card 3 times holding $4700+ of my money … heavens forbid if that was a Debit Card. It took another phone call (and 45 minute wait) to get 2 of those authorizations reversed.
June 6th, 2007 4:14 pm
If Tim is working with the highest levels in the company. Is it time to dislose the secret of delay?
And what is the time for sure shipping? The website still says it ships with 1 to 2 weeks. If it is ture, maybe ordering a new one will be faster than mine.
If it is not true, what that means?
Do we need to write something is our blog together. For example, the same title as
“Lenovo-always delay your order” or something. If enough people do this, this title will popup when people google “lenovo”
Anyone is intereseted?
June 6th, 2007 5:32 pm
Even more annoying to me than being delayed, is the phone service. Both times I tried to call I was on hold for over an hour. I don’t remember the last time I waited that long for ANY retailer.
June 6th, 2007 5:50 pm
Its very simple. They appear to have a staff of 5 people up there in Canada. Some are very nice and pleasant to speak with but others are not so bright and willing to tell you anything
June 6th, 2007 5:51 pm
Here is all your complaints organized properly for Lenovo’s viewing pleasure http://forum.notebookreview.co.....ay.php?f=2
June 6th, 2007 8:52 pm
The situaiton is worsen. Some one put his order on 5/29 have got his laptop shipped.
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....ost2024749
———————————————————–
Coltcanon
Order date: 5/29
First ship date: 8/21
Shipped: 6/6
———————————————————–
Seems Lenovo is going to give up the customers who put the orders first but to satisfy others. Becasue we already are upset enough and cannot angry anymore..
June 6th, 2007 8:55 pm
And, this guys did Nvida configure.
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....mp;page=20
Who can tell us truth?
June 6th, 2007 9:37 pm
Ordered: 5/9
Original estimate: 5/28
Now: 8/30
Three words: Frustrated, Annoyed, Disappointed
June 6th, 2007 9:38 pm
For those who have personal blogs should post these problems. I’ve personally posted in several forums. The more people post the more people will find these problems and hopefully lenovo will loose business. The only way you can get a company to listen is when you talk dollars and cents…so I advise all others to take their money to other companies. I personally would cancel but I’ve waited 1 month so I am desperately hoping mine will go out shortly. I am also keeping my eyes on other manufacturers so as soon as I see another laptop I like I’m going to cancel this order (assuming is hasn’t shipped) and get the other one. This is just insane
June 7th, 2007 12:25 am
I still think we should all use the same title in the blog and forum. Make the title will show up when people google “Lenovo”
Any suggestion?
June 7th, 2007 3:10 am
Yes, I have a suggestion. Don’t do it! Several reasons:
1. If your goal has become “make Lenovo lose money” then I don’t think this is the place for you to organize that. I don’t want Lenovo to lose money, and I don’t want to associate with people who do.
2. If you think Lenovo can tell *why* it’s losing money down to such a fine-grained level, you give it too much credit. Companies, even small ones, have very little visibility into such details and the effect would probably be too small to notice even if they were looking right at it. You’d be surprised how blind everyone is flying. Business intelligence is *hard*.
3. If you don’t believe Matt that they *are* taking it seriously and working as best they can on it, then you should be posting about dishonesty, not delays. And not dishonesty from CSR’s, but from Matt. Are you calling him a liar? He doesn’t talk like someone who would feed us a company line. Generally, when he doesn’t like what he would have to say, he just says nothing at all.
4. It’s not the most constructive approach. Organizing a petition would be more effective at change, if change is what you are after. It’s more likely to get noticed than any *visible* harm you can manage to cause Lenovo (no, that’s not a challenge).
5. The grass isn’t greener, overall. If you think the net value of your laptop purchase is higher somewhere else then you are entitled to your opinion, but I don’t share it. Why try to hurt the company making the best laptops on the planet? Why assume they can’t hear you when someone is telling you they can?
6. No one has to subject themselves to this for any longer than they wish. Anyone that doesn’t like or trust their estimated ship date can have a notebook in hand in a matter of days from any number of dealers that stock them. If it’s a brand new model and dealers don’t have it, then it’s even less surprising that you can’t get one on time, right? Delays are not uncommon on brand new models in the tech industry.
June 7th, 2007 5:53 am
After the long waiting, my order finally got delay as the other buyer. I am going to cancel the order and get the macbook pro. Really….WT Hack!!!… never consider IBM/Lenovo anymore.
June 7th, 2007 8:17 am
I too ordered my T61 on 5/25 and it shows a ship date 8/29…
I have been actively looking at other computers and still want the Thinkpad… my concern is, is their cs and shipping dates are so messed up, does anyone have experience with their on-site service?
I have had Dells all along and the next day onsite has been wonderful… wondering sometimes why I went this route…
June 7th, 2007 9:05 am
Excellent points, Ethan.
I want the ThinkPad line to continue, and hopefully improve. Making Lenovo lose money certainly will not help in that regard.
The Lenovo delivery system has it’s problems, but there are plenty of aftermarket suppliers that will sell you what you want and deliver it quickly (try http://www.costcentral.com or http://www.euclid computers.com ). If it’s something new, then everyone has problems getting it. Remember the Cabbage Patch Dolls or Tickle Me Elmo or the Nintendo Wii? If the item is hot, it is just hard to get into all the customer’s hands in a timely basis.
In the start of this blog, Lenovo indicated that a glitch caused the ship dates to be erroneously moved to August. Why do so many here keep harping on something that has been admitted to being a typo? Lenovo wrote: “We expect to have more concrete dates for everyone sometime this week, but rest assured this was only a glitch.” The week has not passed yet…
June 7th, 2007 9:48 am
Ok, Ethan, I got your point.
1. It is a place to show how good the Lenovo is. We should not say how painful the delay is, here is for slogan, vision and wonderful atmposhere. We deserved it, we like low price.
2 Lenovo don’t care about it. We are canceling orders. We are organizing to let everyone know its delay. We are no more considering Lenovo. However, they dont care. They may earn money somewhere else. Even they lose money, they are not aware. They are blind about how significant the delay will lose their credit.
3. When TIm showed up, I think I saw a shed of light. I believe they are working with HIGH-LEVEL to solve. But so far, we have not seen the explanation about the delay. And I have no idea why it take so long to let us know. Isn’t it just several phone call?
WE, still in the dark.
4.I will consider to buy a ticket (with severl hundred dollars) to North Carolina and create a petition…..if there was no any other laptop is the world.
5. Ok, we want low price. We are deserved the delay. But next time, could Lenovo put a notice that, “LOW PRICE ALWYAS COMES WITH DELAY” as warning. I am too naive so I believe the it ships with 1-2 weeks.
6. If we do not like the delay, just cancel our orders and get that somewhere else. It is Lenovo.
Ok, ok, it is enough for me. I am going to cancel my order and buy my first apple. I will get out here. Here is a wonderful place but not where we should say Lenovo is not good. I will leave here clean and let Lenovo go on its business and its delay shipment. Oh what? No delay, all is my illusion?…mm
It is so sad becasue I was a Thinkpad lover. Now.. I finally realize the Big Blue is leaving forever..
Sigh..
June 7th, 2007 10:49 am
Ethan, I think you’re missing the point. As many people have said we can handle delays. However, I would like to know the REAL reason why my computer has not shipped on the the date it was supposed to. I don’t want to be given a different reason for the delay by every rep I speak to, which has happened about 4 times in the past week. On top of that, I don’t want to be given a different answer every time I ask when I should expect my computer to ship. My trust is lost in a company that is having such problems organizing itself. It’s ok if during the first few days of the problem, word hasn’t got out to everyone as to why and how long the computers would be delayed. We’re now over a week into this thing and word still hasn’t reached all the reps.
“One specific configuration is confirmed to be delayed, T61 and R61 models with NVIDIA graphics and Microsoft Windows XP.”
Tim gives us a reason for the delay, but most of us don’t have the NVIDIA and XP on our order. As a mattter of fact I have neither of those in my order, so I still don’t have an answer to my question. Why is my computer delayed? We’re now on day 3 of this thread, and after so many people expressing that all they want is a REAL answer to that question, we still haven’t been given one. Most of this talk and anger would’ve died down days ago if lenovo had been able to get their act together. The longer this goes on the more people will get angered. Just yesterday I saw a bunch of people newly signed up members on NBR forums express their displeasure about the whole situation.
All these problems make me wonder how Lenovo is going to handle itself once orders start getting filled. Are we going to see people who ordered in late May and Early June recieve their orders before the people that ordered the first week the laptop came out? I wouldn’t be surprised, because that would be exactly how a company that isn’t organized would handle a situation.
June 7th, 2007 12:05 pm
To everybody that says that we should be praising Lenovo and not talking about the delays, do you have any idea how frustrating this entire process is? Why should consumers continue to buy from a company that can’t fix a shipping bug weeks after it popped up? Why should consumers buy from a company that sends its executives on an ineffective damage control campaign without fixing any of the underlying issues that caused the situation in the first place?
Comparing this to the Wii or anything else is silly. When the Wii was announced, people were given accurate numbers as to how many Wiis would be available. Some websites even listed how many Wiis each store would get. Everybody knew far in advance that there would be more people looking to buy Wiis than there were Wiis for sale. However, if a customer was willing to wait in line for a few hours, a Wii was essentially guaranteed. With the Thinkpads, unless you ordered literally right as the systems were released, you have been left in the dark. And with the Wiis they were able to quickly ramp up production to try to meet demand. Lenovo has been sitting and lying to its customers about the cause of its delays.
Look folks, Lenovo screwed this one up. There is no possible way to spin that. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I have had experiences with delays. With the Dell 8400 I got at its launch, I was promptly emailed with an outline of why I was being delayed (switch from AGP in the 8300 to PCI-Express in the 8400) and was given a reliable shipping date (it came 2 weeks EARLIER than the initial shipping date for the 8400).
Come on, Lenovo. You have customers left and right telling you exactly how to make this right. Most of us are not as incensed about the delays as the patent lying on the part of Lenovo. We want accurate shipping dates, emailed to us, not posted on some obscure company blog. We want customer service reps that pick up the phone in 10 minutes, not 100. And most of all, we want to not be treated as ignorant children that can easily be duped into believing a false company line.
Stop BSing us, start treating us like the real customers we are. And if you don’t, then you can guarantee fewer repeat customers.
June 7th, 2007 1:03 pm
I agree with everyone we should not just be quiet about our displeasure… personally, I plan to be as loud as possible about the terrible way Lenovo has been treating their customers. This is not a new problem, if you look back through old posts people have been experiancing delays for at least the last 6 to 7 months. I don’t understand why Lenovo can’t fix this issue.
I don’t want Lenovo to lose money or go out of business but I do want them to listen up and start paying attention and stop giving us lip service. I want them to fix the problem and the only way I have to get their attention is to say something. So I believe that this is a very constructive activity.
Countless posters have stated that there would be far less frustration if Lenovo would open the lines of communication and tell us what the real problems are. Unfortunately I don’t think that Lenovo knows what the real issues causing delays are. Their system is hopelessly broken.
June 7th, 2007 1:08 pm
Hey TIM
Let us know what’s going on with T61’s shiping and Please do it as often as you’ll have new info about the problem.
I ordered 5/30 and my ESD shows 3rd september.
I’am considering to cancel, since I have to leave 5th of july.
June 7th, 2007 1:25 pm
Hi, guys
I just got some information about lenovo, if you want to complain officially, you can call the headquarter and tell them how bad they are dealing with their customers.
Headquarter:
The Centre at Purchase, One Manhattanville Road, Purchase, New York 10577, USA
Tel: (914) 701-2800
Lenovo world (personally , i do not know WTF this means):
3090 Cornwallis Road, Raleigh, NC 27709, USA
Tel: (800) 426-4968
800 phone number would be expected to hold you forever as I experienced with their CSR 800 number. Local phone would be better choice.
I am still looking for email address of their big cows in China like CEO, CTO kind of BS. I will post as soon as I got something.
June 7th, 2007 1:32 pm
If we were informed as to why the systems were delayed and a reasonable estimate was given, i think this list of comments wouldn’t even exist. We, as the customer would have the ability to then choose if waiting is worth it for the machine. If I knew my machine would ship in July, I would call and cancel immediately. But I do not know that yet. Is this delay resulting in machines that are being slapped together in a rush to satisfy demand? Will quality suffer?
What will happen when I need warranty service or support? Will there be a 1 hour phone wait then as well? Then 4 weeks of no communication?
I’m probably calling HP tomorrow. If they can give me a simliar machine at a decent price by the end of june, sorry Lenovo. Even if its not up to Thinkpad standards its a decent machine sold by people who are honest to their customers.
June 7th, 2007 1:57 pm
Preston, you do bring up some valid points.
Preston wrote:
“We want accurate shipping dates, emailed to us, not posted on some obscure company blog. We want customer service reps that pick up the phone in 10 minutes, not 100.”
Can’t argue those points. Everyone want’s confirmed accurate shipping dates. 10 minutes should be the maximum wait time for a CSU rep.
Preston wrote:
“To everybody that says that we should be praising Lenovo and not talking about the delays, do you have any idea how frustrating this entire process is? Why should consumers continue to buy from a company that can’t fix a shipping bug weeks after it popped up?”
I don’t see where people are praising Lenovo in this thread or suggesting the same. This thread was started by Lenovo to talk about delays and erroneous information. Granted, the details and up-to-date information regarding such, that has been released to date, is lacking, but we were told to expect more information within the week. That week is not up yet. The T61’s and R61’s that are driving this complaint were just announced on May 9th. That is about 4 weeks ago. At least some T61’s and R61’s have shipped to customers. You can verify this by reading the forums. To say that they can’t fix a shipping bug that popped up weeks ago is being a little disingeuious.
It is also naive to think that any new series of ThinkPads are going to be widely available on their launch date. Much better to expect delays on a newly launched series.
I will say this. If Lenovo states on their website that a unit should ship in 1-2 weeks or 2-3 weeks, that should be true for at least 80% of those units sold. Once an order is placed, an estimated shipping date should be emailed to the customer within 24 hours. That shipping date should be firm to within a week. Once shipment has been made, a second email should be sent to the customer announcing the actual shipping date. This is my opinion on the matter.
All in all, I think IBM may have had a better system in place. They used to have preconfigured models. Some of these models were considered Express models. If one ordered an Express Model, that person had a right to expect shipment in a short period of time. If one ordered a non-Express model, that person could expect possibly a several week delay. The IBM website was continually updated with the availability for all their models. IIRC, sometimes you were instructed to call for availability when a particular model or it’s components were in short supply. The big advantage is that one had a much better idea when their ThinkPad would likely ship. One didn’t have to actually place an order to discover that the estimated shipping date would change by several weeks. At least this is how I remember it. If I am in error regarding the old IBM, then someone please correct me.
June 7th, 2007 2:04 pm
I just filed a compliant with the FTC and Better Business Bureau. I also plan on calling their headquarters in North Carolina also.
June 7th, 2007 2:17 pm
As I said before, I ordered mine 5/9. At that time, the website said it should ship in 1-2 weeks and the estimated ship date before checkout was 5/21. I did also get an email 24 hours later with a new est. ship date of 5/28, which I thought was ok since it is new. When 5/28 came around, the est. ship date changed to 8/30, which I thought was probably an error because no company would delay a laptop by three months. So, waited some more. A couple days later, I got an email that said that the 8/30 was an error and that you can expect you computer to ship between 1 and 30 days. So then I decided to call, but after waiting for 45 min. I gave up and emailed, which 4 days later I get a reponse that my order will be shipped 1-2 weeks and not to worried. After a week (yesterday), I decided to call and see if there was any progress and I got the response that it would probably be sent out late june. So this is why I’m frustrated, annoyed and disappointed.
June 7th, 2007 2:22 pm
T61 Ordered : 5/9
Original Ship Date: 5/28
Called 5/25 and was told it would ship on time.
I don’t understand how, when calling Friday evening, to confirm a Monday shipdate…they would still not know about a 1.5 month delay.
The fateful delayed email on 5/29
Website Shipdate still shows: 8/30
Called 3 times. On hold for over an hour and a half…so gave up.
Emailed….1.5 weeks ago, Still no response.
Finally got through by phone….I’m told Mid June…whatever that means.
June 7th, 2007 2:35 pm
You are not receiving your orders because Lenovo is clogged up with BS EPP orders that are all in front of people who have legally purchased their computers. This speaks volumes about Lenovo and how they disregard their legitmate customers orders. I am cancelling my order due to no commnication from Lenovo and waiting on the phone for one full hour is unacceptable.
June 7th, 2007 3:06 pm
Yes its the lack of communication that is the big issue. My expected ship date was today and of course I got bumped. It is now 6/28 so I guess did better than some others, I will only have to wait 5-6 weeks for my 1-2 week delivery. So is it really that difficult for Lenovo to email out an explanation along with a new shipping date? I only found the new date by going online to check the status of the order for myself. Why aren’t they being proactive and warning people about delays, instead of their quietly pushing back shipping dates. Even more annoying is that I went online and configured an identical machine and got an estimated ship date of 6/20. So they haven’t even updated their ordering system to give longer suggested shipping times.
I also received an email asking to evaluate my online shopping experience with Lenovo. Do you guys have any advice on how I should fill that out?
June 7th, 2007 4:37 pm
Good news. Ordered on the 29th of May. Ship date is today. Yes the 8/29 ship date that showed on my order was annoying (as were the hour long waits) to find out the true status. As long my new T61 meets the standards of my previous T22 and T40 all is forgiven! I’ll take these minor inconveniences over the mediocrities of Dell (Latitudes) no matter how great (and accurate and up to date) their ordering process was.
June 7th, 2007 4:44 pm
I’m not sure where to post this, and it might be off topic, but here goes:
I dropped my R51 on the floor last night. Wham!…it was closed and turned off and flew out of a carelessly unclosed computer bag.
I picked the bag up by the handle and the computer flew out, flipped 180 degrees and landed flat and square on the closed lid. Luckily, there was a little throw rug on the floor which cushioned the fall. But still…I had one of those “oh dear” reactions.
Close inspection shows no cracks, or other damage, and everything still works just fine!
I guess you make some pretty tough computers….so glad.
June 7th, 2007 4:55 pm
i called the customer service and the rep argued with me saying he has no information about my ship date. then ended up transfering me to a voicemail without asking if it was ok to do so.
June 7th, 2007 4:55 pm
So, what is the lesson learned here? Don’t be so hot to have the latest and greatest!
I have been waiting for the new laptops with Santa Rosa since they were announced. The laptop I currently have, although powerful enough to get by, is coming apart at the seams (literally.. the lid has 3 big stress cracks).
I’ve really had my sights on the Lenovo t61 since it was announced. I’ve been looking to get a sturdy laptop that would hold up to all the travel I do. I also need the power and RAM capacity that come with the new crop of laptops.
I work out of the country quite a bit and I happen to be back in the States until the later in the month. I *almost* pulled the trigger, but realized that I’d be opening myself up for a lot of frustration. I was worried about the delays that are now happening and worried about initial build quality of the system (Hopefully, no issue).
Glad I held off! I’ll just baby.. or duck tape:-) what I have and will probably purchase something around October/November. There will be a lot more choices out by then and initial releases should have most build issues resolved. Looking at what is in the pipeline, I may end up not getting a Lenovo.
For the folks that ordered early and are frustrated. Ask yourself. Do you REALLY NEED this laptop NOW? If not, cancel the order and wait! You’ll be surprised at how good you feel now.. and later when you can get what you really want (Assuming the Lenovo t61 you ordered is not your ultimate).
For those that REALLY need it now, well.. I feel your pain. The way Lenovo is handling all of this is wrong on all levels. They screwed up by not planning correctly (Or, maybe they ran into engineering problems, or delays in component delivery), They then pissed off the customers that ordered early by stringing them along. People HATE being strung along. People can accept the truth in most instances and despise being lied to. In this instance, Lenovo deserves a big black eye. I hope that they at least give a nice discount to you guys that ordered early and have stuck it out through the delays and frustration. You should be rewarded for your loyalty.
June 7th, 2007 5:41 pm
Mike they do not want to reward us for our troubles. I’ve called two times now to ask for a free upgrade in shipping to make up for all the delays. You know what they have the nerve to tell me? “If we upgrade your shipping, then we have to send a note to manufacturing which will in turn be like cancelling your order and putting in a new one.” As the days go by I keep getting more frustrated. Now we’re finding numerous people that ordered towards the end of May like matt franz are getting their laptops shipped out over the last two days. It was exactly what I had said I wouldn’t be surprised by in my post above
June 7th, 2007 6:42 pm
Actually I saw somewhere (maybe on Notebook forums) where folks that by through corporate discount programs (like I did) ware getting moved to the top of the list. So that may be a factor. I also bought a pretty plain T61, no camera, with onboard Intel video, so that might also have been a factor.
June 7th, 2007 6:49 pm
I called today to find out if my order – placed on 5/17, scheduled 6/5, last minute change to 6/22 – is going to ship anytime soon and the CS guy says all he knows is that there is a delay in manufacturing and i’ll have to wait till the new estimated date.
I asked him if he can expedite shipping when they finally get around to doing it and he said he doesn’t think thats a good idea because it would delay the order even further since a request like this will change its place in the queue.
How can your system be so badly prepared to handle customer service requests like this ? I don’t know of any other online business that could not just upgrade your shipping to make up for their mistake. Do you ?
June 7th, 2007 9:36 pm
I know everyone is anxiously awaiting more information on this. We have been working hard to get concrete information and will have more to share very soon. Thanks for bearing with us.
June 7th, 2007 11:49 pm
Thank you for posting the actual story without the BS cover up. I really enjoyed knowing why and I am less stressed about the delay as I know the time frame on when my order will be shipped and why the delay occurred.
June 8th, 2007 12:11 am
Does this mean that the order after 5/24 will be fulfilled eariler than the orders taken between 5/9 and 5/24?
Will it be earlier for us to get the laptop if we cancel it and resubmit again?
June 8th, 2007 12:14 am
what delay in orders have to do with customer care ,why dont they pic the phone and over to this ur calling hours are only on weekdays that too from 8 to 5,why not 24×7,how many times i can try in day time to contact you,i just finally cancelling my order
can u please tell me,mail would be sufficient to cancel my order or i have to do something else
some improvement for ur site
1) give an option to cancel the order
and over to all JUST IMPROVE YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE.
June 8th, 2007 1:37 am
“You are not receiving your orders because Lenovo is clogged up with BS EPP orders that are all in front of people who have legally purchased their computers. This speaks volumes about Lenovo and how they disregard their legitmate customers orders. I am cancelling my order due to no commnication from Lenovo and waiting on the phone for one full hour is unacceptable.”
I placed an EPP order on 5/19 that was supposed to ship 6/1, then 6/7, now 6/bloody26.
Delays and those orders are seemingly getting pushed back just like all the others. I don’t so much care that I need to wait 6-8 weeks (if that doesn’t increase, which I’m sure it will) as I am that Lenovo consistently lies as to when they will ship anything.
June 8th, 2007 1:58 am
Tim,
Thank you for addressing the orders from May 9th – May 24th. However, what about the orders placed after that? I placed my order for a T61 on 5/29 and it is still showing an estimated ship date of 8/31. When will those dates be corrected? I have vacation planned in July and August and this is still causing me concern.
June 8th, 2007 2:11 am
I don’t think the corporate discount makes your shipping any better. I ordered through my corp on 5/17, nvidia + windows xp, and my shipping date keeps changing to the current date. It’s kind of annoying, and I know that Lenovo has been getting a lot of harassment from customers, but man, it is frustrating as hell. This is my first time experience buying from them, and I am really disappointed because I was expecting a lot from them. Ah well, even corp employees get the shaft, so dont feel left out
June 8th, 2007 7:29 am
…just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse. Two days ago I received an email from a CSR Lead Shift Supervisor (I won’t say his name since the point of this post isn’t to get somebody into trouble). Apparently, he has read this blog and offered to help me with any of my questions. Here is the last part of his email:
“…Although we can not control supply constraints, we can control the quality of service you receive on the phone. Our representatives are provided with the most up to date supply status and this information should be passed on to you as quickly as possible. Our web site is also provided with updates and should reflect the most current shipping status. We apologize for any conflicting information and for any frustration and inconvenience that this may have caused. We will look into this. I would be more than happy to track your order for you and provide updates if you like. Please provide me with your Lenovo Order Number so that I may follow up. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly….”
I did exactly that. I called him and got the machine. The message on his machine provided the time he’ll be in the office and he promised to call back “BY THE END OF THE BUSINESS DAY”. I left two messages with my number but he did not call back. Yesterday, I left another message (this time a bit more upset, threatening that I’ll post the experience here if he won’t call back) but still, no call back as promised.
Conclusion: It’s not good to mess up a service (e.g. estimated shipping). It gets worse if you do a bad job trying to recover. However, it gets really embarrassing when even your recovery from the bad recovery doesn’t work.
…ironically, the supervisor did exactly what he was trying to sort out in the first place. He promised something he couldn’t hold. Lenovo promised shipping dates it can’t hold and he promised a same-day-call-back he couldn’t make. Both times I am not upset about the actual waiting time but about the fact that I am lied to and not updated on the status change. I understand that the poor guy must be very busy right now with all the complaints and I understand that demand must be crazy with the new model roll out. However, that doesn’t excuse making unreal promises, hence setting up expectations and then disappoint the customers by not living up to it.
Tim, you promised that “we will make this right, just bear with us a little longer.”….well, you (=Lenovo) just missed another chance to make it right.
BTW: My order was supposed to ship today and this morning the ESD changed to 6/27.
June 8th, 2007 9:05 am
Tim, thanks for the updated information. I appreciate your treating the customers like adults. These things happen and the best response in my book is a full disclosure and laying out the steps that Lenovo is taking to correct the error.
June 8th, 2007 9:33 am
I had an original ship date of 6/8 for an order I placed on 5/22. Today is 6/8 and the online status update says 6/27.
Because I am moving to Boston in a few days, I had to change my shipping address, which, according to the CSR tacks on several extra days to the ship date. I called a week ago and asked them to change my shipping address anyway, since I had no choice (other than canceling the order) and because the CSR told me that there’s no way I’d get my laptop by 6/8 even though that’s what the online order status said. Unfortunately the online tracking system still shows my original shipping adress after a whole week of waiting. I am surprised at how inefficient the whole system is, and I am very frustrated. I start a job in two weeks and I NEED to have this laptop BEFORE I start work. Lenovo CSRs have denied my requests for free upgrade to get faster shipping. According to them there’d be no point anyway since they have to send another “request” to change the shipping method and therefore delay the whole process again. I am frustrated.
I’d post a complaint with Better Business or whatever, but I don’t have the time — I spent it all waiting for CSRs to pick up the phone! I agree that the worst part about it is being strung along and having to make all the effort myself to figure out what is going on.
BTW, my order was a non-corporate EPP order I got directly through a friend who works for the company.
June 8th, 2007 10:02 am
Would we recieve our computers quicker if we put in a new order or kept the same one? By the way you’re talking it seems like putting in new orders would get us our computers faster. I talked to a rep yesterday who told me that it should be shipped out by the end of next week. Is that reasonable?
I have a price quote from 5/28 that has 2 parts my other order made on 5/11 didn’t have. These the parts causing the problem?
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
Thank you for being upfront, I wish this had been done sooner. I really hope you guys fix this soon.
June 8th, 2007 10:37 am
how exactly are you going to make this right?
merely shipping our laptops will NOT suffice
are you going to discount it, upgrade it, or do something else for free?
I have a feeling the laptops will be shipped quite late, and that your reply will be “See, we shipped them, we made it right”
June 8th, 2007 10:43 am
why is my est. ship date still show 8/30?
this is totally unacceptable!
June 8th, 2007 10:50 am
I ordered my T61 on 5/18, with EST shipping date of 6/6. I have noticed some weird things! People who have ordered way after me (5/31) got theirs on (6/6 yesterday) Why is so? Are they picking randomly? then when my random number will come?
I have a real genuine problem. I ordered in time because my wife had to go through surgery! in hospital! so when i take care of her! i can use laptop! in hospital while caring for her. Now my purpose is not served! and i see others who ordered way after me are getting it first! i am really upset!
I also donot know if my order needs to be manually reenter again into system causing further delays! I just spoke to the sales rep. he said we can’t even upgrade to free shipping 2nd day coz it will push your order back at the end in the queue. I don’t understand what kind of system is this? I don’t think there is a queue here! people are getting their system randomly.
I just appeal you to do something about our orders. to deliver them on queue basis, so we can get our laptops in time. I asked sales rep if you can put my order higher in priority due to my situation, but he says there is no such thing as “priority queue”. I am really confused.
June 8th, 2007 10:58 am
Don’t worry folks, you’ll all be receiving a Lenovo t-shirt:
“I Remember
Lenovo Crisis
2007″
On another note, I think we should thank Tim for doing his best informing us of what is and will be happening. It is clear that this problem will be quite disastrous for many people (including Lenovo). To everyone who would like to further communicate their problems, solutions, anger, I would recommend posting them on the Notebookreview forum with hundreds of other people.
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....ay.php?f=2
I’m sure someone at Lenovo keeps a close eye on the situation there as well.
@jd1010
It seems those two parts are causing the delay. Or at least, systems with those parts are in delayed notebooks. There’s a thread in the forums about this.
June 8th, 2007 11:02 am
Thanks for letting us know what the problem is. Hopefully you guys can resolve it real soon.
June 8th, 2007 11:42 am
I agree with other people here, we could all care less about a postmortem. To make things right there has to be something done like give expedited shipping to all affected orders.
June 8th, 2007 11:47 am
Hmm…. interesting. If Lenovo has to re-create the orders does that mean that people who ordered via the FatWallet link (when i ordered there was a 5% cashback deal) will get screwed ? Guys, please keep this in mind when fixing the failed orders.
June 8th, 2007 11:51 am
After reading this blog I dont feel so upset. At least everyone is getting the same shitty service that I have been receiving from Lenovo. Waiting an hour on hold is not as bad as being given absolutely zero information. Not being able to change your shipping option (which would be excuseable if the ship date advertised had been upheld) to something more expedited is just plain wrong. I just would like to know (ballpark) when my laptop will ship. If it is truely going to be weeks of waiting then I would cancel my order.
June 8th, 2007 11:55 am
“I start a job in two weeks and I NEED to have this laptop BEFORE I start work….”
“I ordered in time because my wife had to go through surgery! in hospital! so when i take care of her! i can use laptop! in hospital while caring for her.”
If you need a 100% guarantee that you’ll have the laptop by a certain date, I’d strongly advise cancelling and looking around for some place that has the model you want (or something close) in stock, and then upgrading separately if the drive or memory specs aren’t quite sufficient.
June 8th, 2007 12:21 pm
It is good to hear what the problem is. They keep saying that are “going to make this right”. It seems to me that they should be taking a few dollars off of everyone’s price. Or even better everyone that is affected should be automatically upgraded to overnight shipping. That is the least that Lenovo could do to both expedite people getting their machines and restoring some good will with their customers.
June 8th, 2007 12:49 pm
I am imagining some division head executives are getting warned letter….
June 8th, 2007 1:32 pm
>Our telephone support staff currently has a large number of calls coming in and >email is the most efficient communication method at this time.
really? I sent an email to that exact address two weeks ago, and I haven’t heard anything yet.
June 8th, 2007 1:38 pm
So one basic question, are the the T61s with 14″ screens being built? The data entry was discovered and lenovo is working with manufacturing to fix the error. Does that mean it’s fixed and they’re currently being built? Or does that mean the fix is still happening and they will be built at a later date? What does it mean for orders after May 24th. What’s the status with those orders?
June 8th, 2007 2:23 pm
Would we recieve our computers quicker if we put in a new order or kept the same one? By the way you’re talking it seems like putting in new orders would get us our computers faster.
June 8th, 2007 2:31 pm
The shipping delays are not limited to just the Lenovo laptops. I ordered a desktop on March 20. The original ship date was two weeks out. It then changed to late April, then to June 6. Interestingly enough, it changed to May 15 on June 5th! It is now 6/27. I have talked to Lenovo 4 times, after each rescheduled ship date. On June 5th I was told by the rep that he had double checked and that my PC had been assembled and was in the packaging department. Later that same day, the ship date moved to 6/27. When I called Lenovo on 6/7 — and waited on hold for 27 minutes — I was told by a very earnest rep that she had no idea what the problem was, nor when it would ship. She took my email and PROMISED to get me some info, which is not here yet.
So … my point is that it should be very clear to everyone that Lenovo has a serious problem with their order processing and tracking. While the T61 bill of materials might explain part of it, I think there is a more systemic situation that Lenovo needs to correct. Hopefully someone with authority at Lenovo takes this blog to heart and does something about it.
June 8th, 2007 2:41 pm
From Notebook review forum
“I placed an order during the Memorial Day sale w/ Meyer EPP, and then it got cancelled a few days later because my shipping address was not on my credit card. I got that fixed, and then placed another order on 6/2, and the price was cheaper for me since they downgraded to 512 ram (I’m going to buy 2×1GB anyway). So the total was actually a little cheaper than my initial order during the Memorial day sale.
I really didn’t expect it to ship, but it did, and I got it today 6/8. Just to give some hope to people, the kind I needed when I was waiting.”
Those guys who keep their order and hope that Lenovo will solve that is stupid.
People who cancel it and reorder it get the laptop cheaper and also shipped on time, or much earlier.
June 8th, 2007 3:01 pm
THIS IS BS that people who placed FRAUDULENT MEYERS EPP ORDERS ARE GETTING THEIR THINKPADS SOONER than people who ordred before AND WITH their family’s IBM contact information. My Mac Book Pro will be here tomorrow so I am sure IBM and Lenovo are sad to lose a long time customer. Unlikely. Read this forum that talks about all these EPP orders clogging the que -
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....p?t=126157
June 8th, 2007 3:32 pm
a free t-shirt is not “making this right”
June 8th, 2007 3:50 pm
I don’t think anyone has said anything about EPP orders being cancelled, scrutinized or going out sooner than non-epp orders. Everything you hear about EPP are rumors or coincidental. I dont think anyone will ever know the full truths as it relates to the T61 orders.
June 8th, 2007 4:11 pm
I just got off a phone call with the customer rep. He ensured that the order will be shipped by the end of next week. My order date is 05/27.
June 8th, 2007 4:19 pm
i was assured it would be shipped 5/22, then 5/28, the 6/2 and now it says 6/12
do you honestly think you can trust them now?
i just keep checking the website, and everytime my ship date comes around, they add another week on.
June 8th, 2007 4:59 pm
I just canceled my T61p due to the delivery being extended out. Last time I ordered a Thinkpad it was 3 months before I got it too (z60m Dec 05) and so I wasn’t willing to get burnt again.
You guys really need to improve your systems you know. As a customer I’d like to see the progression of an order from assembly, configure, test etc. visible on your website.
As for the telephone delays at the moment, you REALLY need a queue system that tells the people the length of the call. 45 minutes might scare some off though, but that would make the wait shorter. 45mins in unacceptable you should know…
As a customer, if I order a laptop and the estimated ship is a month out, it had better ship on that date. Not shipping says a lot.
Heck, customers would probably prefer you to give a date 6 weeks out and have you overachieve!
June 8th, 2007 6:05 pm
Bottom line is ThinkPad is a good product but it comes with Lenovo’s lousy customer service/management. I ordered mine on 5/9 canceled it today and will never buy from them again.
June 8th, 2007 8:04 pm
you say you’re going to track down the problem “to ensure it does not happen again”
how does this help those who are currently being screwed over?
unless you do something about it, we won’t care that you’ve fixed it, as we’ll never order again.
also, how can you act as though this is a temp problem. the guy below said an order place 18 months ago took 3 months.
this is a permanent problem!
June 8th, 2007 8:40 pm
What the heck is a Meyers EPP order?
June 9th, 2007 2:08 am
I just wish I only had the problems you guys have
At least all you guys have the chance to order a reasonably spec’d machine.
Here in Japan, Lenovo only offer a restricted range of models with few customization options (marketing folks must think Japanese are sheep). I’ve been trying to get an x61 tablet, but there is only a single low-spec model, the 7764B4J, with a 4 cell battery and 1024×768 screen. There’s no other option at all unless I want try for some sort of grey import.
June 9th, 2007 9:03 am
Meyers EPP, for anyone who does not know, is a discount code employee Brian Meyers posted online. Well, you get something like 10% for an employee discount, so everybody and their grandma has bought an order using it. Unfortunately for honest customers like the rest of us, their orders have clogged up the system. At the same time, Lenovo has to spend their time trying to either A) Weed out these customers (should be easy, just cancel all orders with the EPP code) or B) Take a massive financial and time lost shipping all of these fraudulent orders.
It’s a shame what lengths people will go to to save $150 bucks. Now, the rest of us are stuck waiting.
Also, Tim thanks for the update, but it really just makes Lenovo look like a bunch of retards for letting such a simple thing screw over so many people. I mean, doesn’t anybody double/triple/quadruple check these things? This is, arguably, one of the biggest company launches in history (the sales back it up, even if many of them are SPP or EPP) and you can’t get it right?
As they say, the end of the movie is the part you remember. Please, give us something to make us to assuage our incredible anger so that we will remember Lenovo not for delaying our orders 2 months but, for managing to turn an incredibly bad situation into a somewhat better situation. Overnight shipping would be nice. Hell, I’d be fine with 2-day. I think that it would be in your best interest to offer a discount on a future product because their are a lot of people out there that are saying to themselves, “there is absolutely no way I will ever order from Lenovo again.” Then again, with the stuff I’m hearing from other Lenovo customers, you might as well just fire everyone and try to start over again.
June 9th, 2007 11:23 am
The EPP discount was 15% which is why so many jumped on this fraudulent deal. It is clear that Lenovo only cares about the $$money$$ over true customer service especially for us that used the discount legally. There are a number of EPP/Meyers orders shipping and gettting delivered so Lenovo has serious security issues as well because they cant figure out what orders are legal and what are not. How embarassing and this never would have happened under IBM control.
June 9th, 2007 1:24 pm
This has been quite an ordeal, but I want to thank you, Tim, for at least attempting to take responsibility and shouldering the burden. While this is not an ideal situation for any of us customers, I at least appreciate that we are now being given information (even if it is not necessarily great to hear). I guess I (as well as a lot of other customers) will just have to put up with this and hope the benefits of getting our Thinkpads outweigh the drawbacks of having to wait extended periods of time.
June 9th, 2007 1:35 pm
“Q: What about expedited shipping?
A: These orders are custom configured and will ship to the U.S. from China. Once landed, they will pass through customs and then be delivered. Moving to expedited shipping would only reduce total delivery time by 1 day, and would require 100% of the orders to be altered. The time to change all the orders manually could actually delay them more than the 1 day gained in shipping.”
But there are 64% that have to be rebooked that you could upgrade shipping on at the same time you do the rebooking. You say it will only get people a day earlier. You are right that is a small saving out of a six week or more wait. I still think you should upgrade shipping, it will show youreally are doing everything you can to get the machines to your customers.
If you can’t easily upgrade shipping you certainly can offer discounts to everyone affected. so why not offer compensation to people affected by your mistake?
June 9th, 2007 5:43 pm
“We do have a team working over the weekend on solving the re-booking issue, but please just understand that it will be until Monday or Tuesday before I have anymore information to post here.”
Well that’s encouraging … I am a VP at a Fortune 50 company and manage software development projects there. When we have a “Sev 1″ production issue, which this one at Lenovo surely meets, we would have associates working 24×7 until it is resolved.
June 9th, 2007 9:19 pm
What happened to the T60 with 4:3 14″ screen? It was offered last week. Being a Lenovo customer is like playing roulette.
June 9th, 2007 10:48 pm
I guess a question that was never answered by Tim was when the T61 14″ screens will be built. He mentioned the 15.4″ will be built by June 20th but there is no mention about the 14″. Did I miss something? Has the bezels come in? Will they start to be built? What about the orders that were done after May 24th that don’t have to be re-entered? Will the be built immediately or are parts (bezel or other stuff) on backorder?
June 9th, 2007 11:30 pm
Brian – the 14.1″ widescreen bezels were never constrained. We should know very soon what the solution is for those affected by the bezel-data-entry error.
Karl – in the U.S., we never had the T61 14.1″ standard ratio display offered to my knowledge. Please keep your inquiries about that in Matt’s T61 post – we are really trying to keep everything here consoldated to the T61 delay issues.
I also wanted to let everyone konw that I had to take a step I hate doing and un-publish some comments recently. An individual took it upon themselves to post inflammatory comments using multiple e-mail addresses & names, including at least a couple e-mail addresses that are not valid. Per our Rules, commenters need to supply a valid e-mail address and may not post duplicate comments, or otherwise post what is known as “troll bait.” I really want everyone here to be able to interact freely, but I don’t believe it is fair to anyone to have an individual stacking the deck. I did e-mail the people doing this and let them know their inflammatory comments were removed and that they could continue posting if they used a single, valid e-mail address. I appreciate everyone trying to keep this a clean, open communication dialogue for everyone, despite the frustration and anger everyone here must be feeling.
Have a great weekend
June 9th, 2007 11:58 pm
I’m very disappointed with Lenovo. The T61 was my first purchase, and I *really* think everyone has dropped the ball on it. I would cancel my order in a heartbeat and buy a Dell D630 if the D630 was even about equal. It’s not just that you forgot to order bezels (oops?) – it’s also that you didn’t tell us. Admit it: you screwed up big time. It also seems to me like your own employees don’t know what the heck is going on. I called twice and both of the reps I spoke to said it was “a bug in the system” and that my order should ship around the date given before I placed the order – 6/6. Yeah? Well no shipment details yet, or do you not email your customers when you ship a product? Keep in mind that for some of us, this is a HUGE purchase, and we check that status page every day, even though it never changes.
Since you do not give an option to not purchase an OS, I will be calling soon to get a refund on my copy of Vista. From the Vista EULA : “By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, return it to the retailer for a refund or credit. ” Andddd given how this order has gone so far, I had better be able to get a refund.
Inform us. Fix it.
June 10th, 2007 12:28 am
It has taken several days to find the efficient way to re-submit the orders. But how about manually re-entering the orders? According to the post, you will not consider it until Monday?
But is the way to find efficet way really efficent? Assume a person can re-enter an order in one minute. And he/she work 50 min per hour and 8 hour per day. The person can input 400 orders. If you hire two or three people work two rounds in this weekend. You can handle around 5000 orders. Why we still are stuck to the efficient way? Any progress so far? Just wondering.
June 10th, 2007 1:41 am
Yellowriver, I personally wouldn’t want 2 to3 people entering 5000 orders in a weekend. Too much room for human error that way, it has to be a last resort method.
Tim, I really appreciate the updates and comments you’ve posted. They have at least partly made up for this debacle. I feel no need to call up the lenovo reps to try and find out when my order will ship because I’m being informed and kept up to date on the situation. This is what you should’ve done from the beginning. Anyway, keep up the good work and keep us up to the date on the situation.
June 10th, 2007 2:44 am
I appreciate Tim’s sincere effort in shedding light on these delays. However, he may inadvertently be adding fuel to the fire of discontent by his statements:
1. “This omission (data entry error, the bezel) caused a majority of the orders taken between May 9th and May 24th to ‘hang’ or get rejected by the manufacturing process.”
I ordered my T61 on May 28th with an initial estimated shipping date (ESD) of June 8th. In my confirmation email the ESD got changed to August 30th. Many others have also reported that this ‘glitch’ occurred AFTER May 24th.
2. “We are now working to resubmit the orders and get them built and fulfilled.”
Please make fulfilling the orders chronologically your highest priority. It pisses people off to learn that others who placed their orders in June are getting theirs shipped already.
June 10th, 2007 9:26 am
so what happens when a person’s T61 order doesn’t fall into any of the above reasons why they’re delayed? My reorder was on May 31st. I didn’t order the 15.4″, didn’t gte XP and NVIDIA and didn’t have any credit card problems. What about us? What are the reasons why orders that don’t fit into the above delays haven’t shipped out? Are there other issues? other parts not in stock? Supposedly my order is at the top of the executive expedite list, but I still haven’t received any notification of why is hasn’t been built.
Tim, your thoughts?
June 10th, 2007 9:42 am
I too ordered a T61 on May 18th. The original ship date was June 4th. On that day, I checked the status online, assuming to see that my computer had been shipped as predicted, but Lenovo decided to change my estimated ship date to June 25th. There was no explanation. My configuration does not fit into the categories of delay either. I don’t get it. How could a company as large as Lenovo screw up so badly? What do you have to do to get a machine built and shipped in a reasonable amount of time? Why can’t anyone explain the delay, or give an honest assessment of the situation? Should I just wait it out or cancel my order?
June 10th, 2007 10:50 am
Tim
How do we know if my order is effected by that bazel data entry error? I ordered it on 5/18 via a telephone call. I didn’t use meyer’s EPP but i used our family EPP. Can you please email me? my email is already supplied with this comment.
Thanks.
June 10th, 2007 11:34 am
I see all this talk about the T61 and it not being delivered… Tim, when can we expect the T61p. I’m asking this because I have an order currently placed for a 15.4″ T61 and was wondering if I should cancel it and get the T61p instead. Any news as to when this model will be released?
June 10th, 2007 11:38 am
BS answer on the MeyersEPP orders. One has to only read sites that have millions of visitors (Fatwallet, Notbookreview.com) to know how many hundreds have ordred with Brian Meyers account. It sure as hell is not less than the 25 limit per employee like you imply. There are stilll (after June 1) people ordering on these sites with the Meyers information and reporting that they are receiving their fraudulent orders. It is abundantly clear by your actions and your response that the $$money$$ is more important than following any rules or guidelines you set forth for your employees. What a great exmple for top notch employees. Lenovo had to simply delete the Meyers information from the system but they didnt and people still google and use his information. It is impossible to say that these orders are not pushing legal orders to the back of the que.
Drew
My situation was about the same as yours and there was no answer as to why others are getting theirs sooner. You are better off cancelling and reordering or getting another computer as I did from Apple. Unless you were an EPP order which doesnt seem to matter anways whether its fraudulent or not.
June 10th, 2007 11:50 am
jd1010,
I personally do not think it is the best way. But it is a feasible way which is more “efficient”. I agree that it has too much room for human error. But Lenovo can use two or three times labor to complete that work. You can have a time double check or cross verify the order. If you think it is worth. I do not think 10 or 20 person labor per day is a big issue comparing to hundred/thousand orders error.
Or Lenovo can start this last resort method and try to find the efficient way at the same time. It is sort tradeoff between resources and efficiency. Lenovo may waste the labor but do solve the problem if the finally find the efficient way. But if they do not find it, then in the end of the weekend, they can tell us, well, we fail to find the efficient way to do so, but we manually finish the work.
However, now I really think we will get a message like; we fail to do so, and now it is time to manually input that. My point of view, they still try to save resource rather than efficiency of reentering correct order.
June 10th, 2007 1:34 pm
I checked the website, and they still say that the T61’s will ship in an est 1-2 weeks. Now knowing that they will have to prioritize the orders from May, wouldn’t it be rather dishonest to say that an order now would take 1-2, when in reality they’d be looking at 4-5? Just a little false advertising in my opinion :/
June 10th, 2007 3:18 pm
Good point Justin.
1) Tim says canceling and reordering would not speed up the shipping but delay it even further.
2) If I’d order today, the website gives me and estimated ship date of 6-22 (which is about a week before I can expect my current order). Yes, it says in a footnote that the final shipping date will be given once the order is submitted but still, what’s the point of giving an estimated shipping date that Lenovo knows is incorrect.
There are only 2 possibilities here: First, the 6/22 date is correct and Tim is trying to avoid people cancelling their orders or second, the 6/22 is incorrect which means that Lenovo is knowingly doing false advertising (because based on Tim’s update, they know that new orders won’t be shipped within the next 1-2 weeks).
Why am I not surprised?
June 10th, 2007 5:17 pm
The fact that T61 customers have to check comments on an obscure blog to get information about why their order is supposedly delayed 2 1/2 months is ridiculous in itself.
Get it together and communicate with your customers!
The question I’m asking myself is how much must I really like Thinkpads to not go with Dell or Sony right now….
June 10th, 2007 6:35 pm
I ordered a T-61 on 5/21 with an original ship date of 6/7 which has now been moved back to 6/26. I’m moving out of the state where the order is sent and now am faced with taking the chance that the computer will arrive prior to my departure (6/23) or forced into canceling my order and rescheduling for the new house. This is my first Lenovo purchase and will be my last unless the company provides some sort of renumeration for the unpleasant experience. When I call the reps I get a complete run around (after usually 30 minutes of waiting) and the email address doesn’t seem to be any better. This is completely unacceptable from a company as large as Lenovo and very disappointing as a first time buyer. Back to Apple…even at a 15% premium they at least understand how to keep their customers informed when a glitch hits the system and properly rewards them for the inconvenience.
June 10th, 2007 6:43 pm
I ordered on 9th JUne and estimated ship date jumped to 2nd AUg from 21st JUne. I do own a HP dv2500 (same santa rosa as t61P and ships form china) which was delayed by a day (but overall it reached on the same estimated day by a faster shipping, FEDEX caught up). HP sent me a mail with an exlplanation and a coupon for 50$. Thats what ‘Customers” are supposed to be treated. I felt happy about it.
June 10th, 2007 7:19 pm
1. I don’t really understand what all the fuss is over the Meyers EPP orders. It certainly sounds like an abuse of the program and I’m sure Lenovo is doing something about it, but that’s probably more of an HR issue and most likely we wouldn’t/shouldn’t hear about exactly what they are doing. I wouldn’t call these orders fradulent – they are certainly outside the intent of the program, but fradulent wouldn’t be how I would characterize it. How do we know that these aren’t real users who want their laptops just as bad as we do? What if they were just trying to find the best deal out there? Don’t most of us do the same when shopping for a big ticket item? If Lenovo was really after the $$$, which they should be, since they are a for profit company, then I wouldn’t think that they would prioritize the EPP orders since those do have a significant discount. In fact, I happen to know that EPP orders don’t have any kind of priority at all, or at least they didn’t when I worked for IBM.
2. To all the people out there who are thinking that they can cancel their orders and just move on….I would think again. I don’t want to add fuel to this fire, but let me explain my situation a bit.
I ordered a ThinkPad X60 tablet at the ending of April. The ship date was about 2 weeks later. It was a build to order system. I work for the US government and live overseas in Japan. Lenovo is unable to ship my order to my overseas US address, even though they recognize me as a federal employee. This presents 2 problems for me. 1 – it means that I have to have the laptop shipped somewhere else and then have someone forward it to me and 2 – it means that I now have to pay a sales tax for whereever I have the unit shipped. This amounts to about $150 worth of extra charges for me.
Therefore, I asked my parents if I could have the laptop shipped to them and have them forward it to me. This caused a delay in the credit card processing since I needed to add their address as an authorized ship to address. Once I got that cleared up my ship date slipped by about a week. I wasn’t notified, I found out by checking the status on the website.
During this time, I called in to Lenovo and spoke to a very friendly sales rep. I had some questions and he tried to help. We weren’t able to get the result that I wanted, but he was friendly and I didn’t wait on hold forever. Just in case you’re wondering, the issue that I had was related to the version of OneNote that Lenovo wanted to pre-install. I wanted 2007 and the website didn’t specify which version it was. In some places they referred to 2007 but in most places it didn’t specify. I didn’t want to end up with a 3 year old program when the newer version had come out 6 months previously. People ordering new systems be careful, you wouldn’t want to pay $50 and find out later that it’s the old version.
About a week before the order was to be shipped, someone posted a coupon code which would result in a $200 savings for me. I asked (via e-mail) if I could just apply the coupon to my order and I was told that I couldn’t. I woudl have to cancel my order and place a new one. Ok, $200 is worth it for me to wait a few more weeks so I cancelled my order, again via e-mail.
Less than a week later, right about the time my first order was supposed to ship, Lenovo started the 25% off sale. Again, this resulted in more savings and so I placed yet another order (#3). Then I received an e-mail that my first order would be delayed by another week or so. I thought this was strange since I had requested to cancel that order. I e-mailed back to find out what was going on and they said that they may not be able to get the first order cancelled since it was already in the queue to be manufactured. I was told that if it shipped they col dget it redirected or they would have it picked up at no charge to me.
A few days later I got an e-mail indicating that the first order shipped. I informed Lenovo and they said they would have it redirected. In the meantime there were rumours about an impending release of the ThinkPad X61 tablets. I asked that order #2 be cancelled and I considered cancelling #3 and just waiting for the X61 tablet. More time passed and I got an e-mail stating that order #2 was delayed. Again I thought this was strange since I cancelled.
On 5/31 the X61 tablet was announced. Since I live in Japan, I was up late at night on 6/1 my time hoping to catch the time when Lenovo updated the website. I was able to order my X61 tablet very early.
The next day, I received 2 e-mails from Lenovo indicating that order #2 and #3 had shipped. I e-mailed Lenovo and asked for instructions. I didn’t hear back from them so I instructed my parents to reject the shipment.
At that point I had over $7,200 in charges on my credit card from Lenovo. I e-mailed and asked for the status on the credits and they said that the first order was shown as delivered and they had received back order #2 and would be issuing a credit. I started to get concerned and asked whom #1 was delivered to and when the credit for #3 would be issued.
Since then I haven’t heard back and I have disputed the first charge for order #1. You see, this was charged on an Amex Gold charge card. I need to pay the balance every month (unlike a credit card) and I don’t have an extra $7,200 sitting around.
I know that Lenovo is working on getting this all straightened out and I’m not too worried, especially since I used my Amex Gold card and they will protect me if the need arises.
I guess the point that I am trying to make with this is that:
1. The orders may ship a lot earlier than the website says
2. Even if you cancel, your order may still be shipped
I’ve been a user and believer in ThinkPads since the very beginning. I don’t think the situation is ideal, but I will wait patiently for my new laptop to arrive. Would I like it to arrive faster? Sure, but this is the small price you pay when you want absolutely the best computer you can get and you buy it right on the day it was announced.
June 11th, 2007 7:34 am
“Q: What about expedited shipping?
A: These orders are custom configured and will ship to the U.S. from China. “
If they are configured in China, why can’t they ship to Japan??
(But now I am wondering, maybe it would be easier to fly to HK to get one when they are released there. Maybe combine it with a biz trip.)
June 11th, 2007 7:57 am
Andrew,
As far as I know, you can’t order off the US website and have a delivery made outside the country. The pitiful thing is that I do have a US mailing address, as do all US government employees working overseas (FPO/APO). This address can only receive shipments sent through the US Postal System and Lenovo isn’t capable of sending it via USPS (probably since it comes from China). So, they expect me to pay to have it shipped somewhere in the US, and pay the associated taxes for that destination, and then have someone else take the time to reship it to me.
June 11th, 2007 9:08 am
madcow101333,
Yep, and it sucks worse if you don’t have anyone in the US to ship it to you. I’m also in Japan, which is why I’m considering alternative ways of getting one — and not the single underpowered Japanese x61 model (#7764B4J). Of course, if its too difficult, I’ll just get something else.
June 11th, 2007 11:53 am
My order status still hasnt changed so I guess the automated fix is not going as well as hoped. Any updates Tim? Thank you.
June 11th, 2007 11:58 am
This whole situation at Lenovo is BS.
I’ve ordered my T60p on 5/15/2007 which was to ship by end of month then the date was changed to 6/3/2007 then to 6/8/2007 and then to …… 7/25/2007. The reps at Lenovo are a bunch of liars giving me different excuse as to why the order haven’t shipped. When it didn’t ship on 6/8/07 I called Lenovo and the rep told me to disregard the new Estimated Ship date of 7/25/07 because she has a note that orders placed mid-May are to ship either today 6/8 or Monday. I called on Monday and I was told that the information shows that I called last friday and was told that it will ship 6/15.
WHAT IS GOING ON? I am going to cancel with Lenovo and get it from other vendor. I’ve found at least 20 vendors online that have the same config of T60p in stock, some reliable ones as many as 200-300 units. Prices is the same and out of state purchase would save me on tax.
To add to the weirdness of this whole situation, I ordered another unit with slightly different config but same screen size and the order was received within 4 days. Explain please.
June 11th, 2007 1:23 pm
Mr. Tim Supples
So did Lenovo fixed all the orders during this weekend? As you have promised in your posting on 6/9? Please, Please, Please say yes!
Please give us some good news about SHIPPING dates!!!
Thanks
June 11th, 2007 1:52 pm
Here is an update I’ve received last Friday. Funny thing is that it states that if you’d like to modify or cancel the order you should call Ryan Solomon (person who took this order). I called ready to cancel and the voicemail states that he is out of the office until 6/25. Isn’t this some sort of coincidence.
Below I quote the message I have received (order number removed for protection)
“
Subject Line: Your Lenovo order ###### has been delayed.
Dear Customer
We apologize, but we are unable to ship one or more items on your order but anticipate shipment within 1 to 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:
http://www.directlenovo.com/orderstatu
No action is required if you accept this delay notification of 1 to 30 days. Should you have any concerns, or if you would like to modify or cancel your order please call RYAN SOLOMON at our toll-free customer service number, 1(866)428-4465, or email drsolomo@directlenovo.com.
You are a valued customer and we apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused.
Lenovo Customer Support
“
June 11th, 2007 2:01 pm
I just talked to your customer service again and honestly, they are no help. They just kept telling me they have no answers to my questions and that their warehouse is in China so they can’t find out any information. So what are they good for? They just sit there and answer the phone so they can tell people they have no answers? It’s getting really ridiculous for waiting 2 months+ for a laptop.
June 11th, 2007 2:03 pm
Hi everyone,
I know that our team is still working on the solution. As stated in my last update to the main post, I should have more concrete information to report later today or tomorrow.
b.deren – that e-mail looks like an automated e-mail that is sent out when a certain deadline is not met on our end. I do not know all the details, but I believe those notices are required by the FTC and are entirely automatic.
Stay tuned everyone
June 11th, 2007 2:09 pm
Thanks Tim,
We have waited for more than a month, we can definately wait till tomorrow! to get updated status! My order status still remains same! so i know my order has not changed! it doesn’t seems like it has updated bezel information!!!!!!
June 11th, 2007 2:24 pm
Tim
I know you already know this, but i thought to give you more information, It looks like following parts are missing from my order! after comparing to what you guys are shipping.
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
Is it possible for you to fix on your side!
June 11th, 2007 2:28 pm
I’m going to get mine 1 to 30 days wowowo……..
June 11th, 2007 2:32 pm
I believe that all the problems will be fixed soon. But I would like to give another aspect. In Greece ware I live we cannot order a CTO machine on line. If I go to reseller in order for him to place a CTO order he has to order least 15 same machines. So if I need something extreme that cost a lot of money he cannot order it because it is really hard to sell the rest of the machines.
June 11th, 2007 2:59 pm
Is it common for the order status to show: “In process”? I just want to make sure my credit card isn’t holding up my 5/28 order (the ship and billing address are slightly different)
June 11th, 2007 3:34 pm
Notebook manufacturer should know that they are doing business. That’s why with taking balance of both party’s benefit, they shall be more honest in dealing with customer. I don’t mean they are not honest.
June 11th, 2007 3:40 pm
Tim,
Thanks for an update on the the T61. I had placed my order on 5/27 but was one of those who ship date was moved to 8/30.
Even though my patience is on the verge of running out, i shall wait for the PC to ship.
As a customer, I would like to say a bunch of stuff, but i know you guys are trying your best to get this resolved.
I ahve called the CS a few times already but never got a definitive date.
It would be nice if you could provide an update twice a day so that we customers are aware of what happening and instead of us guessing.
Thanks
DM
P.S. did i mention i have to leave the country in 2 weeks
June 11th, 2007 4:08 pm
I ordered a T61 on 5/23 and received a ESD of 6/11. As this date has remained unchanged since that time, I chose to believe that my order may be among the minority of customers that would receive their laptops without incident. I called today and received the unhappy news that my laptop was delayed by 1-2 weeks per the Lenovo CSR.
Though I am very disappointed in the delay, I am even more disappointed in Lenovo’s handling of the delay and lack of any evidence that they are doing anything to resolve the problem or offer any accommodation for their unlucky, but faithful customers.
Case in point: If the problem is being addressed, why did the CSR tell me that my ESD may not be updated from 6/11 and that I should just take his word that my laptop will be completed in the next 1-2 weeks. If I can’t count on the Order Status feature offered on the Lenovo site, I guess Lenovo feels it’s user-friendly to have me periodically wait 45 minutes or more to talk with a CSR that clearly doesn’t really know what’s going in China and can’t offer any resolution to me whatsoever.
As a side note, I ordered a second T61 for my home-based business on 6/1 and initially received an ESD of 6/22. Unfortunately, this ESD slid to 8/9 by the next day. I canceled this order today and will get my second laptop from Dell.
I don’t think that losing a single laptop sale will be of any special note to Lenovo as they appear to be swimming in customer demand for the T61 and clearly can’t handle the business they already have.
Bottomline – I really wanted two Thinkpads but have lost my confidence that Lenovo will deliver their products in any reasonable timeframe and has chosen to even forego updating their Order Status system to allow me the most current ESD information.
June 11th, 2007 4:43 pm
I had an order on 5/14. Estimated shipping date was originally shown as 6/1, was later changed to 6/20. Is this 6/20 going to be changed again after today or tomorrow once the correction Tim mentioned is done?
I had ordered two Thinkpad a couple years ago. Both were ordered on weekend, I was able to get the machines before the followed Wednesday. I am really surprised this time by this episode of fiasco.
June 11th, 2007 4:54 pm
Well I am not sure if I am even posting in the right place but I ordered T60p and it hasn’t shipped. Any reason the T60p is not shipping. Is it because of 15.4″ screen. Somebody please give me something before I just cancel this darn order.
June 11th, 2007 5:57 pm
I wanted to order second one but holding off on that order as i am not sure my first one will be delivered or not. I have lost confidence. I don’t like DELL or HP as their quality is realy bad. (sighs). Let’s see what happens! i’ll wait a week more and then i’ll order from DELL.
June 11th, 2007 6:40 pm
Tim,
You really are doing lenovo a service posting information and I encourage you to continue to do so. As I stated earlier in my the biggest issue you are dealing with is expectations and your information helps to adjust those expectations to a realistic level.
One question I have is based on your representations the fundemental issue has been identified and is being corrected. Does this mean you are prepared to go on record as saying the updated ship dates are the outside window for when these orders will be fulfilled? Meaning my original order is mid may, my original ship date is early june, my revised ship date is now late june and is accurate.
Can you go on record as telling me this date will not be moved again? Help me get my expectations in line because that is what my current understanding of the situation would lead me to believe. Knowing now if that assumption is incorrect can save me revisiting the disappointment I had when my ship date first moved.
June 11th, 2007 9:35 pm
Tim,
If you rebook the all order or manually modify the orders, what i know is it puts the order at the end of the queue, means although we have ordered it early 5/18 but we’ll get it at the end, due to no fault of us but the queue system followed by lenovo. I am frustrated more and more to see people who have ordered very late are getting their computer first and we are not getting it on time. The rebooking will cause our orders not to be delivered till end of august, Can you give updated ETA if rebooking is required without disturbing the queue?
June 11th, 2007 10:02 pm
Slowly but certainly I’m getting pissed at Lenovo. I ordered a T61 in Mai and got the absurd 8/29 shipping date. I immediately sent an email to customer support and asked what this means, I didn’t get a reply for about one week and was then told that my system will ship mid June. They also said that they will update the ESD on the order page and so on.. (never happened)
I think it’s good that there is a blog like this one where some customers can find some information. But, is this the way Lenovo cares about it’s customers? Not everybody who buys a thinkpad will search the internet for some blog with some information on the delays. They didn’t even send an e-mail to all the customers with messed-up orders explaining the situation. Seriously, I think Lenovo has to implement some changes in the way they conduct business.
The people who messed this one up should be take care when I become CEO of Lenovo, but I probably won’t, since the company doesn’t life up to my expectations.
June 11th, 2007 11:21 pm
Everybody keeps talking about a T61 machine and I have ordered a T60p, I hope I get a decent explanation as to what is going on either from here or when I call in tomorrow when I get back to work. I know Lenovo doesn’t care about me canceling a single order but without making any threads that translates into about 40-60 machines over the period of 12 months. ‘Nuff said.
If Lenovo cannot fulfill my single unit (personal) order I would have no doubt it can’t fulfill orders for our business needs. I saw these thinkpads last year and I was very pleased with their quality but if Lenovo can’t ship them then its pointless. I don’t mean to offend anyone here but waiting for a laptop past already long 3-4 initial weeks is simply retarded.
Last time we ordered some 16 units from HP and they shipped 3 days late we received free hard drive upgrade, case and multiple apologies. Lenovo hasn’t done ANYTHING.
For order placed 5/15 and with initial ESD of 6/3/2007 later changed to 6/8/07 and then pushed to 7/25/07 is simply a laugh in customer’s face. I don’t care what delays Lenovo has fulfilling orders or what kind of error they have in their system that nobody noticed for months. The fact that you are still accepting orders online with estimated shipping of 2-3 weeks knowing that you can’t fulfill orders going back as far as April is fraudulent.
June 11th, 2007 11:41 pm
I’d love an upgrade or 2. That’d sure shut me up for another 1-2 weeks wait
I don’t know what would be sweeter though, upgrade of my machine or a public apology run on every major newspaper
June 12th, 2007 12:06 am
I would love my laptop then public apology. I just want my laptop.
June 12th, 2007 2:29 am
DM, you mentioned you are leaving the country 2 weeks later.
For my case, I am leaving here this Friday.
Actually, I putted my order on 5/9 and continuous looked the progress. I think one month and more is totally enough for a company to ship the laptop. However, I am not lucky or may be not smart enough.
I called the CS near the end of May to figure out what’s the problem. But no answer, no verifying, all different excuses. They let my order stay there for whole month. No one keep his eye in the manufacturing progress. And even I try to tell them there may be something wrong, they don’t believe that. After realizing there probably some problem, they take whole week to find out what’s the problem. And now, we don’t know how long it will be solved.
I know you may be anxious now. But believe, when you realize it is impossible to have that. Then it is really relaxing and encouraging. The laptop will finally be shipped. Lenovo is doing things right.
June 12th, 2007 6:30 am
I ordered my T61 on 5/23 and reached my ESD yesterday. I have been watching this blog so I really didn’t expect the unit to ship what with missing bezels and other order system glitches. When I think if I had just waited a few more days before ordering this laptop I could be missing all this fun.
I awoke today to an automated Lenovo email talking me that I need to consider a new shipment schedule and that Lenovo “anticipates shipment within 1 to 30 days of this notification.” I followed Lenovo’s suggestion to consult my on-line order status and was very discouraged to find a new ESD of 8/16! Your software glitch is apparently still alive and well. Could someone at Lenovo please tell me if I am supposed to believe the email that says shipment is anticipated in the next 1-30 days or my order status report that has a timespan of some 66 days distant! It’s really hard to take that it’s looking like I will receive my Thinkpad after many other customers who ordered just recently.
Mr. Supples – can you please shed any more light on this situation? I have owned 7 Thinkpads starting with the 770Z and have never been involved in such a mess with IBM or any other hardware vendor. In whatever time remains between now and my laptop’s delivery, I hope to see some concrete evidence that Lenovo is trying to do something about this fiasco, has expediously resolved the issues delaying our shipments and has extended some consideration to the many customers that have been compromised. The present sorry mess makes it very difficult for me to continue to be a Thinkpad customer in the future. At this point, we are all counting on Lenovo to turn this situation around. I hope you have better news for us this week than the news I got this morning.
June 12th, 2007 8:22 am
Maybe someone (Matt or Tim) could address the high number of threads discussing the “blue screen of death” and the T61. Is this being addressed? It would seem to violate the implied warranty of merchantability and put Lenovo in a prime position for a class action lawsuit. I’m not a computer geek – I won’t be reformatting my hard drive and shutting down drivers. I expect my computer – whenever it arrives – to work as advertised. And I’m happy to see that there are plenty of people with issues because if Lenovo is shipping a product that doesn’t work as advertised – there are plenty of ways to have a legal recourse.
June 12th, 2007 9:43 am
I ordered my T61 on 5/23 with a 6/11 ship date. My ship date has been changed to 8/16 per the Order Status page. My cousin ordered the exact same machine 5/28 and recieved his yesterday. I called CS and I was told that the Aug date was incorrect and that my laptop “should” ship by the end of the month. I was told this was due to the high demand for the T61. Why would high demand keep me from getting my laptop when the exact same machine that was ordered days after mine has been delievered?
Please explain to me why this is happening. Why do I have to call the CS # to get noninformed answers? Why are customers left in the dark waiting for machines that other customers that ordered after are receiving?
June 12th, 2007 10:11 am
Dell just sent me a 30% off coupon for their Latitude, I am seriously considering to get a D630 instead if I do not hear anything today or tomorrow…
June 12th, 2007 10:19 am
Joe, if your read what tim wrote you’d know why your cousin got his computer first. As for the customer service reps, it is unbelieveable that even after all this they are still left in the dark as to what is going on. Lenovo is so incompetent that after 3 weeks they still have yet to send out a memo to the reps and customers about this problem.
Maybe we should do lenovo a flavor and copy what tim wrote and send it to our sales agents. Then maybe word would get around that customer service center.
June 12th, 2007 10:26 am
What about the vast majority of people who have purchased a T61 that don’t read this obscure blog? It is inexcusable that there hasn’t been an email sent that explains the situation. It is also inexcusable that CS reps are giving false information as to the source of the delay. We know and you know that the delay is not due to “high demand” so how is it that customer service reps do not have this information? Why does the website still indicate new orders will be shipped in 1-2 weeks? I am not upset about the delay as these things do happen. Your failure to address these other issues, however, is incomprehensible and very disappointing.
June 12th, 2007 10:37 am
YW.
How did you get 30% off coupoun from dell. Dell is pretty expensive, if i get 30% off i could also consider switching to dell. The wait is just killings us plus someone quoted here lenovo and the blue screen of death, means they are shipping not quality parts, something is definately wrong with drivers or parts shipped, and once you reformat your hard drive i am not sure support will be void or not.
June 12th, 2007 11:11 am
On 5/28 I made my first Lenovo purchase using a valid EPP (non-Meyers) and was immediately giving a ESD of 8/30. I nearly did a flip on the couch as I ordered it. I checked again the next day and was bumped to 8/31.
While I certainly apprecaite Tim’s efforts here, I can almost guarantee you that this is not a company sponsored effort to provide solice for the grieving masses! This is like ordering a $30 cheeseburger and being told to come back tomorrow to eat it. We are talking about one, two, three THOUSAND dollar machines, and this is unaccecptable.
You have NO idea how I am anticipating my first TP, but If I do not receive it the week before I go on a business trip in mid July, I’m cancelling my order and making my complaints known to the right people.
Here’s a thought for Lenovo though, put out a pre-greeting message while on hold for a CSR informing customers of everything that is known until this point. I know it can be done, we do it at my company.
Second, publish something officially on the Lenovo site and send an e-mail to ALL customers affected by the delays!
I have seen many people wait an ABSURD amount of time for things as long as they are kept in the loop.
June 12th, 2007 12:08 pm
My two cents to this discussion
I work in a software firm where we have to guarantee turnaround times of ATMOST 48 hours to customer related issues. My firm is probably 1/10th the size of lenovo and we deal with far more complex issues than fixing our Web Application Logic to reflect accurate dates. I cannot believe in 2007 with such advancement in inventory management and e-commerce that a) Manual Entry Errors can go by unnoticed b) There is not contingency to expeditely resolve human error related issues rather just let the orders *hang* or get *rejected*.
When I decided to buy a ThinkPad, I was counting on dealing with a degree of professionalism ThinkPads have traditionally been associated with and the reason why they have been relied upon over the years.
The nightmarish wait that I have to go through now and the degree of incompetency shown by the Customer Service Reps shakes my belief on how I will be dealt with in the future if incase any problems arise with my Thinkpad (thats IF I indeed receive it)
Lenovo should realize that they live in a VERY competitive market and having an outstanding product is NOT all that is necessary to survive here.
June 12th, 2007 12:08 pm
Please define how you are going to make this right, other than getting the laptop to me. I ordered mine more than a month ago, 5/9, and still have no idea when it will be shipped. All I know is that since I ordered mine between 5/9 and 5/24 and got the XP and NVIDIA configuration that it is going to be delayed.
June 12th, 2007 12:14 pm
I am greatly disappointed that Lenovo is only working on a solution just now. This problem has been known for over a month so there is no excuse for a fix to take this long. Hopefully Lenovo will get their act together and deliver sooner rather than later.
June 12th, 2007 12:33 pm
Tim, any updates yet? Should I call my sales rep and have him redo the config so it has the bezel as an item? I ordered 3 weeks ago the information has yet to be changed. Also, when are you going to communicate to your clients about these delays? Most of your clients do not read this blog as stated earlier.
June 12th, 2007 12:57 pm
I ordered a T61 on 5/20 and my ESD was 6/7. Of course, when it became 6/7, the ESD was updated to 6/26. If the problems only apply to orders that were placed between 5/6 and 5/24, I’m beginning to wonder if it would be better for everyone to cancel and resubmit their own orders. Assuming that the issue with the bill of materials has been fixed AND the shipping date glitch has been remedied, maybe, just maybe, we’ll actually have a realistic estimated shipping date rather than waiting for it to magically get pushed back again and again until God knows when while Lenovo figures out how to resubmit our orders. Granted, maybe we’ll jump to the front of the queue when the issue is addressed and fixed, but when will that occur? I’m going to be traveling for a few weeks, beginning on 6/29. I’ve already emailed customer service about this since I won’t be around to receive in the event that it does ship on the 26th and I’d rather have it with me before I leave. Of course, I have not received an email from them. Granted, I emailed last Friday.
Maybe I just need to wait a few more weeks for a response.
I’ve never owned a Thinkpad before, but I have heard great things, so I’m hanging in there. Thank you, Tim, for shedding some light on this situation. Sadly, you’re our only window in that world and I’m sure we’re all anxiously awaiting more news.
June 12th, 2007 12:59 pm
I’ve been watching this whole debacle unfold for the past few weeks. I’ve held off from ordering one of these myself for graduate school for the sheer reason that I HAVE to have it in my hands by the end of July. I’ve advised my classmates of the same. It seem to me that by not being up front about this, and publishing realistic information, they are harming themselves in a huge way.
If I could be assured that if I ordered this laptop in a certain timeframe, that I could have it in hand by the close of July, I’d order it. As it stands, I’m buying an HP unless something changes here.
-Adam
June 12th, 2007 1:26 pm
I’m repeating most of what Ryan Chairs said because it also describes my situation.
I’ve been using and buying ThinkPads for my company since 1994. In those days I was in IBM’s Key Influencer program (I’m a computer magazine editor).
I ordered a T61 on 5/23. During ordering it was claimed to ship 6/2. After the order was confirmed it said 6/8. Then the online order status said 6/11. I ordered an identical second T61 on 5/25, and was originally promised 6/12, then the online status showed 8/29 (!!!).
The 5/23 order should have shipped yesterday. This morning I received an automated e-mail saying Lenovo “anticipates shipment within 1 to 30 days of this notification.” Checking online order status shows 8/2. I’m better at math than Lenovo and immediately saw that 5/12 + 30 days is not 8/16.
I also note that the if the actual shipping date is not 5/12 + 30 days, the e-mail statement does not comply with FTC regulations for mail-order sales. Oh, maybe it does, because I can cancel the order, and start over somewhere else. But stringing customers along with constantly-moving dates is not an acceptable business practice, which is why govt agencies and courts have come down hard on other companies with this behavior.
So I called Lenovo sales and a friendly Canadian told me I’d likely not get the machine for months “because it’s a new model”.
That’s 6 different shipping dates for one order on 5/23 for one computer:
1. Original website claim of 6/2.
2. Order confirmation of 6/8.
3. Online status of 6/11.
4. E-mail claiming 1-30 days from 6/12.
5. Online status of 8/16.
6. Lenovo rep saying “late summer”.
That’s I have no idea what’s up with my 5/25 order, but I expect the same absurd stream of nonsense.
As I recall, IBM invented the PC manufacturing and sales business because it invented the PC. Lenovo is essentially the new name of the IBM PC Company. Lenovo is apparently un-inventing the PC business. That will look good in history books.
June 12th, 2007 1:36 pm
Oops … clicked Submit inadvertently. My posting had two typos regarding dates (I was jumping between screens to verify and must have submitted…)
The online order status of the 5/23 order is now 8/2 (I said 8/16 in two places). So the corrected info is:
That’s 6 different shipping dates for one order on 5/23 for one computer:
1. Original website claim “estimated” 6/2.
2. Order confirmation said 6/8.
3. 5/23 online status said 6/11.
4. 6/12 e-mail claiming 1-30 days, so latest date should be 7/12.
5. 6/12 online status says 8/2.
6. Lenovo rep said “late summer”.
June 12th, 2007 1:45 pm
Tim,
Are you posting an update today? I am getting tired of waiting just like everyone else. Is there an update on the XP/NVIDIA configuration? How much more delay am I looking at? I am willing to wait, but not till August!
I hope there is an official update from Lenovo.
June 12th, 2007 1:54 pm
It’s like How to Run a Business 101
1. Communicate with your customers
2. Sell what you have in stock
June 12th, 2007 2:15 pm
I gave up. Order has been cancelled as of 6/12/2007.
Its funny how when I called on Friday 6/8 and was told that it will ship that day (6/8) or on Monday (6/11). Nothing was shipped, called yesterday (6/11) and was told it would ship on 6/15. I called today (6/12) to see what’s up and to cancel and was told order would ship on 6/19.
Also funny how the rep “threatened” me that if the order is already built I would have to ship it back as to try to scare me away from cancelling. I got AMEX fully behind my back, so bring it on.
Since Lenovo cannot go on record and let people know what’s going on with orders that are dated back to April and haven’t been shipped, yet they accept new orders promising 2-3 week turnaround, I will make sure that proper ratings are published whenever possible. I believe this situation is very wide spread and I already see negative ratings posted at resellerratings and other such outlets. Good luck Lenovo; you just lost a very good consumer, one that buys a lot for business and recommends even more.
June 12th, 2007 2:39 pm
We sent a PO in late April and we are STILL waiting…..
June 12th, 2007 2:49 pm
I ordered my computer on May 9th and I just got my rebooking notification. It looks exactly like the email that I received when I originally bought the computer. No additional explanation, just the exact same email. My original ship date was 5/28, my updated date was 8/30, and now with my “rebooking” my ship date is 8/17.
Tim, you promised to make it right. What are you going to do? I know, I know, 8/17 probably isn’t right either, but what else do I have to go on. I’ve now been on hold for 45 min. without speaking to someone and it usually takes 3-4 days to get an email response.
Against my better judgement I’m about to order a Dell.
June 12th, 2007 2:49 pm
Order placed 5/26, ship date on printed receipt 6/8, hasn’t shipped. (Order status says 8/30, but Lenovo representatives said 6/8 was correct.) Tim states they will resubmit these orders. Today on Lenovo’s site almost every upgraded component will delay shipment, configuring the same system identical to the order placed on 5/26 has an estimated ship date of 7/31/2007. So now even if the orders are submitted you don’t appear to have enough components on hand to fill the order within a reasonable amount of time.
Does Lenovo have components reserved for these backlogged orders, that were rejected, or is the 7/31 date accurate in regards to the timeframe we should be planning on? Quite frankly would like to know one way or the other since Lenovo isn’t sending emails or responding to them, and customer service is beyond clueless when you talk to them.
June 12th, 2007 2:55 pm
Lenovo sales rep just tells me end of june your order will ship!
June 12th, 2007 3:28 pm
jd1010: We’ve all heard so many conflicting stories from the sales reps that few of us trust they really know what’s going on.
I’ve been silently watching this unfold as well, I hope Lenovo is considering the statistics given few of their customers actually read these blogs, forums, etc. yet there are hundreds of people stating they’re cancelling their orders, and going somewhere else for business. The number of actual customers with the same frustration must be many times what we see online.
I find it annoying as well. The problem isn’t just with T61 orders – if It was, I would cancel and order a T60. Judging by other experiences on forums, that’s not the case, and I’m thinking of cancelling to get a Dell or an HP as well.
June 12th, 2007 3:39 pm
I wonder what the quality of these laptops will be once they do ship, if they ever ship.
June 12th, 2007 3:39 pm
Maybe a Slashdotting can put some public pressure on Lenovo to be more honest to its customer base.
June 12th, 2007 3:48 pm
Maybe you can pass this message on to the Lenovo management.
I put in my order on May 17th, and my schedule ship date is now June 22nd. I’m willing to stick with my order, because I believe Lenovo probably makes some of the best laptops. With the assemblers rushing to get my order out due to the backlog, I’m concerned that my laptop won’t be assembled with the same amount of precision as usual.
Since according to your blog, Lenovo caused this backlog problem due to a software error in not letting the factories know that a bezel was needed for the laptop, could Lenovo compensate its customers, who are patiently waiting, by giving them an extra year of warranty free of charge? This “gift” would allay any fears that the new T61 will be good as Lenovo promised, and it would reward Lenovo’s customers for waiting.
June 12th, 2007 4:23 pm
So I decided to call again. The lady said third week in June and possible as late as June 29th, which is a month and a day after my original est. ship date (ordered 5/9). Its soooo frustrating.
June 12th, 2007 5:56 pm
Ordered: 5/10
Original estimate: 8/30 (hmmm)
Number of calls to CS: 2 (had lunch after dialing) – first they told me its a website error, then it will ship within 1-2 weeks
Now: 6/29
After reading this blog, I understand the problem. My GF’s laptop broke, so I ordered myself a new one and gave her my older IBM. Now she’s upset – I am still using it and she wants a new laptop presto. Lenovo should have told me the problem is the girl, not the laptop.
http://www.dblock.org/ShowPost.aspx?id=1153
June 12th, 2007 6:01 pm
Hi All
My shipping status has been changed to 06/12/2007 from original ESD of 08/29/2007.
The order date is 05/25/2007. I am excited to receive my T61.
good luck to you all
June 12th, 2007 6:17 pm
Well, here’s something strange. I went to check my order status, and now it states “Please verify that your customer number and order number have been entered correctly.” I clicked on the link from the confirmation email and I’ve tried entering the data manually. Does anyone know what’s going on?
June 12th, 2007 6:27 pm
To add to the pile of evidence:
I ordered a custom ordered T60p during the memorial day sale on May 16th.
Said it would ship on June 11th. Then today I get an e-mail saying its delayed 1 to 30 days. Check the website, estimated ship date of August 16th. Talk about a confidence breaker.
Here I am taking a chance on Lenovo, I usually purchase Dell, but with Lenovo I found a product I’m actually excited about and they really let me down. An estimate within three months accuracy is ridiculous. Whats the point. I’m frantically pricing out other laptop options and considering the pros and cons of canceling my Lenovo order. Its a shame.
School starts August 28th, we’ll see if I’m ranting or raving about Lenovo to my classmates.
June 12th, 2007 6:31 pm
Its a good thing that my sales rep gave me his extension, this way I wouldnt have to wait 45 MINUTES TO GET THROUGH THE CS! Since I ordered on 5/24 he has gone on jury duty for 2 weeks and is now on vacation until June 19th. Is LENOVO a real company or is this the best scam in history?
P.s. please ship my computer
June 12th, 2007 6:35 pm
I just checked my order status, and still those bezel and other lcd stand missing. It doesn’t seem like lenovo has done anything to update the order or given us any concrete answer on few things like:
1) If they resumit orders then will it be pushed to the end of the queue? that’s is very important. I think if its pushed back to the end of the queue most people will cancel their orders. Why should we suffer for no fault of our own?
2) When our order status will be updated? I don’t even get emails saying updated order status, However, sales rep told me its going to be now June /26 for my order placed on May/18th. However, I have seen changed dates quite often, so until some executive like Tim tells us concrete dates we wouldn’t trust those dates.
3) is it possible to find out and post how they are going to handle issue #1? Manual Rebooking, Automatic? how at the assembly level?
June 12th, 2007 6:42 pm
well I just checked my order status…my new ship date is 8/17 woohoo!! Ordered on May 11th and I have a august 17th ship date. Seriously though, my order status page now has the two missing parts on it which is encouraging. Now, can you tell me when my computer will actually ship??
June 12th, 2007 6:51 pm
Ken,
Most probably your order has been cancelled!!!
June 12th, 2007 6:59 pm
jd1010
Are those missing parts same?
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
June 12th, 2007 7:00 pm
My order is postponed to 6/26 as stated in the status but the two missing parts are not there. I can not believe the date because what Lenovo did in the past. Are the employees of LENOVO just sitting on their ass and doing nothing?
June 12th, 2007 7:01 pm
Ken
Did you call them up to cancel the order? If yes! cancellation still works! If No! probabally all of our orders will be cancelled automatically! (I hope not but thats a way lenovo’s computer system is going and its very sad to see this happening along with T61 quality problems like blue screen posted somewhere).
June 12th, 2007 7:03 pm
This is getting ridiculous, the ship date on my order get yet another delay to 6/29. Is this going to be the last one or what?
June 12th, 2007 7:03 pm
Lenovo sucks
Where those parts where there originally in your order? or your order has been fixed automatically?
June 12th, 2007 7:09 pm
Nope, I definitely did not call or write to get my order canceled. I just emailed Lenovo about it and I’m hoping someone will respond.
I’m bummed to hear about the BSOD’s, but it doesn’t sound universal. From what I’ve read, it seems like a driver issue for the Turbo Memory, so its not the end of the world. I just want a Thinkpad in my hands
June 12th, 2007 7:29 pm
Ken
It seems like english to chinese translation problem. American order system should have said “Build It” should have got translated in Chinese like “Cancel it”. I can’t think otherwise why your order was cancelled?
Lenovo
Please do not cancel our orders.
June 12th, 2007 7:30 pm
Notebooktechie, My order status page did not originally have those parts on the list. I actually checked this morning and they still weren’t there. It must’ve just updated within the last few hours.
Yes those were the two parts added.
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
I also got an automated e-mail from lenovo which made it seem like I just ordered my computer today. As a matter of fact, it was the same message I got when I first ordered my computer on May 11th. Wierd stuff. I guess the automatic update of the bill of materials tim was talking about worked. Now they have to put the delayed t61’s on the priority list and get them shipped out ASAP.
June 12th, 2007 7:30 pm
Please build my system without BSOD.
June 12th, 2007 7:30 pm
So what ever happened to our update about the status of this whole mess. It does say Monday or Tuesday…
June 12th, 2007 7:33 pm
jd1010
Looks like they have updated your order with missing parts and like we all feared you are added to the bottom of the manufacturing queue. So, it will happen to all of us, to pay panelty for ordering early! and prize for all those who ordered late will get their laptop early! congrets! I am waiting for my shipment noitce which will say ESD end of August or December! I am sorry! i have lost confidence in lenovo.
June 12th, 2007 7:35 pm
Well now I’m just mad.
June 12th, 2007 7:37 pm
JD1010
All they need is write a script to update orders without updating or changing the ESD and without changing the position in the queue. Did they change your order number? or order date?
June 12th, 2007 7:38 pm
Ken
Just send email to David churbuck or Tim Supples. They are very good at responding to the issues.
June 12th, 2007 7:39 pm
Guys,
This is weired. If the automatic update of the bill of materials puts us at the end of the queue, still the ESD should not be in August. As far as I know, if you place an order today, you’ll probably get an ESD of late June or early July. I am pretty sure this ESD in August is a mistake. Otherwise, Lenovo are even getting things worse for those of us who ordered early. I am really considering cancelling my order and placing a new order.
June 12th, 2007 7:42 pm
Wallied
I thought about that option! but price has changed and the new price reflects change of more than $50 to $150 depending on what you customize! good luck! I thought about doing the same.
June 12th, 2007 7:43 pm
I ordered on 5/29 w/Nvidia and Vista (14.1 screen w/o cam) and after reading through this blog, checked my order status, originally listed to ship on 8/31. My order is listed as shipped as of today!
June 12th, 2007 7:53 pm
Best way to handle the missing part problem is not to change the bill of materials — order. All they need is a simple script that will run at the front end for T61 which will make a query to order status to get bill of materials and check if those items are present or not and if not present add those items to the bill of materials being displayed on their console for manufacturing! and if they decided to change the original order it should be done at the time of accepting the order for manufacturing, so it will not be pushed to the end of the queue. so, when the order is built they can send additional email to the customer to ignore ESD field as their order is currently being build, and will ship soon.
But When the company grows big to the size of lenovo when you kick on the tail dragon will know after 3 years that they got really kicked in the tail. I don’t think our ramblings and complains and frustrations and suggestions will have any effect on lenovo. They will continue to behave the same way they are behaving right now.
Frusted Customer.
June 12th, 2007 7:57 pm
Ok, there’s a good chance that someone is on crack at levono. (chance… not saying you are
)
Anyway… i got an email thanking me for an order i canceled almost a month ago.
June 12th, 2007 7:59 pm
Lowspeed!
This is highspeed here!
lol. Just trying to get some fun out of frustration. Looks like lenovo is like dragon. The head knows after 3 years who kicked my tail. 
lol. Muhahaha.
June 12th, 2007 8:02 pm
They should offer some sort of a monetary compensation at this point. (free battery, docking station…)
June 12th, 2007 8:06 pm
lowspeed
Hmm…. free docking station! will keep me quiet till end of June!!!!!!
hahaha! who doesn’t like bribes!!!!!!
muhahahaha! (try to keep my face smiling! but still crying for my laptop).
June 12th, 2007 8:42 pm
While I realize it is not technically the end of Tuesday yet, I’m starting to get aggravated with this. We are being denied basically any information other than a sparsely worded statement here. This is, to be honest, ridiculous. This amount of confusion is not great for any company, especially one that has such a great reputation. This is not a good thing and Lenovo should be _seriously_ considering a compensation of some form.
June 12th, 2007 8:48 pm
Compensation?
Read the previous posts:
1) When asked for shipping upgrade they say that it will delay the shipping date as we have to put it to the end of the queue.
2) Any compensation: Same asnswer was given. This is the tactic used by lenovo. Plus this is very low margin business! i don’t think they can afford! but i wouldn’t mind my free docking station if offered!
All i want is my quality laptop without Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) problems as soon as possible. I have borrowed from my friend!
NotebookTechie finally begs to lenovo “Allha ke naam pe, Bhagwan ke naam pe! God ke naam pe! mere laptop jaldi de de baba!
— Please give me my laptop soon in the name of God!” 
June 12th, 2007 9:03 pm
Just received this a minute ago.
Dear Valued Lenovo Customer,
As you may be aware, some Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and T61 orders placed between May 9 and May 25 have been delayed, and some customers ordering these systems have received inaccurate or conflicting communications concerning estimated ship dates. We know this is unacceptable to you — and it is unacceptable to us as well. We aspire to have an ordering process that is, like our notebook PCs, second to none. We apologize.
We have been working hard to identify and resolve several problems that have contributed to these delays. We expect to have the vast majority, if not all, of the affected T60 and T61 systems built by 6/26/2007. If you do not want to wait for shipment, you may cancel your order at this time by responding to this email or, if you prefer, by calling the toll-free number listed below.
We thank you for your continued patience. As a gesture of our appreciation, please select one of the following items as a free gift after receiving your computer. Please indicate your selection by placing an X in the appropriate box, entering your original order number, and reply to our LenovoCriticalOrders team at: critical@ca.lenovo.com
[ ] 6 Cell Battery for extended run time P/N 41U3198 – T61 / R61
[ ] AC Adapter P/N 40Y7659
[ ] Premium carrying case P/N 73P3597
[ ] Original Order Number
Your continued business and trust is important to us. We have begun a public discussion on these issues, and are offering details about the causes of these delays, on one of Lenovo’s official Blogs, “inside the box”. Please follow the link for the most up to date news on this subject. http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=84
Please feel free to contact us at anytime should you have any further questions or concerns.
Toll free : 1-866-428-4465.
Sincerely,
Lenovo Websales Team
critical@ca.lenovo.com
http://www.lenovo.com/think/us
June 12th, 2007 9:07 pm
What is this about BSOD? Why are they having them? on all models?
I sent an email inquiring about my shipping status and the reply was offer of battery, power adapter or carrying case. I chose the battery. Please telll me about the BSOD; maybe time to cancel outright until things get better.
June 12th, 2007 9:13 pm
The wait time on their phone line is just ridiculous, I waited twice for over an hour before I hang up. I finally got in on my third attempt also after over an hour wait.
At this point, I just wanted to cancel my order. I’m still waiting to receive instructions on how to return the docking station that was shipped separately.
Marcelo
(formely order date 5/11, ship date 9/13)
June 12th, 2007 9:25 pm
I got following email today! Looks like they are planning to ship by 6/26. I am still not sure about the free gift! I already have 6 cell battery ordered! means it is going to be another battery? The laptop already comes with AC Power thing, does it mean another power supply?
Dear Valued Lenovo Customer,
As you may be aware, some Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and T61 orders placed between May 9 and May 25 have been delayed, and some customers ordering these systems have received inaccurate or conflicting communications concerning estimated ship dates. We know this is unacceptable to you — and it is unacceptable to us as well. We aspire to have an ordering process that is, like our notebook PCs, second to none. We apologize.
We have been working hard to identify and resolve several problems that have contributed to these delays. We expect to have the vast majority, if not all, of the affected T60 and T61 systems built by 6/26/2007. If you do not want to wait for shipment, you may cancel your order at this time by responding to this email or, if you prefer, by calling the toll-free number listed below.
We thank you for your continued patience. As a gesture of our appreciation, please select one of the following items as a free gift after receiving your computer. Please indicate your selection by placing an X in the appropriate box, entering your original order number, and reply to our LenovoCriticalOrders team at: critical@ca.lenovo.com
[ ] 6 Cell Battery for extended run time P/N 41U3198 – T61 / R61
[ ] AC Adapter P/N 40Y7659
[ ] Premium carrying case P/N 73P3597
[ ] Original Order Number
Your continued business and trust is important to us. We have begun a public discussion on these issues, and are offering details about the causes of these delays, on one of Lenovo’s official Blogs, “inside the box”. Please follow the link for the most up to date news on this subject. http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=84
Please feel free to contact us at anytime should you have any further questions or concerns.
Toll free : 1-866-428-4465.
Sincerely,
Lenovo Websales Team
critical@ca.lenovo.com
http://www.lenovo.com/think/us
June 12th, 2007 9:27 pm
Well this critical@ca.lenovo.com is bouncing! how do i send email now?
—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–
(reason: 550 5.1.1 … User’.critical@ca.lenovo.com’ is not a valid user)
June 12th, 2007 9:29 pm
After 3 weeks of no answers, and Tim “forgetting” to update us as promised, I am ready to cancel my order and make the switch to the light side (MAC). I can’t express my frustration with the lack of business ethics from Lenovo. I guess my six year old T20 won’t be getting a new Thinkpad to play with.
June 12th, 2007 9:29 pm
critical@ca.lenovo.com email address is bouncing.
June 12th, 2007 9:32 pm
Share something with you guys.
1) I have been hold for 1 hour and more before got connected. How can you just be hold for 45 mins. It is really unfair.
2) The lady from CS promised me, my order will be shipped next week. She said it is definitely true. She also said, my order IS NOT DELAYED AT ALL. T61 is shipped within 5-6 WEEKS. They are going to fix the information in website. That’s not their fault, just wrong information.
3) My order (5/9) is updated today. Now it will ship in 8/17. It is 14 days earlier than the last time, 8/30. So encouraging.
June 12th, 2007 9:34 pm
I think Lenovo would best take a page out of JetBlue’s ‘we screwed up, here’s our solution’ playbook.
Number one, offer compensation to everybody affected by the delays. This should certainly include faster shipping and should also include some sort of discount on either the current order or a future one.
Second, apologize for the mistake. I would feel a lot better if Lenovo just came out and publicly said, “Look guys, we’re really sorry for what happened. We messed up and we hope all of our loyal customers can forgive us.”
Finally, take the steps necessary to make sure this problem never happens again.
That would probably include:
-Updating systems to accurately determine the root of a problem, the second it arises, not a month later. -Making sure that the online shipping date estimation page is accurate.
-Briefing customer support, fully, to ensure that they can provide reliable and correct information to customers that spend an hour on their phone waiting to talk to said representatives.
-Breaking free from the culture of silence and deception that has been plaguing the halls of Lenovo lately.
Putting an incomplete explanation on an obscure blog that nobody had heard of, until now, does not suffice as a good enough response to the outcry over these continually delaying shipping dates.
Thank you for trying to keep us up to date. Clearly, your blog posts have not satisfied me nor have they helped thousands of angry customers with no laptop and no remaining patience overcome the wait for some of the world’s best computers. We love your computers, but we just can’t handle it much longer.
Please, offer some sort of restitution for this fiasco, tell us what’s up, and ship us our computers ASAP.
This has gone on far too long already.
June 12th, 2007 9:35 pm
Just got an email from Lenovo a few minutes ago, which is the first I’ve heard about shipping delays. Two comments:
I see from some of the first messages (no, I didn’t read them all) that one problem is with systems having
Windoze XP installed. I hope someone realizes that the only reason I ordered mine with XP is that it was cheapest. Of course the first thing I’ll do is reformat the disk and install Linux, and I wouldn’t be
at all surprised to find that this is true of the majority of XP orders. It’s perfectly OK to ship mine with
no OS installed. Honestly, I’d prefer it – you can even keep the money instead of sending it to
MicroSoft
Second, Could you Lenovo folks quit using those stupid letter codes for screen resolutions? I have no
idea what a “WXGA” or whatever might be. What’t so hard about writing 1600×1200, 1440×1020, and
so on?
June 12th, 2007 9:37 pm
I think this email says all effected orders will be shipped by 6/26. I need laptop earlier due to hospitalization of my wife, currently i am borrowing it from my friend then i’ll be without laptop. I wish i can be put to critical list. but this last email makes me feel much better! Hope this laptop will not have a BSOD problems.
June 12th, 2007 9:41 pm
I just got the same email. Funny thing is is I orderd two computers. I ordered a T60p on the 21st with an original ship date of June 14th which quickly got bumped to July 13th after a price change in the system. On the 30th, I ordered another computer for my dad not knowing any of this crap was going down. My dad’s comp just shipped tonight. Mine still is in a black whole somewhere with no hope in sight. I think it is nice they are doing the email except for the fact that the spare battery offer doesn’t work for my T60p if I am to understand the systems right. So I’m a big fat ball of frustration all over again. Humph.
June 12th, 2007 9:48 pm
Hi Tim,
Thank you very much for your hard work. I really appreciate the responsive and professional way that you handle this incident. Though I haven’t published a single post here, I do closely follow this blog and notebookreview.com for updates on my T61. I admit that my patience was really coming down to the edge before receiving the compensation email.
Now I have a problem: a friend of mine and I ordered two T61s in the same order. Would it be possible that I receive two compensations for this order, which I personally think is fair to ask for.
Thanks again for your work.
June 12th, 2007 9:51 pm
what is up with the YOUR COMMENT IS AWAITING MODERATION crap for this forum?
June 12th, 2007 9:56 pm
I am most annoyed at the fact that Lenovo seems to have known of the delay when they took my order, all the while promising 1-2 week shipment. I assume they were hoping that once the order was set I would just accept the delays. The shipping date didnt change on the “status” webpage until the day it was sheduled to shipm – what a coincidence and a complete load of crap.
I cancelled my order (after waiting on hold for nearly an hour only to speak to a rude CSR) and ordered a Dell XPS. It arrived today (a week and a half EARLY). I had heard a lot of good things about Thinkpads, but I wouldn’t recommend Lenovo to anyone. On the other hand, I would recommend the XPS. =)
June 12th, 2007 9:58 pm
they’ll be shipped by 6/26
WHAT?
that’s still 2 weeks away!
June 12th, 2007 10:13 pm
I want the free warranty upgrade as suggested earlier. It requires no changes before shipping and will ensure that our machines get the attention they require before going out.
Shipping a laptop 2 months late is terrible. Shipping a laptop 2 months late only to have it be a complete basket case would bring a backlash that would sting pretty harshly.
If a positive review of an HP 6910p shows up on the net before I get a ship date from Lenovo, it’ll be pretty hard to wait much longer. This kind of service is terrible. I’ve had mail in rebates come back faster than this.
June 12th, 2007 10:21 pm
this is completely unacceptable…..my businees is taking a big hit waiting for my Lap top. Who runs a business like this? I really would love to get the Newspapers and media involved in this to let everyone no what type of service this company offers. Maybe then we could guet a more definitive answer……
Lenovo need to step up and Right this WRONG before its too late!! How about a discoun t in light of the extended delays??? Do something…mistakes happen … just be honest about it and compensate your customers!!!!
June 12th, 2007 10:23 pm
the email came from critical@ca.ibm.com, so i think they made another mistake
June 12th, 2007 10:31 pm
Nice that they are offering some compensation for all this confusion.
However, that address is bouncing for me too.
They removed the option of getting the graphics card and XP some time ago. I wish they’d kept it.
June 12th, 2007 10:43 pm
I have already ordered my second battery!
now waiting for 6/26. Resting till that day! If i don’t get it i’ll kick the dragon in the feet so hard! it will know quickly!!!!!!!!!
LOL
June 12th, 2007 10:45 pm
Thanks Tim Supples, without you our voices will not be heard inside the dragon’s head (lenovo). You are awesome.
June 12th, 2007 10:46 pm
I ordered a T61 on May 18. The original ship date was 6/6, then 8/16, then 6/25. I got no answers from Lenovo when I emailed and called. I didn’t know this blog existed. In frustration I ordered a HP dv2500t (equivalent to the T61). HP turned it around in 4 (count them 4) business days. I recieved notice it shipped today and glady cancelled by order with Lenovo.
I heard good things about their laptops, but can’t afford to wait around and get jerked around by sub -par service!
June 12th, 2007 11:11 pm
Can anyone confirm if the battery offered works for the t60s as well?
June 12th, 2007 11:27 pm
I ordered a LENOVO THINKPAD T60 for a graduation present on MAY 14. The original ship date was 6/1/07, graduation being on 6/9. The first delay pushed the ship date to 6/7, which was no big deal. On the 7th I went to check the shipping information and the ship date was set to 7/24/07, what it is still saying today. I called Lenovo CS upset and waited on hold for 30 mins. They said that the screen was backordered, and that her supervisor said that it would ship on 6/18, but of course she couldn’t guarantee anything! So here I am now without a graduation present the week after gradutaion. I love every ThinkPad I have ever used, but I hate Lenovo right now!!
June 12th, 2007 11:30 pm
I am submitting this complaint so it is in writing for your internal audits. My hope is that future customers are not treated as horribly.
My order number is [submitted via email]. I purchased a new Lenovo T61 for over $1500 (including tax) on 05/26/2007. When I purchased this thinkpad, I was told that my estimated ship date would be 06/08/2007. At the time, this seemed reasonable because it is a new model with custom specs and I was very excited about the 25% discount I was getting. On 05/27/2007 I was contacted by Lenovo to update my shipping address on my credit card. I did this immediately, so I assumed my computer was being manufactured at that point. I was also told by a customer service representative that they would email me my new ship date. This never happened.
However, on 06/05/2007 I was informed by Daniella in Customer Support that my thinkpad could take 2 OR MORE weeks to ship. This makes the possible early ship date of 06/19/2006. Factoring delivery time I would not receive my computer until AT LEAST 28 days from my order date . . . but it could potentially be longer. This is horrible. I rely on a portable computer for my every day business functions. If I was informed of the excessive time, I could have sought another vender. At that point I figured it wasn’t worth changing it. I now realize I was lied to. She was extremely snide to me and many of your customer support staff need more training in telephone etiquite. [She acted like I killed her first born son...and I was 1000x more polite to her than I normally am on the phone.]
Today, on 06/14/2007 I was informed by Jim MacDonald that it would take up to an additional 2 weeks to get my order. I do not trust this estimate because the supply chain is awful and you should consider some new supply chain specialists/industrial engineers. They have not issued a uniform reason to customers about the delay. We hear about trims around monitors, a low supply of monitors, missing stickers, etc., but Lenovo did not communicate to customers via email. Lenovo lied directly to customers, does not return calls or emails promptly, and does not compensate customers for lost time (and income) as a result to the delays.
Furthermore, I voiced my previous qualms via phone and email about the 08/30/2007 estimated ship date that is listed on the “check status” page. I was informed that this was do to an internal error on your side. Imagine my concern about purchasing a lenovo thinkpad, a computer I hope to rely on for 2-4 years, when Lenovo themselves have faulty internal computers. This raised alarms in my head.
I am very upset by the lack of customer service. Many of my previous laptops and desktops have been DELLS. I decided to give Lenovo/IBM a try due to reviews and referalls from friends. I also trusted IBM because my very first computer, and IBM 486 DX66, worked well for years. I am beginning to regret my return to IBM/Lenovo.
When a customer spends over $1500 due to “Memorial Day Sales of 25%” they expect to have the item in a timely fashion. Prices fluctuate and decline on computers daily, weekly, and monthly so it is unreasonable to have to pay $1500 for a computer which could be out dated in 1-3 months. I was also declined the no payment for 90 days feature.
I requested that a supervisor contact me by phone and email as well on 6/5/2007 so I would have appreciated a timely response. However, it took 3 more requests to finally receive a phone call from a Mr. Jim MacDonald who claims to be a supervisor. Customer service, which IBM/Lenovo raves about has declined significantly since the early 1990s when I had my first IBM. Your telephone hold times are horrendously long and your lack of response to emails alarms me. Lenovo leveraged these delays in its own favor to keep customers, continued to add more orders to contribute to the lag, made faulty excuses and lies to customers, and failed to compensate all customers involved with the error.
In conclusion, when will I get my order?
June 12th, 2007 11:34 pm
“I should have more concrete information to report later today or tomorrow.”
seems like Tim is about to fall through on his promise
well, i guess he’s a lenovo employee after all……
June 12th, 2007 11:35 pm
Ordered May 13. U changed my ship date 3 times already.
Today I get a email that says “Pick a Gift”.
I picked it and sent the email but it bounced back.
Total Incompetence is all I can say.
Why bother to tell someone to pick a gift and then get the email address wrong to where we send the request for the gift.
All I can say is maybe we need to call the WSJ and NY Times….Maybe they can get some “Real answers” for us after they write a nice article about this. Maybe we can get their attention when their stock takes a tumble. Thats usaly when the executives sit up and start asking questions.
June 12th, 2007 11:49 pm
Tim, I have an order with 2 of T61 laptop, will I be eligible for 2 free gifts for the delay? How do I indicate that to the sales people?
June 13th, 2007 12:00 am
I ordered the 6 cell already. I hope i can exchange it for the 4 cell now. Still havent gotten this magical email though.
June 13th, 2007 12:07 am
[...] Your continued business and trust is important to us. We have begun a public discussion on these issues, and are offering details about the causes of these delays, on one of Lenovo’s official Blogs, “inside the box”. Please follow the link for the most up to date news on this subject. http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=84 [...]
June 13th, 2007 12:19 am
Just to really show me how incompetent Lenovo is, today I got an email giving me an updated delivery date of 8/3. But I canceled the order last Friday…
It’s so sad it can only be funny. What is more amusing will be the answer to a question so often asked… “So what brand would you recommend?”
June 13th, 2007 12:27 am
Here is a record of my (poor, and without a doubt the last) experience with LENOVO:
I ordered a T61 14′1 widescreen on 5/20 and the original ship date was 6/7. On 6/7 I saw it got delayed to 6/26. So I called to find out why and was told that the laptop had just missed a single day and that it was still scheduled to go out ASAP. I was told that 6/26 was just posted because its the next “cycle” and the computer automatically chooses the next cycle if for any reason the shipment is delayed even one day from the previous date. He said I would get an email within a day or two with notification that it was shipped.
Well, I did get that email, but it was just an email telling me about the 6/26 delay, which I already knew about from reading my online status page. The email contained:
“No action is required if you accept this delay notification of 1 to 30 days.
Should you have any concerns, or if you would like to modify or cancel your
order please call Lenovo Sales at our toll-free customer service number,
1(866)428-4465, or email websales@ca.lenovo.com.”
In response, I sent the following email to websales@ca.lenovo.com, which was suspiciously ignored and never responded to by LENOVO:
“Hello,
My order was placed on 5/20. The original ship date was 6/7. I woke up
on 6/7 excited to see a shipment notification, only to find that its
delayed until 6/26. I called Lenovo to inquire and was told that the new
6/26 date is just because the date automatically changes to the next
cycle if a single shipment day is missed. I was advised that the laptop
would still be shipped “soon” (ie a lot sooner than 6/26).
Is this still the case?
I am willing to de-select whichever components are holding up the
process to receive the laptop sooner, because I need it for work.
Honestly, if I knew on 5/20 that I wouldn’t get my order until the
middle of August, I would have gone to the store down the corner and
bought a Powerbook.
I really favor Lenovo over other vendors, but if it comes down to using
a less-favored machine or not having a machine at all due to continued
delays, then I would have to choose the less-favored machine. I do not
want to cancel my order. Please let me know if there is anything that
can be done here to make my experience with Lenovo more satisfactory.
Thanks,
Michael”
I waited for a reply for a few days and kept refreshing the online status page hoping to see a change, but neither ever happened. I called customer care on 6/11 to make another inquiry (friendly as can be, I didn’t even mention my email that got ignored) and was told that LENOVO will consider deducting $50 from my order for the troubles. This clearly was just a way to get me off the telephone. Seriously, I’m not looking for a reduction in cost. If I was hurting for cash, I wouldn’t have just bought an $1800 laptop. The gesture was nice, but really I was willing to PAY EXTRA instead just to get my computer in a reasonable time.
Anyway, as I am writing this, an email just arrived from LENOVO thanking me for placing the order and letting me know the shipment date has now been moved from 6/26 to 8/3. This is absolutely ridiculous guys. In agreement with several others on this forum, the “free” gift is pretty lame. Once again, nice gesture, but I already upgraded my battery to the most powerful one offered and I already have plenty of adapters and travel bags. In reality, what does it matter anyway if I have a free travel bag, because I don’t have a computer to put in it. Who is going to say that on 8/3 my order isn’t delayed until October? Is there really any end to this?
Michael
June 13th, 2007 12:30 am
@NotebookTechine
I think it is time you give it a breather. I understand that you are rightly frustrated with the situation, but 17 some odd posts from just one user is a bit much. This thread is too long as it is…
June 13th, 2007 12:32 am
Man, I am totally confused.
This afternoon at 17:55 I received an email from Lenovo saying I can choose one of the three option as a free gift and my order will be expected to ship no later than 6/26. One minutes ago at 21:29 I received another email saying my order status, It shows the shipping date is 08/03/07.
which one should I believe?
June 13th, 2007 12:35 am
@Davidlet
whom do we ask for frustration? we are not getting any positive replies from people, sales forces. This is the only place where it gets notices to lenovo. I am sure i’ll continue to post here. Feel free to ignore my posts, if you would like.
June 13th, 2007 12:37 am
I can’t help but want to add my frustration to my order..I placed my first order on 5/6/07, and changed a few item on the 13th, the guy who I spoke on the phone didn’t do a good job, so I had to call them on the following Monday (5/14/07) to complete my order. Then, I got the confirmation email that the shipping date is 6/7/07. Then, on the morning of the “supposed” shipping day, it changed to 7/24/07. I called up Lenovo guy who took my order over the phone, and apparently he wasn’t answering the phone, but called me back with the excuse (of 15.4 LCD shortage)..And, I was told it’d be shipped by 18th or 19th, and tonight I got both the compensation email and the second email saying my order had been shipped today. I *really* hope it’s true, and didn’t want to expect any surprises again. I would take the carrying case from the email offer since I already had 9 cell battery, and probaby won’t need a second AC adapter in a near future. I wish I could get either a free warranty upgrade or RAM upgrade (didn’t feel like too much to ask for!) considering the work I could have done with the laptop when I *supposed* to receive. I would definitely NOT buy again from Lenovo (directly). Heck..I even saw a clearance Thinkpad from CompUSA store nearby my place last month, and I could have got it.
Thanks god, I didn’t get to talk with those CS folks with *attitude*. Good luck to those who are still waiting to get their laptops. Really, I feel your anger and frustration…
I don’t know if anyone got a follow up email from Biz Rate about the survey on the recent Lenovo order…I’m SO ready for it once I get my laptop.
June 13th, 2007 12:40 am
@lenovo sucks:
Please believe the email it says 6/26. The order status may not be updated and correct until its shipped. Give them one more chance! Let’s wait for good laptop!!!!!
June 13th, 2007 12:44 am
20:55 pm today I got the apologetic email from Lenovo saying that most (?) delayed orders will be shipped by 6/26, asking me to respond.
I responded, email bounced.
20:56 I got the email that Lenovo received my order (as if I just placed it). The ESD is 8/17.
Sorry, that’s more mess, disinformation and deceiving than I would be willing to put up with.
June 13th, 2007 12:47 am
hey guys…
my order was shipped from SHENZHEN,CHINA on 4:54 A.M. on 7/13/07 (as said on UPS tracking page)…Wow….it finally happened. Keep your faith.. The ending of wait is near..
June 13th, 2007 12:47 am
Same thing just happened to me! I get the free gift email, accept the idea that the end of June isn’t that far away. Now I get the email thanking me for my order, I assume this means the machine was just rebooked, with a shipping date of 8/3. You guys have got to be kidding me. How can it possibly three months to get a computer out. Tim can you please explain the new round of August shipping dates? What combination of build is causing this delay? Why is Lenovo not offering to alter the build to have a configuration that will ship sooner? So far here is my list of estimated ship dates, 6/2, 6/7, 6/23, 6/27, then back to 6/26 and now 8/3. Not to mention the great will ship in 1 to 30 days email. Are you guys just throwing darts at a calendar? This is nuts!!
June 13th, 2007 12:57 am
good luck eveyrone, thinks seem to be taking a nice turn. Would be glad If the shipped notebook’s quality lives upto its name. The dv2500t was a nice option though, it has a 8400 Gs and i heard its the same as 140M. The HP glossy screen sucks.
June 13th, 2007 1:06 am
Oh, WTF are you doing Lenovo? I tried to order a T60P with a 15.4 monitor over a month ago and it has been nothin’ but tryin’ to put out a kitchen fire with gasoline. To the CSR’s credit, everyone was actually nice and understanding, but that is only because I managed to get some special attention from one of the sales reps. I just got an email saying they should all ship by the 23rd or something but I ain’t holdin’ my breath. What about those nice Panasonic laptops? I may just get a Dell. This may not be the end of the road for Lenovo, but this is the stuff that can bring a company down quick. I have seen it many times.
Profanity removed
June 13th, 2007 1:15 am
How come i didn’t get a free gift offer ?!
Grr..
June 13th, 2007 1:29 am
All i would need is a working T61 with a customer care to depend on incase if it doesnt work. I hate this 25 minute wait time for the order enquiry
June 13th, 2007 1:33 am
Wait a minute! I just got a late-breaking email stating it actually shipped! Maybe they are coming through!?!
June 13th, 2007 1:49 am
Ok, ordered 5/23, ESD was 6/11. A little long, I thought. wtf #1.
This morning 6/12 I get the delay message to 6/28. wtf #2.
wtf #3 comes when I get this e-mail, just now, confirming my order for what is now $2,000+. Uhhh… what?! It was about $1,500 when I ordered it. It’s like they just undid my discount, incl. the Memorial Day sale. Also, it now ships 6/29. I’m cancelling in the morning if this isn’t a mistake.
June 13th, 2007 1:52 am
This was the first time i bought a laptop from Lenovo (have always bought from Dell) and becuase of this incident *i will go out of my way* to let people know not to order from Lenovo. They have the worst online ordering system ever.
I got the same email that my order should be ready by 6.26 (placed on 5/13 – shameful) and free gift. I just know i am going to have waste more time on this order because i wont get my FatWallet cash back because Lenovo re-created the order, blah, blah.. The price also dropped on the website after i placed my order so i need to have them price match the saved quote for – except the quote is only good for a month so i will have to talk to some asshole at Lenovo about how they should still give me the price adjustment because their incompetence is boundless.
Sorry i just have to vent. Never had such a bad experience trying to give a company my business.
June 13th, 2007 2:06 am
Well 2 shipping delays already..6/5 to 6/8 to 6/27…I made my order on May 15th,,
my brother orders a Dell Latitude D630 2 days after me and he gets his laptop 4 days ago ahead of his estimated shipping date..I dont know whats going on, what a bad experience…I got the free gift email but when i reply the email bounces back,,,this is just insane,,, I cant believe I have not cancell my order yet..
June 13th, 2007 2:15 am
@lowspeed — Don’t worry, I didn’t get it either, and I ordered on May 24th. I’m trying to figure out if they are still just processing orders or if I’ve been completely skipped.
June 13th, 2007 3:05 am
So… did anyone’s total price also jump in the latest round of emails again delaying the ship date? Four hours after I got the announcement concerning the inaccurate/conflicting ship date information, I get an update stating my ship date is now 8/3.
That didn’t irk me so much since I figure it’s still part of their glitch and they really will ship by the end of June (perhaps I’m being optimistic???). What does get my blood boiling is that my price jumped by almost $500!
First thing I’m doing tomorrow is calling my credit card company to see if there’s been a charge for this amount. If there has, you better believe I’m cancelling my order right on the spot. How can you change the total amount of a sale after the fact without contacting the customer to ask them if they would like to keep their order?
Argh!
June 13th, 2007 3:10 am
My order said it would ship on 6-8 on the web site up until 6-8. Then on 6-8 I checked the web site and all of a sudden it indicated 7-25 with no explaination for the delay. No emails indicating any sort of delay problems. This is horrible if you ask me. I’ve ordered a bunch of computers from Dell in the past and they have always been very very accurate on delivery dates and keep you updated as to when the order will ship.
June 13th, 2007 4:31 am
Just got an email indicates the ESD is 8/3. What is going on???????
TIM, Can you address this concern? Many of us are waiting for your answer.
June 13th, 2007 5:36 am
My major frustration, and reason for cancelling my T61 14.1 Vista order is because the sales team was so bad in handling this… and generally following up.
No return phone calls, email – just silence after an inquiry. Always required a call back and an inordinate amount of time on hold to chase down a simple update. I heard the “airbag for your ThinkPad” loop about 100 times (probably more).
Someone needs to better train your U.S. sales team to communicate and follow-up with customers. And this was with three different sales contacts. Horrible customer service.
June 13th, 2007 6:05 am
My order date was 5/24 and has always… and still shows 8/29…. and to top it off, they sent the case. I finally got a response from after the conflicting CS dates.
She couldn’t give me a definate date and explained bla, bla, bla… same BS.
I am giving her until later today and probably going to orer a MacBook Pro. I can driove to a local Apple store and pick it up today if I want. They also offer a educational discount….
I need it for grad school and summer classes start today….
This was my first attempt at purchasing a IBM/Lenovo… always been a Dell girl….
totally frustrated and turned off by this experience… I have to wonder how much can the 3 year next day onsite warranty be worth?
June 13th, 2007 6:47 am
Hello!? I ordered on May 28th and got switched to a delivery date of August 30th.
Am I part of the glitch club?
Am I entitled to a freebie, too?
As a 3-percenter, I feel left out.
June 13th, 2007 7:06 am
It just gets better and better at Lenovo. I just received another thank you for my order email this morning though I actually ordered my T61 back on 5/23. The real kicker is the updated pricing which is over $500 more than on my original invoicing. This new pricing is also over $300 more than today’s website pricing for my configuration. I guess this means another 45 minute wait on the phone fo a CSR this morning. I also forgot to add that the email drops me back an additional day on my ESD to 8/17! I guess it makes sense at Lenovo that if they’re going to try and hike the price on me that they’re also going to take longer to deliver it as well.
Dear RYAN CHAIRS:
Thank you for your purchase from Lenovo. Your order has been received and is
being processed. Please visit our online order status tool to view the latest
information on the status of your order:
https://www.directlenovo.com/orderstatus/login.cfm?cid=xxxxxxx&oid=xxxxxx
We have included your complete order information below. If you have any questions
about your order please call Lenovo Sales toll free at (866)428-4465
or e-mail websales@ca.lenovo.com.
Please include your Customer Number and Order Number in any communications
to help us serve you more quickly.
Thank you for purchasing from Lenovo. We appreciate your business.
Lenovo Sales
http://www.lenovo.com
NOTE: Please do not reply to this message; it comes from a notification-only
address that cannot accept replies.
===========================
Order Information
Order date and time: xxxxxx 05/23/07 22:16:46
Customer Number: xxxxxxxx
Order Number: xxxxxx
Ship-To:
RYAN CHAIRS
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
Bill-To (if different from Ship-To):
===========================
Product Description Price Qty Total
SYS.7658CT CONFIGURED SYSTEM 2098.00 1 2098.00
40Y8725 THINKPAD SERIAL ATA HARD DRIVE 49.00 1 49.00
Shipping & Handling: 0.00
Tax: 121.68
Total: 2,268.68
Payment method: VISA …xxxxx
June 13th, 2007 7:34 am
Same here. Order placed on 5/23. Totally frustrating experience. Got bumped to 8/2 first. With the latest email received today, got bumped again to 8/3 and the amount increased by $150. Ridiculous on the part of Lenovo.
June 13th, 2007 8:36 am
I just got one email from Lenovo, which I think is a good step in the right direction. I was totally frustrated, but felt a little better after this email. Not for the free parts, but for lenovo at least is trying to show they actually care about customers.
—————-
Dear Valued Lenovo Customer,
As you may be aware, some Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and T61 orders placed between May 9 and May 25 have been delayed, and some customers ordering these systems have received inaccurate or conflicting communications concerning estimated ship dates. We know this is unacceptable to you — and it is unacceptable to us as well. We aspire to have an ordering process that is, like our notebook PCs, second to none. We apologize.
We have been working hard to identify and resolve several problems that have contributed to these delays. We expect to have the vast majority, if not all, of the affected T60 and T61 systems built by 6/26/2007. If you do not want to wait for shipment, you may cancel your order at this time by responding to this email or, if you prefer, by calling the toll-free number listed below.
We thank you for your continued patience. As a gesture of our appreciation, please select one of the following items as a free gift after receiving your computer. Please indicate your selection by placing an X in the appropriate box, entering your original order number, and reply to our LenovoCriticalOrders team at: critical@ca.lenovo.com
[ ] 6 Cell Battery for extended run time P/N 41U3198 – T61 / R61
[ ] AC Adapter P/N 40Y7659
[ ] Premium carrying case P/N 73P3597
[ ] Original Order Number
Your continued business and trust is important to us. We have begun a public discussion on these issues, and are offering details about the causes of these delays, on one of Lenovo’s official Blogs, “inside the box”. Please follow the link for the most up to date news on this subject. http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=84
Please feel free to contact us at anytime should you have any further questions or concerns.
Toll free : 1-866-428-4465.
Sincerely,
Lenovo Websales Team
critical@ca.lenovo.com
http://www.lenovo.com/think/us
June 13th, 2007 9:02 am
All the frustration and endless wait aside, I want to say thanks to Tim Supples and Matt Kohut for this blog. When you think Lenovo as a huge organization, you could blame it for everything that went wrong. But if you think lenovo is made of these nice people like Tim and Matt, you could forgive its few mis-steps.
Thanks again, Matt and Tim…
June 13th, 2007 9:38 am
niceness does not make up for gross incompetence. I woul rather place an order, have it shipped to me under a week without having to go back and forth with anyone – nice or bad.
June 13th, 2007 9:43 am
Two things, the T61 I ordered (#2C3DVD) has NVIDA but not XP but rather Vista business. Is the NIVIDA/XP issue for both or just one or the other?
Also, I talked to 4 different people at Lenovo and got a 50-50 split on my answer …does the T61 have the Sanata Rosa chipset?
June 13th, 2007 9:58 am
I canceled the order yesterday and still received the offer for free accessories. I don’t know what kind of mess is currently Lenovo in but I won’t be accepting any orders shipped from Lenovo nor will I accept the charges on AMEX. Lenovo sucks. BIG TIME!
June 13th, 2007 10:00 am
i got the freebie email last night, but my order still hasn’t updated today, anyone in the same shoes? i wonder if they missed my order update… that might mean that my order is still messed up and unbuiltable.
June 13th, 2007 10:04 am
I ordered on 5/24 and today had my ESD go from 8/28 to 8/17. Whoopee. Also, I have yet to receive the freebie email. My price however has not changed like it has for some on this board. Tim where is your Mon/Tues update?
June 13th, 2007 10:04 am
Where is the update we would get on Monday or Tuesday?
It is Wednesday now!
June 13th, 2007 10:12 am
I just spoke with Lenovo CS and they confirmed that there is also a problem with the 160 gig hard drive. It’s backordered and has a lead time of 35 days. If I want to help out Lenovo by switching to another drive that is in stock, their only option is to cancel my order and re-enter a new order and I drop to the end of the queue. They claim brand new orders are shipping within 3 weeks.
They also told me that I shouldn’t beleive any of the information I see online, on this blog, with my order status, or anywhere else, CS is the only place for accurate information. I personally don’t have any confidence in any of the information from Lenovo at this point. I just canceled my order and I’m researching options.
Tim, what’s your take on all this?
June 13th, 2007 10:16 am
Robert,
Judging how everybody at Lenovo sudently took 2 or more weeks off it is safe to say that Tim is out for vacation too.
June 13th, 2007 10:21 am
Oh where oh where has Tim gone.
Thanks for offering me something on a cancelled order! Why doest everyone get this offer? Lenovo just rubs salt into the wounds of people by raising their purchase price and denying all customers that should get the crappy offer.
June 13th, 2007 10:22 am
Robert
I have ordered on 5/18 and my status has changed from 6/6 to 6/26. But it still doesn’t include those missing parts! i did get the freebie email though. I am gessing they are rebooking in random order. or they just don’t like me.
June 13th, 2007 10:24 am
It is becoming clear that Lenovo is NOT A BIG OPPERATION like everyone things. They are a small group of chickens with their heads chopped off. This is what happens when IBM loses touch with an operation that was once so respected.
June 13th, 2007 10:30 am
No freebie e-mail, just an more expensive laptop. I really don’t want to wait on the phone, but I guess I have to call in order to cancel too if that’s not a mistake. I don’t know how much longer before I pull the trigger on the Macbook.
June 13th, 2007 10:37 am
This seems to have become news!!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/0.....nkpad-t61/
June 13th, 2007 10:44 am
IBM Doesn’t own Lenovo …. they sold their Thinkpad business to them and the deal was for Lenovo to use the Thinkpad brand for a certain amount of years (don’t know the exact #). I think that when that time expires Lenovo will drop of a cliff, their own brand get’s tanked in reviews while Thinkpads are still king of the hill.
I’m struggling with what to do, I ordered on 5/22 as a graduation present for my son and he needs a laptop when he goes to college in the fall. My ship date went from 6/3 to 6/8 to 6/27 and now sits at 8/17 which is too late. I guess the overall theme I’m hearing is that the August ships dates are wrong but who realy knows. We really want the T61 but will hit a point when we can’t wait anymore.
June 13th, 2007 10:49 am
I ordered an R61 on the 11th of May. Today I received an email with a modified ship date. The original ship date was 6th June, then it was Sept 3rd, now it is Aug 17th. I did not receive a freebie email as some have, not that it would help much. I will be cancelling my order today and going Apple
.
June 13th, 2007 10:53 am
@Peter
Talk to your CS, he told me they got the list of order numbers that will ship on 6/26. He said mine is on the list. Additionaly he said your order WILL ship on 6/26 as werehouse sent them the list. He said any other online information could be wrong. The point is werehouse don’t send them more information then the order numbers they are going to ship.
June 13th, 2007 10:54 am
I just can not believe this. This has to be the worst place ever to buy a laptop if it wasn’t for my friend that works at IBM and the discount i received. I would have cancelled my order a long time ago. I had ordered mine on 5/14 saying it’s not going to ship until 6/26 and I am supposed to believe that, yea right.
This is just unbelievable.
Why don’t they give us a free memory upgrade instead of some crap bag a power supply and a piece of xxxx battery.
June 13th, 2007 10:56 am
Just got off the phone — only on hold for 17 minutes (luckily I have speakerphone).
General recap:
me: I’ve heard about the delays, etc. and now I have an e-mail (and status page) telling me that my price is up to $2k, from about $1500 when I ordered it.
csr: Is your status page not showing $1594 (or whatever the orig. price was, I don’t even remember now)?
me: No. It’s showing $19xx plus $1xx tax for a total of $20xx charged to my Visa.
csr: Well I’ve been advised by my manager that these prices are in the process of being updated and you will be charged the original price of your order.
me: And the shipping date, 6/29, is that accurate?
csr: Yes.
me: So I will have my laptop shipped by the end of the month for the original price. And that’s a promise?
csr: Yes.
June 13th, 2007 10:58 am
This is highly untolerable. My order date is 5/14 and it says ESD o be 8/31. I ordered the laptop early so that it comes before I sent my old one off. Now I am stuck with no laptop and loads of work!!!! And there is no information as to when for sure its gonna be shipped. They keep postponing it. Today was the first tie i recieved any information from them without me initiating it.
I really hope they do something about this and try to let people know in advance if something like this is going to happen again.
June 13th, 2007 11:01 am
Thanks ….by CS, I assume you mean customer service at 866-968-4465?
June 13th, 2007 11:01 am
I don’t think its fair that the apology/free gift mail was only sent to selected customer in the critical list.
I am waiting for my T61 which ordered in mid-May. I was frustrated about the delay and I kept watching few websites every hour in order to learn what happened.
I learnt that there was no use to waste at least half an hour to call their customer service because they will only give you false information/makeup delivery date.
Now I haven’t call to complaint doesn’t mean I am satisfy with the delay so I don’t deserve a free gift.
I am disappointed, once again.
June 13th, 2007 11:06 am
I’ve seen a few comments where folks have mentioned they can see which parts of their orders are missing. Is this information supposed to be available on the order status page? I only see the specs of the system I ordered and an estimated ship date. No information regarding availability. Please advise.
June 13th, 2007 11:07 am
@peter
Yes! plus the extenstion of your sales person may be in the original order email. you can call directly otherwise talk to any CS. I think the option is #2.
The only thing puzzles me is people who have ordered after me their order got rebooked and i have ordered way before them, and my order still shows missing parts. I have ordered it on 5/18 with Intel Core 2 duo 7700 proceessor. Is anyone in the same boat as me?
June 13th, 2007 11:14 am
Hopefully you didnt order on May 24th like me! Apparently I am on the “bubble.” So orders placed before 5/24 are eligible for the freebies and will ship no later than 6/26 and almost certainly earlier. Since I ordered on 5/24, CS said that the “worst” news he could give me was that mine ships on 6/26. Only if it ships after 6/26 will I be eligible for the freebie. Hope this helps.
June 13th, 2007 11:18 am
Well I am an IBM employee and ordered online via the web page for employee’s so I never dealt directly with a sales rep.
June 13th, 2007 11:23 am
BTW …. does anyone know if the T61 has the new Santa Rosa chipset?
June 13th, 2007 11:24 am
yes it does.
June 13th, 2007 11:24 am
@Peter
Why did you guy sale your business to lenovo and left us for sufferings? LOL j/k.
June 13th, 2007 11:35 am
I am only today finding out the extent of the T61 problems at Lenovo. I placed an order on 5/14 with an expected shipping date of 5/25. I ordered a 14.1, integrated graphics, XP. It was to be a graduation gift for my neice that is starting college in the fall. Her graduation party was last Saturday.
When I would check the status of the order, the date kept increasing. The next date was 5/31, still a possiblity of getting it in time. Then it changed to 6/18. I call the Help Desk to inquire and am told that with the high volume of sales for this new model that they were behind in production (Jessica at Lenovo on 6/9). I was placed on a priority list and accepted that I would not be able to give it to my neice at her party.
Now the estimate to ship is June 29. I am notified by email today that there are several reasons for the delays, none of which pertain to the unit that I ordered. And for my inconvenience and my trouble, they want to give me a “gift”.
What they can do is be straight with me. Tell me what is going on with the unit I ordered and why I am delayed. I would recommend that they ship “ALL” backordered systems by overnight air. And I would recommend that they either offer a discount on the price or extending the warranty for an additional year as a more appropriate way of saying you are sorry for these errors.
June 13th, 2007 11:55 am
So I found out why my order wasn’t showing up on the order status page. IT WAS CANCELED!!!
The CSR I spoke with told me Igor canceled it because the customer (me) called to cancel it. I told her I never called to cancel it. She placed me on hold, spoke with Igor, and confirmed that he never actually spoke with the customer. He just canceled it per a request.
What does this mean? Assuming I want to give my business to Lenovo, this means I have reorder hoping I’ll get the same price. This probably means I won’t get the freebies either.
Great job, Lenovo. You should win an award for this.
June 13th, 2007 11:55 am
@Peter,
Are you saying IBM will get Thinkpad brand back at a later time? Will IBM re-enter the PC business by that time? For some reason, I thought Lenovo bought the rights of using “IBM” for 5 years and “Thinkpad” & “ThinkCenter” for ever.
June 13th, 2007 11:59 am
I think this will go on until we see lenovo ships system in order of how they have been ordered not that order placed after will ship first! order placed first should ship first! in that order. IF there are some stocking issues, please notify customer, that your 160 GB HDD is delaying the shipment, so on and so forth. I think lenovo needs transparant order processing system till delivery at this point to win customer’s confidence back so they know their order is being processed. Just the word is not enough. They need continuous updates other then “Inprocess:” status.
Werehouse in china doesn’t send too much information to CS so they can’t be transperant to us. leaving everyone including CS in frustration. Thinking of mouting frustration in customer’s mind. I remember popular joke about something (Not that i agree but it applies here) God created man and he slept, God created woman and since then neither god nor man slept. Similarly, Lenovo created T61 neither Lenovo or cusomers slept since then. LOL.
June 13th, 2007 12:02 pm
No, I doubt IBM will ever get back into the PC/Laptop market, to low of a profit margin business for IBM. …. maybe I misunderstood the agreement. I hope Lenovo will always keep the Thinkpad brand, as long as they keep the quality up.
Unfortunately IBM isn’t an efficient company … anything that requires efficency and lean business practices don’t do well. It’s a shame because IBM has been a company that has developed many great products only to suffer a slow death under our own weight. Remember OS/2? Far better than windows but we couldn’t get developers on-board or market very well.
June 13th, 2007 12:25 pm
i ordered my t61 with the 14.1 screen, and the 160gb hd on may 16th… ( at least i didn’t ge the xp or else i’d really be screwed) the initial ship date was june 4th, and on that day, it was changed without warning or explanation to june 21st… i emailed and left messages with the sales rep (Christopher D’Andrea – dcdandre@directlenovo.com) who never responded. and then this!!!
i got the critical email with the crappy gift offer ( i already ordered an extra ac adapter and the 7cell battery …. sigh) and the revised ship date of Aug 3rd.
at least the price hasn’t changed…
on hold with customer service now 5 minutes and counting….
to cancel or not to cancel?
that is the question.
June 13th, 2007 12:28 pm
Ring around the Rosie….. Lenovo does not care about the customers. We are going no where. At what point can they be honest and tell us when we are getting our computer rather than leading us on. If we are supposed to receive it by 6/26 we better receive it by 6/26. Them telling us that we will now receive it by 6/26 makes us “trust” them and prevents us from cancelling the order and going to Dell, Apple, etc. Ridiculous.
Here is my latest telephone convo from 20 min ago:
Me: When can I expect to get my T61? I have been quoted so many dates? [I placed my order on 5/26]
CSR: I am now seeing that it is expected to ship out on 6/26.
Me: Is that a guarantee?
CSR: No. I cannot guarantee that.
Me: So Lenovo is further leveraging the situation in their favor so I cannot make a timely decision as to whether to cancel or not. My business functions depend on this thinkpad.
CSR: I’m sorry. You were not in the initial 5/24 and prior order group so you did not have that problem.
Me: So what was the problem?
CSR: You were missing a part from the warehouse, but I believe it is now in.
Me: How is that different than the pre-5/24 problem. Can you guarantee that?
CSR: No.
Me: Is it correct that my Credit Card will not be charged until the T61 ships?
CSR: Yes
Me: Why does it still say 8/30 on the web site as my Estimate Ship Date?
CSR: That’s a glitch on our end.
Me: So I am supposed to rely on the glitches of lenovo for my businesses processes. Why have I previously been quoted 6/8, 6/12, 6/18 and now 6/26; yet the computer still reads 8/30? In other words, you could care less.
CSR: I didn’t say that. Please be patient and hopefully it will ship out on 6/26 if not earlier. I don’t think you are in the pre-5/24 order group so yours should ship out prior to or on 6/26.
Me: Have a nice day.
———
What funny is that a supervisor told me yesterday that I had the same problem as the pre-5/24 group. They are making things up as they go to get customers off the phone. Let’s report them to the Bettter Business Bureau, get it in the press to affect them on the market, etc.
June 13th, 2007 12:31 pm
To Nick
It is not too bad for you since you place your order on 5/26. Dont be too picky. People whinning around because they place their orders at early May.
June 13th, 2007 12:35 pm
@nick
Calm down buddy! let us (pre- 5/25 group) finsih with lenovo first! i’lll be really upset if you get your laptop before us. Its not that i don’t like you but we ordered it first!!! I want people who ordered before me to get their first before me as well.
June 13th, 2007 1:00 pm
It seems like ever since IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo, the entire ThinkPad brand reputation and build quality has been tarnished. The acquisition led to significant manufacturing delays, quality issues and inefficiencies. Lenovo is clearly not equipped to lead in this market place. It cannot anticipate let alone handle demand nor can it provide first rate service to its customers. This is not the first time the company has made stupid mistakes. They simply do not wish to learn from the past (e.g. T60 series manufacturing/order/shipping delays). Lenovo should definitely ask IBM to teach it a thing or two…
Former Customer.
June 13th, 2007 1:07 pm
I order my on 5/9. So far I do not get any e-mail. You are much better than me.
Why Tim do not post any more update? Just let us share the information which we do not known is it correct or not?
Jsut people who get the e-mail is the lucky guys. I almost is the first group to order T61 but I think I am always left behind any information…
June 13th, 2007 1:07 pm
Hi,
I have ordered T60p on 5/22 with Vista/120GB HDD/15.4″WSXGA+/9cellbattery and I too received a mail that orders are delayed for 6/26 but the ESD on my order is still 6/15. I Dint heard much about T60p on the discussion. Can anyone say if my order is effected or not. I tried calling the customer care thrice since morning and still after waiting for more than 10 min. there was no one to attend my call.
I will leaving country for some time on 27th and if this is delayed I need to cancel my order… But I am not able to talk to customer support to cancel my order.
Lenovo left me in the middle of Nowhere at this moment and I never expected that….
June 13th, 2007 1:08 pm
this is a recent WSJ article that mentions Lenovo’s attempts to focus on the US consumer market as the business segment is flat. this type of customer service is not helping. Are Lenovo execs (CMO Deepak Advani and Craig Merrigan) aware of this? They would do well to follow the example of Lexus entry into the US consumer market and their superior customer service.
http://online.wsj.com/public/a.....tors_picks
my situation is similar to others:
1. ordered April 25th! received notice day before it was scheduled to ship that it would be delayed.
2. cancelled order and re-ordered on same day (may 22)
3. received 2nd notice of delay again on the day it was supposed to ship.
4. now the scheduled ship date is Aug 29th.
Orginal order APRIL 25TH = SCHEDULED SHIP DATE AUG 29TH. I love thinkpads, but for the love of God, i have a business to run. this is beyond frustrating.
June 13th, 2007 1:20 pm
I hate to burst your bubble guys but when I called I was told it would ship on 6/9 then 6/12 then 6/15 and the following day 6/19.
Product ordered on 5/15 and cancelled (apparently still pending) on 6/12. Lenovo will never be recommended and as I used to say stay away from SONY, it will be more like …Stay Away from SONY or LENOVO!
June 13th, 2007 1:31 pm
Well, I am keeping my fingers crossed. My order of 5/29 now has a tracking number and a serial number. Tracking shows it’s in “CHEK LAP KOK, HK” and is due to be delivered tomorrow. Wow, that’s quick! I ordered Vista, 14″ screen and the nvidia chip. I must have picked the right combo?
June 13th, 2007 1:32 pm
@Lenovo sucks
@Notebook techie
My point was that I am probably in that pre-5/25 group even though I ordered on 5/26. I ordered it at 1:30 AM on 5/26. I doubt I got special status because I passed the 5/25 threshhold. I wanted to point out how Lenovo makes things up on a whim. We are all on the same team. We are all upset. Don’t take it out on me — direct it at the hold music at lenovo.
June 13th, 2007 1:33 pm
This has gotten bad enough that it’s getting front page mention at NotebookReview.com
Lenovo needs to do some positive image control now, or they are going to loose even MORE business and respect.
For those interested:
http://www.notebookreview.com/.....ewsID=3761
-Adam
June 13th, 2007 1:36 pm
@ featherz
Were you ever listed as an 8/30 ship date on the status website?
June 13th, 2007 1:39 pm
After 25minutes of holding, spoke with a cold customer service girl by the name of jessica… who promised that the laptop will ship on June 26th, and to disregard the Aug 3rd ship date on the Order Status Webpage.
I hope it’s true!!!!
June 13th, 2007 1:39 pm
I have ordered a T60p laptop and an advanced Minidock for it on May 20th. Total amount: $2,081…not exactly on the cheap side I would say. When I was in the process of placing the order, before the actual purchase, the items in my shopping cart had the following estimated shipping dates: T60p laptop was supposed to ship on June 4, the minidock on May 21 (the next day). After I placed the order, the confirmation email for the T60p was showing June 14 as shipping date (which was already too late for my needs), while the Minidock was ready to ship. I wrote an email to customer service complaining about the already delayed shipping date, and I got a voicemail from a Lenovo representative later that day stating that nothing can be done about shipping date and I have to wait till June 14.
Now the trouble starts: I got an email form Lenovo this morning stating that all orders placed between May 9 and May 25 are delayed, and will be ready on 6/26/07 if not later…they will keep us posted…I am relocating to Europe in July. As of July 12, my shipping address will not be current anymore. I don’t want to cancel the order because I absolutely need the laptop. The Minidock has already been shipped and paid for, I got it in on May 23rd. The return policy for it is 14 days, so I cannot return it, but is useless without the actual laptop for it…..so if I cancel the order, I have already spent money on hardware that cannot be used without the main order….I have already spent 26 minutes on hold with Lenovo Customer Service and gave up before I could talk to someone….
My order still displays June 14….as of right now I am not sure yet what will happen.
I think serious discounts need to be granted for all orders…
June 13th, 2007 1:40 pm
@featherz
What configuration did you order? I ordered Vista with the 14″ screen and NVIDA chip on 5/22, but my order has not shipped. It is showing an ESD of 6/27.
June 13th, 2007 1:51 pm
If anyone is interested please digg this story.
http://digg.com/hardware/
Irate_would_be_Lenovo_customers_seeing_delays_on_ThinkPad_T61
June 13th, 2007 2:12 pm
May.June.?.AUGUST.. where is JULY?? does anyone have a JULY ESD?
June 13th, 2007 2:16 pm
OMG… It’s only getting better. I finally got through to a CSR only to find out my order is on CC hold. I asked “what exactly does that mean”, to which she replied she is not sure. She inquired if I had received any e-mails as to the hold status, to which I replied, do you think I would have waited 2 weeks to call you?!
Regardless, she said that she will inquire about the status and call me back by 5:30pm EST today.
June 13th, 2007 2:21 pm
I was listed as 8/31 shipping date until yesterday (when it shipped). Ordered 5/29 as stated before. Here’s my configuration – low end on almost everything as this is a second notebook and I don’t need too many bells and whistles. Although I should have bought the larger HD, now that I think of it.
CTO THINKPAD T61 WITH NVIDIA GRAPHICS – 1 YD
42V8189 SBB INTEL CORE 2 DUO PRCESST7100
42V8011 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM
42V9565 SBB MSWIN VHP32 US ENGLISH
42V9323 SBB 14.1 WXGA TFT,W/OCAM.
42X0906 ** NVIDIA QUADRO NVS 140M MEDIACARD
41W2063 VBB 2GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 2DIMM
42V8195 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
42V9329 SBB UN(TRACKPOINT+TCHPD)
42V8700 SBB 60 GB HDD,5400RPM
42V8713 SBB DVD ROM8XMAX,UBAYSLIM
42X0805 SBB PC CARDSLOT EX CARDSLOT
41W1685 SBB 11ABGWIFI WL LAN USEULAANZ
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
42V9337 SBB 4 CELL LI-ION BATERRY
39T6442 SBB COUNTRY PACK NORTH AMERICA
27R1769 SBB PSTN CABLE
42V9391 SBB LANG.PACK US ENGLISH
42V9428 SBB PACKAGING US
42V9638 SBB 14.1WXGAW/OCAMWWAN11N,W/BT
39T6440 SBB 56K V.92 DESIGNED MODEM
42V8646 SBB CL.PLATE T61WLANANDBLTOOTH
42V9665 SBB FCC, LABEL
42V9667 SBB GEO LABEL US, WLAN,BT
41W2300 SBB LOGO PLATE
42V9632 SBB INTEGRWWAN ANT:14.1″ 11ABG
42V9658 SBB MT 7662 SYSTEM LABEL
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
42V7972 SBB MS LABEL (VISTA PREMIUM)
42T7135 SBB INTEL LABEL CORE-2
42X0914 SBB NO SIM MODEL
42X1352 SBB PC CARDSLOT EXPRESCARDSLOT
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
42X0915 SBB WLAN MISC PARTS
42X0922 SBB NVID QUADRO NVS XXXX W/AMT
42X1482 SBB BLUETOOTH W/ ANTENNA
42X1702 SBB BLUETOOTH SCREW
42V8063 SBB MS WAU ENGLISH NA-U MODELS
42V9341 SBB 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SODIMM
June 13th, 2007 2:23 pm
Well, finally after numerous calls and sending the cancellation notice to about 8 different emails my order was canceled. Checking status shows that there is no order with the number assigned. Oh well, ride with LENOVO was one disappointing experience and the date of 6/26 i just an excuse to keep people from canceling. Besides the attempt to bribe people with the “gifts” I was even offered financial compensation. Whatever that meant I decided to just cancel anyway. Spending $2300 on a laptop and waiting on it for over a month is not reasonable no matter how great thinkpads are. Nobody buys a Beemer to wait for it till next year. Not unless it’s a special/limited edition, which certainly is not the case with thinkpads.
June 13th, 2007 2:30 pm
As per Track Shipments, my T61 will be delivered tomorrow.
Order date is 5/25
Original ESD is 8/29
June 13th, 2007 2:37 pm
Look at all the people who ordered after us and will get their computer before me! Lenovo:1254645612… Rob 0
June 13th, 2007 2:39 pm
I currently have been waiting since 4/30/07 for one laptop order to be fulfilled, a T60 and have 3 other sets of 2 laptop orders waiting in row (5/31, 6/5, 6/8 all dates I ordered systems, also T60’s). I have a case number, but still no resolution. I’ve been told my oldest order will ship, and my orders have been set to be expedited, but I am weary of believing that.
I don’t see the point in continuing to order from Lenovo if I am not getting any satisfaction from quick orders. How am I expected to supply my employees with hardware if it takes almost 1 1/2 months to order ahead what I know they will need? I’ve gotten a horrible feeling that my money is all that was asked of me and I should just be patient and wait for my laptops to arrive.
I still have 3 orders (that’s 6 laptops total) in waiting if the message I got today that my 4/30/07 order actually shipped yesterday. Almost 2 months to get an order?!?! And yet I got no offers of deals on future orders, no discounts, nothing to resolve the sour taste I have in my mouth so far from just one of my orders. I could easily cancel my other 3 orders and go elsewhere, but apparently waiting for some apologetic hand from Lenovo is going to be a hope never fulfilled. I do hope my concern will be heard and my case will be taken more seriously, as my company has been a long time customer and I would hate to have to break that in search of another vendor.
June 13th, 2007 2:58 pm
While I appreciate updates being given somewhere with regards to the shipment of these orders, I do wish I would not have had to go searching for them in order to figure out the details behind my order status.
On May 30th I ordered a Thinkpad T61 and a leather laptop bag, and have since received the bag. However, I’m still waiting for the arrival of the T61, and today I found out it’s delivery would be much later than expected.
When I placed my order I was given an estimated ship date of June 18th; while this day has not yet passed and I’m perfectly amicable to wait until then, I called my sales rep today to make sure it would in fact ship on that day so that I would be able to receive it before I go on a long trip. Unfortunately I was informed that my shipment date of the 18th is likely inaccurate and that it wouldn’t ship until late June or early July.
This throws a rather unwelcome wrench into my plans, since now I have to find someone to receive the laptop in my stead (Lenovo will not ship to addresses that aren’t the confirmed credit card billing one), and more importantly, I will be without it for several weeks during which I’ll have to continue to use an ailing clunker that the T61 was intended to replace. If the laptop was never going to be able to ship by the 18th of June, and if this was known beforehand, why was that given to be the estimated ship date to begin with? I’d much prefer to know the true date of shipment even if it’s longer than would be liked than to be kept in the dark with different expectations.
I’ve noticed with hotels that if you go to some of the cheaper and lower end chains you’ll get free high speed internet, free breakfast, and a number of other accomodations, though you get rooms of much lesser quality and the grounds and location aren’t the best. However, when you go into a more expensive hotel, you pay significantly more per night of stay, and while the vistas and grounds are markedly nicer, the basic accomodations you received from the cheaper places are gone – no more free internet, breakfast, etc. etc., even though the price you’re paying would certainly justify you to be treated just as well as you were by the other places. Likewise I’ve dealt with and seen laptops from several other manufacturers, and they can’t hold a candle to the quality and reliability of a Thinkpad. This quality comes at a markedly higher price and I’m happy to pay that premium to get a markedly better machine. However, like with the hotels, I am very disappointed to find that when I have purchased lower grade systems I’ve been kept up to date with my order through every step of the way and given accurate ship dates that were held to by the manufacturer, but now that I have come to upgrade to a better product, my experience as a customer has been far worse than with any other manufacturer to date.
Communication is absolutely critical to avoid disgruntled customers, and I sincerely hope that in the future this is improved upon. In the meantime, I look forward to the day I finally get my hands on the T61.
June 13th, 2007 2:59 pm
Finally called. CS sucks. She did not admit there was an email sent out last night mentioned 6/26 things.
Ordered on 5/22, origianl ESD: 6/8; then to 6/27; now to 6/29;
Do they really think they are the only computer builder on this planet?
June 13th, 2007 3:00 pm
Please tell me who/how/where do I file a complaint? Better Business Bureau, who else? This is my first and last experience with Lenovo.
Ordered 5/10 and still don’t have T61
Thank you
June 13th, 2007 3:08 pm
30 min on hold … was told that the packing label has been printed so that mean it will ship by 6/26 or earlier. She said the 5/9 – 5/24 orders have been put to priority and I mentioned that per this blog folks that ordered T61’s on 5/29 were getting shipped. She said that should not be happening and will alert her team leads. Also, she said it was the LCD bezel (sp) that caused the delays at it wasn’t realized right away that this was the error ….so take that for what it’s worth. I must say she was very nice and friendly and hardly seemed like someone getting hammered with phone calls all day.
Mine = T61, 14.1″, 2 ghz with 4g L2, 2gig mem, 120HD. DVD burner, 1gig turbo cache mem, Nvidia and 7cell bat, ordered 5/22.
June 13th, 2007 3:10 pm
I’ve been reading this blog for sometime now and wanted to add my 2 cents. I ordered a T61 on 5/29 and the ship date was 8/31. Seeing as that’s unacceptable since I need a laptop before then, I called Lenovo 3 times and ended up on hold, listening to muzak, for over 4 hours. I tried chatting using Lenovo’s chat feature but that didn’t work — I tried the ‘call me now’ feature — that didn’t work. Nothing worked and it was really frustrating (as I’m sure you all know). The time that I did reach a CSR they were very unhelpful and couldn’t give me a straight answer for anything.
I filed a report with BBB (on Friday night) and by Tuesday morning, a Lenovo rep called me (I was very surprised by the speed). He has been very helpful and courteous and has called me twice now with updates on my order. He picks up the phone too.
Initally he told me it’d be a 2-3 week wait (even though the website says 8/31). That would put me around the 6/26 date that everyone’s talking about. He just called me today to tell me that my order had an invalid config which was very odd but he said that the laptop should still ship around 6/26 as there’s a team currently rebooking the machines. He said that everyone at Lenovo is on “High Red alert” to get all of these issues resolved.
Perhaps the 6/26 date will come and I’ll get no laptop, and it is unfortunate that we have to go through SO MUCH just to get someone on the phone to give us some info, but I was pleased with the fact that this guy actually called to tell me what was up with my order even though the shipping date is still the same as what he told me last time. He also mentioned that the website shipping status probably won’t change for a while since they’re trying to get all of the orders rebooked and rebuilt. I do agree that I’d rather have my laptop than a corrected ship date.
June 13th, 2007 3:12 pm
They are the only one that get’s a VERY high ranking on their T61 model …all laptops feel like toys next to the Thinkpad. Sorry but it’s true …been using them for a long time now and they always rise to the top. We all know there are cheaper in price with more bells & whistles out there but the build quality (esp the keybord) are way up there.
Sure I’m anoyed mine was so delayed but that won’t force me to start whinning how sucky they are. Did they mismanage this issue, sure, do their Thinkpads suck …nope.
June 13th, 2007 3:20 pm
reading some of the comments, it seems like Lenovo wasn’t able to automate the changes to the orders and are now rebooking them manually, which may explain why my 5/17 order hasn’t been changed.
June 13th, 2007 3:28 pm
@Peter,
You are absolutely right. The most important ones that Thinkpad got right were Keyboard and the pointing Stick. After using them for a while, I hated almost every other laptop I ever use more than 5 minutes. Even the high end Dell Latitude that comes with pointing stick, it just does not work as right as the Thinkpads. I had to switch to a real mouse anytime I can find one closeby.
I have come to realize that although a laptop is more than Keyboard and mouse, they are only two that interact with users.
June 13th, 2007 3:34 pm
I ordered on 5/11, so it’s sooo not fair! Since there is no update on the XP/NV configuration for T61, I am gonna assume that my order is never gonna be shipped! This is very frustrating. What I don’t understand is that, why does lenovo still has XP and NV config as an option on the website. I checked the support website, and it has the video driver
June 13th, 2007 3:48 pm
@Tim & Matt,
As a token to thank you for your efforts in communicating honestly with customers like me, I just ordered another Thinkpad from Lenovo.com. It is a father day gift to my dad, and I was thinking of getting a Dell Inspiron 640M for him. As long as it arrives before Labor day, my dad would be happy.
June 13th, 2007 4:12 pm
let’s hold our praises for Tim a little while longer since there are still many unresolved issues and Tim still hasn’t updated us as promised.
1. Tim promised to updated on Monday / Tuesday and still hasn’t done to so to tell us what’s really happening with our orders, have they all been updated automatically or must we wait for manual re-rentry?
2. the freebie email includes a reply address that doesn’t work, so what’s the correct address, or when will the email become valid?
3. Are freebies given per order or number of machines ordered?
4. It has been reported from others that after their order has been modified, they lost their discounts on the orders so the price went up. How will Lenovo handle this situation as more orders get updated?
June 13th, 2007 4:15 pm
@birdguy
I vote for your points. Tim, Please answer these.
June 13th, 2007 4:29 pm
Yeah, the e-mail provided me with a quick relief, but my order still says its going to ship in August. Three months is a long time to process and wait. Very frustrating. Although on the upside, three months is plenty of time to research alternatives to Lenovo!
June 13th, 2007 4:36 pm
@jerad
I totally agree frustration will keep mouting until we see laptop in our hand or more transperant system that will tell us exact status of our order where it stands in lenovo, like:
— Order Acceptece pending
— Order Accepted at warehouse or Order Rejected by warehouse
— Waiting to be build (Queue Number:#_____)
— Assembling system
— Waiting for Delivery pickup
— Shipped Date:__________
Also if it tells us our position in the queue it will be much better. At this point lenovo needs more transperant system that will tell them if order is accepted by warehouse or not. by using the above status they can easily search and monitor situation instead of depending on warehouse to tell them which seems like totaly detached system.
June 13th, 2007 4:45 pm
I agree with you on that Lenovo needs a more transparent and efficient system to compete in the US consumer market. However, it will inevitably add to cost and cut into the already low margin. Lenovo already had some trouble to turn US business into profit, it might have to exit the US business altogether.
Again, as long as I can get them (since I have two orders now) before labor day.
June 13th, 2007 4:51 pm
I hate to see company like lenovo exit from the us market, just because of the guy who wrote their order processing sytem screwed up and the excecutives who approved that screwed up as well. Those guys should be fired! if i had done that mistake in my work. i could have been long gone. This waits disappoints their loyal IT managers! who orders lenovo for all their business needs. I just sent note to our IT group explaining everything and cautioned them against lenovo.
June 13th, 2007 4:55 pm
I am totaly surprised that i have to face the unacceptible things. i was going to arrange a party on the estimated date of delivery 6/2 (order put on 5/21) for T-61 THINKPAD LAPTAP. Now itthe new estimated time is 8/3. Or you guys joking with us. i am not going to cancel my order as my sweet haeart has made this choice – first choice for me , otherwise i have to leave here too. Pls, pls pls ……….pls deliver my Laptap as early as possibel
thanks,
Mohd
June 13th, 2007 5:32 pm
The reply email for the freebie worked for me just fine, did it about 7:30am ET today. Maybe their servers got overloaded. Tim’s lack of recent responses might be because he has been directed to shhhhhh suits have a way of being stupid like that. This and other boardsare reporting items shipping now, the bubble might be breaking soon. I think it’s well documented that the online August date is wrong, so don’t loose too much slepp over that.
June 13th, 2007 5:33 pm
Sorry for typos .. I need to slow down
June 13th, 2007 5:41 pm
@Peter:
Where did you hear they are shipping soon? i checked notebookreview forums, all items that is shipping have been ordered after 5/24. The ver few items have been shipped between 5/9 – 5/25 group, and that also barebones laptop. Not a very hi-fi customized laptop, for example processors were 7300 or 7500. I haven’t seen any laptop with 7700 shipping.
June 13th, 2007 5:42 pm
Cancelled my order. Hope you guys can bear with it.
June 13th, 2007 5:45 pm
yes, some folks 5/29 and after are shipping …. that tells me product is out there. It’s an assumption but given that I would say sooner than later.
June 13th, 2007 5:52 pm
@Peter
That means we — who ordered before 5/25 are paying price. We have been put to the bottom of the queue, now this means, lenovo will continue to ship new orders but not old ones. That’s what i thought, and i don’t think the new date 6/26 will hold any strong, due to lack of transperancy in order system we can speculate few things. But until we see the orders shipped from 5/9 – 5/24 group in serial fashion will flavors of microprocessors (like 7700, 7500, 7300 Intel core 2 duo) processors. Till then its all useless. The freebie and other things are useless as well, although i did tell them to give me the second battery but that will work only and if only if i get a new laptop delivered, and who knows rebooking will change price, discounts, benefits, etc.. etc… etc….
The warehouse in china still lives under strong iron clad and even CS in america do not have access to their system what do you think they will inform us what’s going on? I don’t think the warehouse in china thinks we are that important to know about order status. Nothing personal against china but it seems like it.
June 13th, 2007 6:14 pm
May as well increment the body count by 1 for me.
I ordered an R61 for myself on 5/24 and have been given many ESDs. I’m oddly relieved to know that the problem is this big…hopefully that will drive to a solution more quickly than if it was just a random isolated thing.
Lord willing, my computer will be shipped on 6/29 (so says Lenovo).
June 13th, 2007 6:25 pm
We are all just cogs in IBM’s master plan to watch the Lenovo stock tank and then buy back the Thinkpad business for dirt.
June 13th, 2007 6:40 pm
@NotebookTechine
I have to agree with Davidlet, it’s time to give it a breather. If you have any new information to add, feel free to do so but if I have to read one more time that you ordered before 5/25 and still haven’t received your laptop, I’ll jump from the next bridge.
@Tim
I agree, it’s weird that Tim hasn’t updated the blog even though he promised to do so. Based on what I’ve seen from Tim before, that’s not normal and I’m with Peter on that. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.
Finally, I’m not sure why but the return email address that we received with the freeby email worked just fine (at least it didn’t bounce back).
June 13th, 2007 6:46 pm
@Tom
You didn’t read it right! i have ordered on 5/18 not 5/25. Plus i didn’t say i’ll jump from the next bridge. I’ll keep posting my frustrustions here, if you don’t want to read just simply ignore me.
June 13th, 2007 6:52 pm
@ NotebookTechine
You aren’t very good at this, are you? Tom said that if he has to read that “you ordered ****before**** 5/25 and still haven’t received your laptop” then ****he**** is going to jump off the next bridge. As for the ignoring thing, well, if there was a filter, I am sure we all would. I think the general consensus (ignoring the irony and hypocrisy in this post) is that we want this to blog’s comments to be as neat and spam-free as possible, so those who have issues other than the normal “I don’t have my laptop” problem have a place to voice their concerns and questions more directly. I understand your frustration — I also ordered before 5/25, but there’s a point where you just have to step back and either calm down or cancel your order.
June 13th, 2007 6:57 pm
Seconded, re: NotebookTechine giving it a rest. (And seconded re: ignoring the irony inherent in this post.)
June 13th, 2007 6:58 pm
I order an R61 on May 28 and I too got the lucky 8/30/2007 ship date. To date nothing has changed on my order and the couple of times I have talked to CS they have said this is on an R61?
I have read only the orders prior to 05/25/2007 where affected by the glitch, but my order appears to be in limbo land. At least a number of you have been updated. Can somebody from Lenovo discuss the R61 delivery issues??????????
Thank you in advance
June 13th, 2007 7:00 pm
@JYoung
I used to be good until the point of frustration. More i read about people’s responses more i get frustrated about the situation. Calm down? When i read most of people’s orders have been rebooked and problem corrected, and my order still stays same! not corrected! Called up CS but got only ongoing assurances nothing more! Your frustration only goes if you see the queue moving but so far i haven’t seen it moving in right order. I am sorry! if my frustration gives you pain! but i’ll try to add my frustration without mentioning order date. Because, i think this is the right place where it will get noticed in lenovo. And, please don’t say again don’t post as this will prevent people who are really frustrated keep them from posting and that’s not the point.
June 13th, 2007 7:16 pm
I ordered a T60p on May 21. I ordered a T60 on May 30. The T60 shipped to my dad yesterday. Mine, T60, hasn’t shipped. I’m really nervous that with all this drama that has errupted from a software glich, that they will so frantically throw machines together that our wonderfully discounted machines will end up utter crap. I, like others, don’t want to cancel and lose my good discount. So I’ll just bare it and hope that they can gracefully resolve the issue with ‘perfectly’ built machines and some sort of compensation other than free batteries that don’t even work for my particular system ordered. (I know there was a bag and an AC cord also, but really, does a $50 product make up for this?)
June 13th, 2007 7:19 pm
@NotebookTechine:
I didn’t say don’t post, I said don’t post the same story over and over again. If it’s the same, you don’t add any value. That’s all.
Question:
Does anybody know if the freeby stuff (battery, etc.) is supposed to show up in our order as an additional item or extra shipment? It doesn’t show up on mine and I start wondering if the return email has gone through since it didn’t bounce back like it did for some of you. Please share if or as soon as the compensation articles show up on your previous order. Thanks
June 13th, 2007 7:39 pm
The email regarding the free battery was sent by “critical@ca.ibm.com”,
HOWEVER it requested that we send the reply back to “critical@ca.lenovo.com”. Everytime I send to “critical@ca.lenovo.com” it gets returned as undeliverable.
FYI..I got a email back from a CSR and they actually stated this…”You have not contacted IBM David, you have contacted Lenovo.”
They went on to try to say that they are not IBM, as if we should get the 2 companies confused. If they want everyone to believe they are not IBM then maybe she shoudl change the email address too…”critical@ca.ibm.com”????
Honestly I dont see why the CSR is arguing weather or not they are IBM or Lenovo. It doesnt matter….Just send me the computer!
Has anyone written WSJ to see if they will do a article yet? Ill bet the CEO and all the Senior Executives will take notice of our delima at that point when there stock takes a hit after the article happens. Either way, the WSJ guys certainly know how to access the Senior executives and hopefully light a fire under their a**
June 13th, 2007 7:42 pm
FYI…My oorder was placed on May 13 and now hen send me a reply again and the price actually went down $159
Does this mean they discounted it or does it mean they just decided to cut corners and are not gonna build as requested? They are telling me it will ship June 29.
Others are reporting that their price went up…Mine actually went down but I suspect that they might just be changing the comfiguration?
June 13th, 2007 7:47 pm
Ahhh!!!! My order was submitted at mid May. Lenovo website shows Est. ship date = 6/26/07 some days ago and it became 8/3/07 today. I clicked reload button of my IE and shaked my head to make sure I am not half blind or ill.
I know Lenovo don’t want to miss the ship date the second time so they may want to be conservative, but padding the ship date by one month+ without reason is not called ‘conservative’, it is called ‘covering our ass without caring customers’
After all, is the year of shipping date correct? Should I start to use heroin?
June 13th, 2007 8:04 pm
ok, so it seems that some return emails went through (I sent mine to critical@ca.lenovo.com) and some return emails bounced back.
I don’t quite understand your post, David. The email to critical@ca.lenovo.com bounced back but then you still got an email from them stating that you’ve contacted lenovo and not IBM? So how did they know that if your email to them had bounced back? Please clarify when you get a chance. I’d really like to know if I have to resent it or not and it seems that I’m not the only one here. Thanks,
@Tim:
- Could you please provide the correct email address for the compensation or confirm that critical@ca.lenovo.com is correct.
June 13th, 2007 8:05 pm
Ordered on 5/21. Received an email with the “updated order status” – my price went up by more than $100 and the ship date changed to 8/3.
Haven’t spoken to customer service yet, have a lot of you experienced price increases?
June 13th, 2007 8:29 pm
Has anyone else been told there is a credit hold on their order? Does anyone know why a credit hold might happen?
I called three times with regard to my order, a T61, once two weeks ago and twice today. The first phone call I made because I ordered on 5/10, was supposed to ship on 5/31, and got an email on June 1 telling me my order could be 1-30 days late, ESD was 6/18. Then, ESD 6/18 became ESD 8/3, so I called this morning to see what the deal was. They gave me the same spiel everyone in the 5/9 – 5/25 group has been getting. I also changed my shipping address with them since I won’t even be living in the same place by the time I get my laptop, and we hung up. Over the next few hours, 8/3 became 8/6 so I called back, enraged, but the CS rep was able to somehow convince me I would ship on 6/27 and I chickened out out of cancelling my order. He mentioned to me that my order had a credit hold on it, though it didn’t this morning. He couldn’t tell me why, doesn’t think it has anything to do with my card, which is a good card.
Does anyone have some insight on the magically appearing credit hold?
Also, I am beginning to wonder if we’re getting duped: The email we all got last night said the units should be built and shipped by 6/26. Today, it was 6/27. I am wondering if this is true, or if the Lenovo sales reps are just told to say two weeks from now. I am calling again next week, and if it’s still two weeks, I am cancelling.
June 13th, 2007 8:33 pm
I dont understand why my order needs to be rebooked since I placed it on May 31st which was outside the dates of the affected invalid orders. I got a call today saying it needed to be rebooked but was uncertain as to when it would be rebooked. There was no reason to re-do my order and now I will be delayed even longer
June 13th, 2007 8:43 pm
Thanks Tim for the update and for clarifiying the email address issue.
June 13th, 2007 8:46 pm
No price increase for me. I did a reply on my email so I assume it sent back to the IBM domain and not the Lenovo domain. Of course DNS could just be sending them all to the same place. Hopefully Tim will shed some light. I second the fact that most of us , if not all of us here (or we wouldn’t be here) ordered a TP and it’s delayed. So now that we all know eveyones story lets just make an effort to share helpful info with each other. If I we want to hear bitching, we can do something wrong and hear it from our spouses, significant others or parents.
Again, the CS told me that my packing label was printed and to her that was an indication I was going to make the 6/27 ESD. Curently, online my ESD say’s 8/17
Good night all,
June 13th, 2007 8:50 pm
I have the same question as Brian did as my order was placed on 5/29 and still shows a shipping date of 8/31. I did receive an email back from the rep that placed my order but it didn’t have an updated concrete shipping date either. It just said by the end of June or early July. I am leaving for vacation on 7/13 which is why this concerns me.
I created a quote of the same confinguration on 6/7 just to see if the parts matched up. They did, item for item.
So Tim, please explain what is going on here.
Thanks.
June 13th, 2007 9:01 pm
I’m not sure why, but my order shipped today. I’m half elated and half skeptical. For some reason i expect that status to change to “in process” again anytime tonight or tomorrow.
T61 w/ xp pro w/ nvidia 140m
June 13th, 2007 9:27 pm
@Justin,
That’s great news! I have the same config with XP Pro and NVidia. I did order on May 11th, so may be there is some hope after all. When did you order yours?
June 13th, 2007 9:38 pm
Hey, actually they cut off my message
ordered 5/17 shipped 6/13
I still want my free gift though!
June 13th, 2007 9:56 pm
The Trials and Tribulations of thinkpad purchases:
Just for reference I ordered on 5/15 the 14″ T61 with XP.
I received the email stating expect all orders out by 6/26 but the
system still shows 6/20, I’m hoping the system is right.
I sent the “freebie email” to both addresses with no reply yet on either
but I just did it 15 min ago.
My CS has been very helpful, though obviously the news has not been very good, he’d do well as a doctor.
Let’s hope Lenovo pulls out of this nosedive, their not the sexiest systems out there but they sure can take a pounding.
June 13th, 2007 11:19 pm
I ordered a T60 Widescreen ATI Vista on March 24th, and my ship date shows June 20th. For me, every time the ship date arrived, it would just get changed to a new date. Every time I decided to call to cancel, it was outside of the customer service hours. I’ll give them one last chance to meet the ship date. If it actually ships, it will already be 3 months for me.
Ahhh… It feels good to get that out!
June 13th, 2007 11:19 pm
Has anyone who called customer service also seen $50 dropped off the price for no apparent reason?
June 13th, 2007 11:27 pm
I don’t know if this helps anyone but I just received an email saying my *R61* has been shipped. Order was on 5/25 and I initially got an estimate of 8/31. I called up Lenovo and the CS rep told me it a was a glitch. I had him adjust some items on the laptop and he reordered it on 5/27. Model number is 7742CTO and I used my company’s employee discount program to order it. Good luck to everyone else and I hope you guys get your new toys soon. This waiting has been unbearable.
June 13th, 2007 11:50 pm
I didn’t order between 5/9 and 5/25. I ordered a T60p 15.4″ WSXGA+ on 4/30. Still no word on shipment.
In the meantime, I’m aware of several people who had virtually the same configuration that ordered well after me that have already received shipment.
It’s been very frustrating that I haven’t been able to get any reliable information from any customer service reps. It genenerally takes 30-40 minutes waiting on hold just to speak with them. The only information that they have been able to give me was that a shortage in the 15.4″ WSXGSA+ screens had held up the orders. However, they could not offer any explanations as to why people who ordered theirs with the same screen on 5/8 and 5/22 have already received them.
For the first time, I’m giving serious consideration to cancelling this order. There ARE other companies who make a decent laptop, and who have some commitment to customer service.
It’s hard to have confidence in the technology of a company can not even get a standard order tracking system straight.
June 14th, 2007 12:07 am
Well, my order says its been shipped, tomorrow i’ll get tracking information and follow its journey across the pacific. Now I guess all I’m doing is crossing my fingers for no dead pixels. If everything checks out, Lenovo has regained my confidence.
One thing is for sure, I’ve never been so passionate/involved with the customer feedback/community as I have been with this Lenovo t60p. It makes ordering a dell seem…..well, kind of boring….haha.
Hmmmm, perhaps this is one giant subliminal marketing branding scheme. A kind of stockholm syndrome of brand loyalty. They put us through hell but in the end we end up loving them…..
If I’ve stumbled on some kind of Lenovo secret marketing scheme, how about a job David?
Anyhow, i’m ranting and being delusional, I’m just so damn happy my laptop shipped.
June 14th, 2007 12:19 am
To Amy:
I don’t think it’s worth for $50 to compensate the shipping delay (or whatever excuse they gave us..) Now, think about it..battery is worth $130 (web price), and others are worth around $50. I’d take the battery even if it doesn’t fit to your model, sell it back..(at ebay or anywhere). What I would like to claim is the service upgrade or warranty extension. Personally, I want a 2 GB ram for my compensation.
It’s just me..
BTW, I ordered my T60 on May 14, and it’s shipped yesterday (June 12), and now, UPS tracking said it’s sitting in Louisville, KY for no apparent reason..Grrrrrrr Maybe it’s just taking a break since it’s travelled so far from China!!!
June 14th, 2007 12:54 am
@aks
Louisville, KY is UPS’s global hub for most of America. It’ll take a bit for it to get re-routed (maybe a day), but they are working 24/7 there and are usually pretty good about it.
June 14th, 2007 2:24 am
Looks like they hit the mass manufacture button and shipped the T60P. Don’t care if I get my free gift or not as long as the laptop works without a hitch
Ordered on May 16th with a valid EPP discount code. Damn all those fake Meyer folks!! You greedy peeps almost screwed it up for the rest of us.
June 14th, 2007 2:28 am
I just saw on forum.thinkpads.com that the Laptop Guy has some T61’s in stock. Look at the banner ad at the top.
June 14th, 2007 5:12 am
Hey guys,
Just wanted to add my voice here. I’ve been keeping tabs on this page and the notebook review and thinkpad forums for quite awhile. I ordered my t61 on 5/10 and I’m leaving the country on 6/23, so I’m kinda in a sticky situation here. I figured that the 6 week buffer would be plenty considering that the Lenovo online store said it would be 1-2 weeks to ship, however it looks like I’m probably not going to be getting it in time. To further complicate matters, I’m actually going back to my hometown for a week before I leave, so that means I’m also going to have to change the shipping address… I wanted to wait patiently for this laptop, but after seeing so many people who ordered (WAY) after us early-adopters get it shipped, I’m really frustrated. It bothers me to hear Tim say that Lenovo is going to ‘make things right’ when it’s been 5 weeks and counting and I haven’t gotten my laptop. Free case/battery/adapter or not, the fact is we STILL have no idea when our laptops are coming. Please, please, please Lenovo prioritize the orders so that those of us who ordered early are not punished for being believers in the Thinkpad brand.
Here’s hoping to a positive resolution,
Jeff
June 14th, 2007 5:48 am
[...] Lenovo’s Tim Supples is trying his best to keep customers up to date over at Lenovo Blogs. [...]
June 14th, 2007 10:06 am
Called Customer Service today. Found out my order was shipped out THIS MORNING. Got UPS tracking #. Keeping my fingers crossed. Made order on 5/26. Status on lenovo site still reads 8/30. Never got any emails from lenovo.
Good luck guys!
June 14th, 2007 10:47 am
Has anyone else noticed that although orders made on or before 5/25 are supposed to be on the critical list that the majority of people posting that their T61s have shipped ordered on 5/26 or after.
June 14th, 2007 10:49 am
It seems that here and on notebookreviews.com that orders are shipping. Please let us know if you received the email that resembled your original confirmation email recently (the one with the correct parts listed) and if you have been told it has shipped. Thanks
June 14th, 2007 10:50 am
my order from 5/17 is still not modified despite getting the freebie email. I am SO sick of checking my order, I just want my order! No replies from Web Sales team after I sent the message two weeks ago. I should have just cancelled and reordered, all the people who ordered in early June are starting to get their orders shipped, meanwhile my glitchy order sits there in limbo.
June 14th, 2007 10:53 am
I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I have seen everyone who has gotten their t61’s and all of them have ordered weeks after me. I got an email back from my customer rep who I e-mailed a few days back. He told me my order was set to ship on june 26th and he even took a screenshot which showed my order and where it says “ship by 6/26″. However, I don’t know if I can take another 2 weeks of hearing about people who have gotten their laptops shipped and have ordered weeks after me. All I have left to say is, my laptop better be in a box on its way to new york by june 26th!
June 14th, 2007 11:42 am
no update on my order. no change, not shipping out yet. It’s pissing me off that despite ordering on May 9th others are getting their laptops and they ordered after me
June 14th, 2007 11:53 am
Same here. Ordered on May 9th and still waiting. Got off the phone with CSR and the same old update, “by June 26th”. Says web team working on it. Part of my order was shipped last month, but of course, my laptop is still in limbo.
June 14th, 2007 11:59 am
Ordered May 28, shipped today. When I ordered it said ship date 06/08, but my order confirmation e-mail showed 8/30. Since May 28th, the estimated ship date never changed, I never received any e-mails from Lenovo and I didn’t call them.
June 14th, 2007 12:09 pm
Well, everyone, it is getting to the point that there is more than enough complaints. Are we still humans? Do ourselves some time have imperfection in our own work and life? I hope that Lenovo can learn from its mistakes and this kind of problem will not happen again, but the fact is that there was a problem. People in Lenovo are working hard to resolve it, and Tim is doing his best to provide as much information as he can. Nobody can go back in time and fix the problem before it happened, so just take a deep breath, either cancel your order or wait to end of the month.
I ordered mine online on 5/14, was not happy about the three or four delays happened to my order. It is definitely going to miss the father day, now I am patiently waiting for it. As long as it arrives before labor day, it will be all right.
June 14th, 2007 12:30 pm
Oh..man I’m seriously getting pissed at Lenovo. I ordered my T61 5/25 and got an ESD of 8/29, immediately sent an e-mail to customer service and asked about that. One week later I got an e-mail and they told me that my T61 will ship mid June. Today I called again to find out if this ESD is still accurate. I was then told that my T61 will ship at the end of June, I asked if it is normal that I have to call over and over again to find out if the ESD they promised my last time still holds. The CSR told me no, I can check this information online, and guess what, he directed me to this blog to check for updates (WTF?). I also told him that I will need the T61 for a business trip to Europe in mid July and if he can promise me that I will get it by then. He said no, because it depends on how fast the factory can build the systems and they don’t know for sure if they will be built by that date.
June 14th, 2007 12:45 pm
damn! it doesn’t look like my orders will be shipped in time, i see lots of posting in notebookreview forum about people who are ordering recently are being shipped next day! why aren’t they building 5/9 to 5/25 effected orders! why are you building later orders?
June 14th, 2007 1:05 pm
Since I still haven’t received my order for the T60 (granted not the T61 & R ones others are on here originally to complain about) made way back in 4/30, I had to resort to other methods.
I found a website that had a few Lenovos to sell, found one that had a few T60p’s with a better graphics card, more memory, less HD size that they said had “limited availability” in warehouse. Placed an order early last week, asked for next day shipping, and it’s in my hands just now as it arrived. Manuf. date on it is 4/17/07, not to much earlier than the date I placed my order directly to Lenovo themselves. I paid more $$ unfortunately to get this T60p, but it has saved me my job and my reputation. It’s sad to think I had to go elsewhere to get the same machine I was willing to hand money directly over to Lenovo for from a 3rd party. I had to settle on something other than I wanted from someone other than Lenovo only because I have been waiting far to long as it is.
Oh, and yes, I do still have my orders waiting with Lenovo. I am sorry to say I haven’t received any communication from anyone at Lenovo to persuade me to keep them, or to offer me extra items for my extended troubles. I wish the customer service was up to par with the machines that they sell.
June 14th, 2007 1:18 pm
@Aileen Kara Hudspeth
I agree with you, along with their customer service, their factory in china and the manufacturing process needs to be up to par with the machines that they sell.
June 14th, 2007 2:40 pm
May be the shipped notebooks were all made during the time period the incorrect orders were rectified to feed the assembly or may be the earlier orders that did not ship are the ones with back ordered parts. Lets wait till the weekend. We atleast see some notebooks being shipped. Hope things go well form now on.
June 14th, 2007 2:45 pm
I got the email yesterday that looked like my orginal oder confirmation (back on 5/22) … is that a good sign?
June 14th, 2007 2:59 pm
@Peter
Does it have a missing parts? The good sign is when you see the shipping notice! until then! take a towel and sit next to me to cry for your laptop.
June 14th, 2007 3:01 pm
@brian
Don’t say the same thing again otherwise some people who have ordered their laptop later then us and hopes to get before us due to the glitch will whine and will threaten us to jump over the next bridge.
June 14th, 2007 3:05 pm
What is/are the missing parts? I’m late to this party…
June 14th, 2007 3:09 pm
@peter
Here they are!
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1″W/O CAM
It doesn’t seems a rocket science to fix this glitch but it is as per lenovo.
June 14th, 2007 3:14 pm
The email I received didn’t have the detailed onfiguration, it had a link to that info online. The online data DOES show those two parts in the list.
June 14th, 2007 3:59 pm
@peter!
yes click on that link.
June 14th, 2007 4:05 pm
@NotebookTechine
I did, the parts are on that list…my quess getting that second confirmation email was the rebooking taking place. While it’s not a T61 in my hands, it’s progress
June 14th, 2007 4:09 pm
I called the CSR yesterday because I saw ESD became 8/3 (I order mine at 5/22). I was furious and asked the rep what was going on. He said that it is an error and they will ship my order around 26,27th. I asked “is that a guarantee?” He replied “no” and said “they were told that they will ship around that date”.
What kind of answer is that?
I got the freebie email and pick the battery and email it back. But now I am seriously thinking about cancelling the order.
This is just far beyong ridiculous. You already charged the credit card and I expect you to ship my computer accordingly.
If I don’t have any shipping information on my order by 6/27, I will definitely cancel it or contact BBB. I am only a student…not having a lot of money but a lot of time during summer. So I will make sure that the complaint goes thru.
June 14th, 2007 4:11 pm
I ordered one T61 14 LCD w/ Cam. I know there is some delay with this config. Could you tell me how long I have to wait for 14 w/ Cam??
June 14th, 2007 5:23 pm
I ordered a t61 on 5/27 and saw that the status online says that the laptop has shipped on 6/14 . Dont have a tracking number yet but it says should be available by tomorrow.
I am on hold with them and should have the details.
dont mean to boast here but thought i should notify customer likes me about the progress.
Will post again once i speak to a CSR
–DM
June 14th, 2007 6:07 pm
@t40-t61
forever! eternity!!!
June 14th, 2007 7:44 pm
i ordered on 3/23. latest estimated ship date: 6/26 so sad…
June 14th, 2007 7:58 pm
Ordered the 25th, delivery date of August 29, but shipped a few days ago and got here yesterday! There is hope! I’m impressed with the sleek look and spare packaging. I think I’m going to love it!
However, very unsettled to find there is no way to make a recovery disk in the even of a failed drive (I had been led to believe you could do this by the sales staff). The recovery system only works if you have the original functioning drive with the recovery program in a protected partition. I hope I am wrong about this. It makes no sense to have no way to reinstall your software on a replacement drive.
June 14th, 2007 8:12 pm
Problem is not when you are beyond the critical orders window! problem is when you are within that window, for those in that window. No Hope!
June 14th, 2007 8:32 pm
Tim,
My order was changed during rebooking. The webcam, initially ordered, is no longer present and the price was not lowered to reflect this. I’d rather just have my notebook but shipped but I will not be paying more when an item i originally ordered was not included. I have emailed the critical address you provided, spoke to a CSR, faxed said CSR what little documentation I had (The “Print this page for your records” indicates the webcam but does not show my name or an order number, why does Lenovo do this?). Errors and glitches are one thing, and can easily be forgiven, but the complete lack of customer service that I am receiving on THIS error (In essence a change of my order without my authorization and a fraudaulent charge on my credit card if and when it is to be processed), regardless of the fact that it is only a ~$30.00 part, is absolutely disgraceful. Please advise.
June 14th, 2007 9:07 pm
Lynx….
Have you had a thinkpad before ? if so how does this compare?
This laptop should be superb after this fiasco …
June 14th, 2007 9:17 pm
In my previous company i used Thinkpads and they are very good quality unlike their customer services or shipping schedule. Their laptops are second to none! High quality laptop. i read somewhere on notebookreview forum that following problems does exists on T61:
1) Blue screen of death
2) Unable to create recovery disk
3) Format at your own risk
Otherwise they praise this laptop. I think they need some driver updates but it should be one of the great laptop to own.
June 14th, 2007 10:11 pm
NotebookTechine I saw a lot of praises on the T60p and when i got it i was really disappointed with the LCD quality.
I’m used to a T23 and a T41. Both are superb. (though the fan does run too much on the t41)
I just hope they put good panels on these, otherwise i’ll be very disappointed.
As it is i’m disappointed with the offset LCD, the front audio jacks , being wide and not having a horizontal USB.
But if the performance is solid and the screen is as good as my T23 and T41 i’ll be happy. (And merely because it think it was a good price)
June 14th, 2007 11:00 pm
It is so frustracting to hear someone order later than me but got theirs eariler.
Have the order between 5/9-5/25 been being built or they are still lay in the warehouse as parts?
Did I mention I put my order on 5/9, any one eariler than me?
June 14th, 2007 11:19 pm
lowspeed, this is the only laptop I’ve ever owned. Only desktops previously. Hey, we still have the TRS-80 from Radio Shack we bought 29 years ago.
I did get the blue screen of death (continued cycling on and off) shortly after using it. Restored everything using the restore function and it seems to work okay now.
June 14th, 2007 11:56 pm
Yellowriver, 5/9 was the first day to order the t61. I also ordered mine on 5/9 and my status page hasn’t changed since 5/28 (when it went to 8/30).
June 15th, 2007 12:44 am
AAARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!! – This is exactly the state of my mind right now. Lenovo, whats wrong with you? Why can’t u be normal and just send me my laptop like every other company? This is very very heartbreaking, I seriously expected more from this company. (Order date 5/21, ESD – 8/03)
June 15th, 2007 2:09 am
So people who ordered a 15 inch T61 are cool?
June 15th, 2007 6:55 am
I too was worried about my credit card being charged before anything shipped, but at least for my orders nothing was charged to me until the unit shipped. When it shipped I was sent an e-mail with tracking information and then a few days later an electronic invoice.
Lynx,
I believe that there is a recovery partition on our original drive that lets you make a set of recovery DVD or CD’s. After reading some other threads on this blog I believe that you can make only 1 set of these recovery discs. I think that this is a fair solution. In the past, you could get the recovery CD’s mailed to you if you called and requested them within the first 30 days and after that I think you were charged a small fee.
June 15th, 2007 7:42 am
Mine arrived yesterday. So far, I really like it! Keep in mind that my configuration was almost bare minimum except for the 2GB and Nvidia.
June 15th, 2007 7:58 am
Anyone got T61 with camera yet??
June 15th, 2007 8:14 am
For those who have ordered between 5/9 and 5/24:
Who’s heard something from lenovo so far? Anybody who ordered 5/15 hear anything? What about 5/20?
I’m just trying to get a feel for how far along they are. I ordered the 24th so i’m most likely at the bottom of the list.
June 15th, 2007 8:54 am
I ordered on 5/15 and received a few emails so far. One to notify that my order was delayed to 6/20 for 6/1, another one to re-confirm the receipt of my order with esd changed to 6/29, and the last one from criticalorder.
June 15th, 2007 9:04 am
Got my tracking Nr today.
I ordered on 05/17… but after the shipping date changed to the famous 08/30 date I reordered on 06/06 and canceled the 05/17 order.
The 06/06 order is on its way, the 05/17 order still say’s it will ship on 08/30 ?!?!
If I’m lucky I might get the extra battery, at least I got the compensation email…
Good luck and fast processing to all you guys still waiting.
June 15th, 2007 9:05 am
P.S. I’m an other Matt
June 15th, 2007 9:37 am
I ordered 5/10. One email on 5/30 where ESD changed to 8/30 and email on 6/12 from Critical Orders.
Jesse-it seems like they are working backwards-you’re probably on the top of the list. I think I am on the bottom of the list.
June 15th, 2007 9:53 am
Tim, some feedback… it would be nice if your customer support guys could reply to emails sent.
Again, this is lack of having a system in place.
If I email a support address, I expect an automated reply back with a support ID assigned. All communication should reference that number.
Then, I can kick some butt when I haven’t received a reply and you’ll know who should have dealt with it.
It’s called traceability. Which is important from the customers perspective, but more so internally.
I hope you guys are listening to your customers and improvements are being made.
RW
June 15th, 2007 10:20 am
To KC:
I dont’ know about that. I have yet to recieve correspondence about rebooking, freebies or shipping dates or delays.
I had to email a customer rep directly after dealing with him previously about a price adjustment.
I’m crossing my fingers that i’ll hear something today.
June 15th, 2007 10:57 am
So I’ve been a fan of thinkpads since the 600, way back when. I’ve owned/used a 600, T20, T21, T30, T40, T42, T43, and now a T60. I’m waiting, patiently for my T61. I ordered on May 31 and have a ship date of 6/19, which a helpful rep just told me was fictional.
Please help me understand how a logistics mess like this still isn’t sorted out? The blog is a great help, but the problems are still not sorted, and orders continue to slip.
Meanwhile, (FLAMEBAIT), the new Santa Rosa MBP’s appear to be shipping just fine. (/FLAMEBAIT)
Now, I’m a month later into this than many of the folks here, but still, if orders are being delayed OUTSIDE of the initial batch identified, shouldn’t there be some proactive communication?
Signed,
Confused in NY
June 15th, 2007 11:42 am
Jesse,
It sounds like that your order probably belongs to the second half of the automatic rebook ing. Tim mentioned that Lenovo did first half then pause before the seocnd half.
June 15th, 2007 12:07 pm
Just canceled one of my two T61 orders. I had one of our laptops burn a motherboard this morning and needed an immediate replacement. If the first order (5/23) had arrived already, I could have waited on this replacement – but we all know the rest of that sad story.
This whole T61 delay issue has made me and Lenovo look stupid. One of the T61’s was to be assigned to our most capable staff in recognition for his outstanding abilities. I couldn’t think of a better laptop at the time to give this individual than a Thinkpad – I’ve had 7-8 Thinkpads over the years. What started out as a good idea has ended up with this great employee getting another brand laptop because the “best” laptop was mired in software glitches and sliding shipping schedules.
I don’t think we’ll revisit the prospect of a Thinkpad for our top staff any time soon, the crap I’ll get from the staff really defeats the whole intent of the recognition effort.
June 15th, 2007 12:29 pm
I read a comment earlier on here that someone received a T60p and was totally disappointed with it? Initially, I had been toying between a T61 and a t60p. Did I order the wrong one? Is the t60p crap?
June 15th, 2007 12:50 pm
The T60 isn’t crap …but should have ordered the T61 to get the Santa Rosa chipset.
June 15th, 2007 12:57 pm
what exactly is the santa rosa chipset that i keep hearing about? also, what is the difference in graphics of the t61’s intel gma x3100 versus the t60p’s ati mobility fire gl 256mb?
June 15th, 2007 12:59 pm
Tim, Can you please answer one very simple question please! Why are folks who ordered Thinkpads after all us poor folks in the 5/9 – 5/25 order range (or what ever those exact dates were) getting their Thinkpads before us?
CSR told me, that shouldn’t be so, the 5/9 -5/25 are moved to priority but the silence for us is defening, I’m begining to believe it’s best to cancel and then reorder, we’ll get better service.
June 15th, 2007 2:23 pm
Original order 5/9/07 canceled (by me) … reordered 5/28. today 6/15 got shipped..
Now the sad part is that I think I would prefer the non wide T61 which I just ordered and has an ESD of 7/3. Decisions decisions…
How long can I keep it unopened before calling them to return ?
June 15th, 2007 2:41 pm
How Did you guys managed to cancel your order. I am on hold with customer care since last 1 hr and still haven’t heard any voice from there. Is there another way to cancel the order except the phone.
June 15th, 2007 2:45 pm
so many people’s orders place after 5/24 got shipped already, it looks like Lenovo just throw their dart to find which one to build without looking at your order date. Their brains are just far away from their asses.
June 15th, 2007 2:58 pm
@YW
What was your spec? What processor?
June 15th, 2007 3:07 pm
Santa Rosa is new chipset that supposedly is an excellent performance improvement
June 15th, 2007 3:12 pm
I cancelled my order via email to: critical@ca.ibm.com. I received an email saying “If you do not want to wait for shipment, you may cancel your order at this time by responding to this email”, which is what I did. That was two days ago and I have yet to receive a confirmation of cancellation. Like Premanshu says, the phone wait is atrocious and I’d rather not have to call to make sure my order is in fact cancelled.
You guys can order the T61 from Office Depot.com. They have them in stock. That’s what I did and its expected delivery date is next Tuesday. Sucks that I had to cancel my “built” Thinkpad, but I’ll settle for the one they have and just be satisifed with putting upgrades on it.
June 15th, 2007 3:28 pm
I put my order in on 5/15. Like the rest of you, I’m still waiting with no confidence that any of the ship dates that they have provided are truthful.
As others have pointed out, the most annoying (not to mention asinine and utterly disrespectful) aspect currently is that people who placed orders well after 5/24 have been getting their orders shipped in 3-5 days.
I hate to state the obvious, but it’s clear that Lenovo has in fact sped up the ordering process; but only for new orders. They have basically made the decision that people that ordered their systems earlier are already pissed off, so instead of processing those orders they are focusing their attention and production capacity on new orders. Their response to horrible situation that they created is basically “those of you that put in your orders early, screw you.”
I’m not going to cancel my order at this point; I’m actually in no real hurry to receive a new computer. I’ll be fine as long as I get it before the end of July. The main issue is that instead of doing everything they can to take care of the early orders that they messed up, Lenovo has made the conscious decision to take care of new customers instead. I will not forget this. I make buying decisions on a few dozen computers a year currently; that could well increase to a few hundred computers per year in the future. I’m not going to say I will never consider Lenovo again; I will not cut off my nose to spite my face (or pocketbook). But I can say that for future purchases, I will always purchase from a different company if the offerings are at all competitive. Do they care that they have lost a few hundred sales over the next 5-10 years? Who knows.
Here’s what should have happened:
1. They should not lie to customers about being placed on some “priority critical list”. It’s clear that people in the 5/9-5/24 list are not in fact on any priority list. Orders placed in June have been shipping for days now.
2. Instead of blaming a computer system (which they put in place), someone at Lenovo should personally take responsibility for the delays in these systems. From what I understand, it’s only a few thousand systems. Certainly they must build that many computers every day. Someone should take responsibility for the screw up, pull whatever staff is necessary and fill those order! I can’t imagine that it would take more than a day for the factory to actually catch up, if that’s in fact what they wanted to do.
3. Stop taking new orders until the older orders have been filled. New systems with a variety of configurations are being delivered to customers every single day even as older orders wait. There doesn’t seem to be any missing part or magic configuration that is causing delays. They are able to build the systems; it’s unbelievably frustrating to see new orders with the exact configuration that I ordered being filled. It’s an insult to the existing customers.
4. Answer emails and be more responsive. I’ve sent in 5 emails, and have only received on response – and I believe I only received a response to that message because I started it with “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL SOMEONE PLEASE RESPOND TO MY EMAILS.” Of course, while someone did respond to my email, they didn’t take any action on my order. People are regularly waiting an hour or more to speak to a phone representative. This is not only unacceptable, it’s just plain silly. This blog has only been updated twice since 6/7. In that time, literally thousands of responses have been posted here and on other sited detailing this problem. The responses are filled with lies, 1/2 truths, misleading comments, and efforts to not take responsibility for the problems.
WILL PEOPLE AT LENOVO STOP LYING TO US PLEASE! For example, stop telling us that our orders are getting priority treatment when clearly they are not. Educate your customer service reps so they aren’t surprised when we report that lots and lots of people that placed orders just a few days ago have already had their new systems shipped.
WILL SOMEONE AT LENOVO PLEASE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PROBLEM, AND FIX IT. Stop blaming the ordering system; Lenovo put it in place. Someone with the power please, take a look at all existing orders, prioritize them in the order that they cam in, and make the factory produce the oldest orders first. This is not a strange request; it is rude to treat your customers in any other way.
AS A COMBINATION OF THE ABOVE TWO STATEMENTS, WILL SOMEONE AT LENOVO PLEASE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND GUARANTEE A TRUTHFUL DELIVERY DATE. Yes, we’ve all heard the 6/26 drop dead date; but when you talk to a customer service rep they say no, that date is not guaranteed. Given the delays, lies and changes I have been presented with thus far, I have zero confidence in this promised delivery date. Someone at Lenovo needs to address all those that have had their orders delayed again and again and make a promise. They need to say we WILL produce and ship your system by a date certain (6/26 or whatever); and if we are not able to do this we will cancel your order and give a rebate of $200 that you can use to purchase a computer from a company that is able to deliver as promised.
Years ago, I worked in a big corporate restaurant chain. If an order was delayed 10 minutes, we would usually offer a free desert or something. If it was seriously delayed (like the server forgot to put it in), the dinner would be comped, even if it were a few hundred dollars. In a hospitality industry like a restaurant, they knew that it was far better to take care of an angry customer than it was to allow them to go out and tell 20 friends about their bad experience. I’m not saying Lenovo should comp our computers – I understand this isn’t just dinner, but surely they must realize how many people that are pissing off. Those of us that are early adopters are probably the types that friends and co-workers look to for advice when purchasing computers. I bet many people here make buying decisions for their companies. To lose a single customer like this might cost them 50 or 100 systems down the road. To royally piss off a few thousand early adopters could mean thousands of sales and millions and millions of dollars down the line. I know that I won’t forget, and the longer they continue to string me along the angrier I will be.
June 15th, 2007 3:41 pm
Just to give some hope to others who ordered in this unfortunate period:
Ordered 5/17, ESD till this morning 8/17, shipped today!!!
I hear the angels singing:)
June 15th, 2007 3:42 pm
“I believe that there is a recovery partition on our original drive that lets you make a set of recovery DVD or CD’s. After reading some other threads on this blog I believe that you can make only 1 set of these recovery discs.”
I’ll see if I can find some info on this. I can’t figure out how to do it and sure don’t want to mess up my one copy.
Perhaps you could repost when you get your T61 (I assume you ordered one?) and were able to do so.
June 15th, 2007 3:43 pm
I meant to add on top:
madcow101333, you wrote:
June 15th, 2007 4:01 pm
@PETER:
Peter I’m seriously considering cancelling mine, a T60p, and maybe setting up for the T61 which I originally wanted but avoided the day I bought because of price. But my question is this, I don’t know about graphics. Which as a better graphics:
T61 has Intel GMA X3100 GM965 w/ WWAN
and the
T60p has ATI Mobility Fire GL V5250 256MB
Thanks Peter. I appreciate your input.
June 15th, 2007 4:03 pm
Initial order date was 5/17 with intial ship date of 6/5. On the morning of 6/5 when I checked my order status online it was changed to 6/22. I sent them an email that morning wondering why it took so long for them to change the order date if they knew 6/5 was not going to be met. It took a few days for them to respond and it was not a good response at that. I did receive the “free offer” email like others earlier this week and everything still showed 6/22 as the ESD and I figured I would at least have it shipped by 6/26 per the email they sent me. So overall, I did not feel the need to get involved on this blog other then monitoring it. Like others I don’t think it makes sense that those who have ordered later are already receiving their laptops.
However, I think I just reached my last straw. Just a few minutes ago I logged in to check the order status and it has changed since this morning from ESD of 6/22 to 7/18. I am going to try to get some info from them and if not I will be canceling my order and will make sure my Fortune 500 clients I consult for never purchase from Lenovo.
June 15th, 2007 4:35 pm
Same story here! I ordered on 5/11 and have yet to receive my order. I still have 8/3 as ESD on my status page. I know that CSR’s are lying to me everytime I call for a status. Only reason, I haven’t canceled so far is the discount I received through EPP. It’s large enough for me me to be little patient, but I will be filing a complaint with BBB on the morning of 6/26 if I do not receive a shipping confirmation. At this point, I will not be recommending Thinkpads from Lenovo to anyone!
June 15th, 2007 4:38 pm
@ AJD
good luck with getting information from them, if you do let me know too. I have sent emails to critical@ca.lenovo.com, websales@ca.lenovo.com, and my sales rep listed on my order, and NO ONE has gotten back to me. I am in the same exact situation as you, even the same exact dates too. Other than waiting for 1+ hrs on the phone it seems like there is no way to get anymore updates.
June 15th, 2007 4:43 pm
TOTALLY CANCELLED! The free shit wasn’t worth it. Especially since the battery wasn’t even compatible for the comp I ordered. I changed over to the T61 15 widescreen and got a much earlier ship date. We’ll see if it holds true. Regardless, at least I’ll be getting the system I originally wanted with more stuff and much cheaper. Take care all. Hope it works out for all of us soon…
June 15th, 2007 4:49 pm
Just wanted to say that, as a previously loyal ThinkPad customer, this incident and how it was handled irreparably damaged my confidence in Lenovo. I ordered a computer On the 9th of May which was supposed to ship “in 1 to 2 weeks” and was then told it wouldn’t ship until the 4th of June. Way to long for a laptop fulfillment, but fine. The 4th comes around, and rather than shipping, the expected date was changed to 7/19.
So, furious, I canceled my order, and ordered another computer from a different manufacturer (which, by the way, arrived two days later). But low and behold, what showed up 9 business days after I had canceled my order? My ThinkPad!
So, after having already spent over an hour and a half of total phone time (90% of it on hold) with Lenovo previously, trying to figure out what happened to my order, I now spent another hour (again 90% on hold) getting the product returned. Not to mention my time going to the mailing office and processing the shipment.
I am just appalled with this whole thing. Never again will purchasing a ThinkPad ever even cross my mind.
- Casey
June 15th, 2007 4:53 pm
@Amy
the Fire GL is the high end grafic card for laptops.
With this card you can easy run professional 3D CAD (like Catia V5)
(or use it as expensive gaming computer)
Santa Rosa is the new Chipset from Intel. It supports 800 MHz frontside bus also the new Turbo Cache (between HD and memory) and a few other new features (I think it supports more memory, too).
June 15th, 2007 5:26 pm
Tim and Matt
You guys better build our laptops quickly, you guys are losing reputation and customers as well! Its not fair to treat us like you guys are treating us. We need better treatment! lies! lies!! lies!!! more than half orders aren’t rebooked while later orders are being shipped! This doesn’t look good! Plus! sending emails to critical email and reps are not useful. None of them are replying to us. We are still in the dark.
June 15th, 2007 5:40 pm
Guess I’ll stick with my T42 for a while.
Just sent along the following email.
Customer service gets a zero, BTW
“Somehow… I’m not feeling like a valued customer.
I just noticed that the total on my original order 2*2RV was $1,022.73
The total on the replacement order 2*2RV is $1,077.95
I understand mistakes are made, but this has been a very negative ongoing buying experience. I’m not interested in spending any more time or energy on this order.
Please cancel order 2*2RV.”
June 15th, 2007 5:57 pm
Whoa…my status page went from ESD 6/29 to “Shipped 6/15″ …no tracking info yet but this is a nice way to end my week
Stay hopeful.
June 15th, 2007 6:11 pm
Hi now that the T61’s are bieng shipped and if the next problem strikes (BSODs) Dont worry the fix is already in place, Here are some thinsg to do to prevent BSODs. The poblem is definlty not Lenovo’s. I just want to talk abt this here because after so much waiting if we get one with so many BSOD we should not panick..
0.a do this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest
0.b Run the disk check.
1. update Intel Matrix Storage from the INtel site.
http://downloadcenter.intel.co.....uctID=1809
2. disable the Active Protection(APS) in Thinkpad.
3. Else do a clean vista install on it.
Many links suggest the problem is with the intel driver and with the 5400 rpm dirves along with turbo memory. Am not exaclty sure.
Some links:-
http://www.intel.com/support/c.....025783.htm
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=43312
June 15th, 2007 6:11 pm
Tim, is there anyway we can get an update about those of us who ordered in the ‘affected’ timeframe and yet still haven’t been rebooked? I know I, along with quite a few others, are in this lull and it’s somewhat unnerving…
June 15th, 2007 6:12 pm
This is totally frustrating and not acceptable…
I ordered my T61 online on 24th of May…
It kept on showing shipping date of late in august.
I called CS and had to hold for 45 minutes to talk to her only to find out that everything is fine and my order will be shipped on 13th June and theres some glitch in online system thats why its showing shipping date in august and I shouldnt be worried as everything is as expected..
I got another order confirmation email on Jun 13th, I just didnt pay attention.. and now today when I called CS (as usual a wait of 40 mins this time) I was told that every customer was notified of the problem blah blah in the screen something.. I said I dint get anything and now they send me email and try to please me by offering a damn free gift…
Two days back, I saw T61’s on a webstore on sale for only 50$ more than what I have paid Lenovo. Almost same configuration…
I’m going to cancel my order with Lenovo, this is my first and will be my last experience with them. Even DELL are better than them!!
I’m getting sick of their lame excuses! Am I ordering a new porshe or what. that its taking them so long to build? Why should I have to wait 1.5 months to get a laptop?!
Lenovo should be ashamed of themselves.
I’m never goona order again from them or recommend them to anyone!
Bye Bye Lenovo!
You SUCK
June 15th, 2007 6:13 pm
I’m with you guys as far as the frustration factor is concerned.
I sent email to critical@ca.ibm.com on Tuesday 6/12 at 7:36 pm PDT and have not heard back either. The 24 – 48 hours have long past, we’re closing in on 72 hours now with no response.
June 15th, 2007 6:16 pm
a couple more blog posts by Matt Kohut and this one will fall off the front page, what do we do then?
June 15th, 2007 6:26 pm
@Jayson Wittrup
When did you order?
What was your Configuration?
June 15th, 2007 6:27 pm
This is worse than ROAD RAGE.
I used to always recommand getting a thinkpad. I don’t think i can anymore.
June 15th, 2007 6:35 pm
@lowspeed
great analogy! I have been trying to figure out what this familiar feeling of frustration is similar to, and now that you’ve said it, it’s definitely ROAD RAGE! The feeling of absolutely frustration but there is nothing you can do about it, other than to move on.
June 15th, 2007 6:39 pm
only if i were invited to buy a thinkpad reserve edition, maybe i’ll be treated with some decency, instead of feeling like i am talking into a void via my emails to customer service. i just don’t have to time at work to sit for an hour waiting on the phone.
June 15th, 2007 7:26 pm
so i ordered on may31, and had a est. shipping date of 6/18, and it shipped today…..so i guess i cant really complain, all was as promised…cant wait to get it, hopefully im not plagued by the BSOD’s some of yall are getting, im wiping it and installing vista premium as soon as i get it anyway….
June 15th, 2007 7:30 pm
@birdguy
I did actually receive a response within four minutes so their response time has improved. I emailed custserv@ca.lenovo.com which I had previously contacted on 6/5 when it was delayed. Below is the response that I received, although my ESD still shows 7/18.
“…We apologize for any confusion, our T61 systems are expected
to ship 06-26-07 due to an issue with the Lenovo Ordering system.
Please do not expect shipment on 07-18…”
I did notice going to my check order status that two items were new on the detailed description of my configured system:
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS &
42V9633 SBB STAND LCD C/B
So I think that maybe the recent change from 6/22 to 7/18 was due to them finally rebooking my order and that would explain why I have two new parts listed. While I’m still upset about the delay, I must say that the quick response alleviated some of my concerns and anger and I plan on waiting for delivery.
June 15th, 2007 7:47 pm
You guys kill me …. you are willing to give up a far superior laptop for a toy one because you have to wait some. I ordered 5/22 for my son’s high school graduation which has come and gone. Yes it’s frustrating but is it fair to my son to get him a Dell, HP, Toshiba inferior laptop (not just my opinion, read all the reviews) instead of a Thinkpad just because Lenovo screwed up. Happy trails to those who jumped ship …
June 15th, 2007 7:53 pm
@Amy
I’m not sure which graphics is better, I ordered the seperate NVIDA card. I was online about to order the 15.4″ model (wasn’t there when I place my T61 14.1″ order) but the NVIDA wasn’t an option. I’m just sticking with my orginial order as my drop dead date is early August before my son goes off to college. I would guess the ATI graphics if I had to guess. I see you cancelled and reordered …hope it works out.
June 15th, 2007 8:09 pm
Lenovo\IBM please update this wedsite to give us current info.
June 15th, 2007 8:22 pm
Tim
I have been watching this site and many others very closely and I’m have the same situation as others. I order a Thinkpad T61 on the 19 of May with an ESD of June 7. When June 7 came, my new ESD changed to June 26, so I call and told CSR that I wanted to cancel. She told me it was going to take 2-3 days for it to process and reflect back on the website. Well it’s been 6 day already!!! I need a notebook by next week, but I can’t risk order another one since there is a chance that the Thinkpad can be shipped, as told by the CSR. This is unacceptable. Also I email BOTH email address websales@ca.lenovo.com and critical@ca.lenovo.com many time before and only once did they responded.
June 15th, 2007 8:23 pm
Well, it’s nice to hear some people finally have their orders on the way. My order was placed on 4/30 for a T60p 15.4″…..and the wait goes on….and on…..and on…..I’m sure it’ll eventually ship but this is absolutely unbelievable. A friend also ordered a T60 15.4″ for his business, per my recommendation, and he is also still waiting patiently for his system.
Since this is my first laptop I’m just hoping what I do receive is of the normal Thinkpad quality that I have read so much about. Having to get all of these orders processed ASAP has me a bit concerned on the quality side. My fingers are crossed that my system will be exceptional.
I appreciate Tim trying to keep us informed as to what is going on. Lenovo should have done so from the beginning.
The items being offered for compensation are a nice gesture but I already have the same AC Adapter and carry case being offered. I really don’t need seconds. I would go for the battery but it’s not the correct one for my system…so what’s the point. It would have been nice if the T60 6cell battery was also offered as an option.
I hope Lenovo IS making changes to their ordering system so this fiasco never happens again. Their future customers would certainly appreciate it.
June 15th, 2007 8:28 pm
Good luck trying to cancel your orders….I have been trying to cancel mine since 6/2/07 and it still shows up as IN PROCESS and that was after I called 6+ times to ensure my order has been cancelled. WTF these people cant even cancel orders
June 15th, 2007 8:28 pm
@ Peter — It’s the principle. Many feel that Lenovo’s failure is more than just with having to wait. Their service has been deplorable as well. People have been lied to, forced to wait, and basically given the run-around. I don’t blame them for cancelling.
June 15th, 2007 8:30 pm
@Peter and others
You really do not need to order a sub-standard laptop from another manufacturer. There are resellers where you can order some pre-configured Thinkpads, and they usually ship the next business day. I just ordered another T61 from Euclid Computers. I did downgrade my processor from the T7700 to the T7300, but all other specs are the same. A small price to pay for quicker delivery. Ordered mine yesterday, shipped today for delivery tomorrow! I’m just tired of dealing with Lenovo’s direct order process. I ordered on 5/16 and my order is yet to be rebooked, and I’m yet to receive the freebie email. This casts a serious doubt in my mind w.r.t the 6/26 ship date.
June 15th, 2007 8:31 pm
Well, after customer service told me the price change I got was a mistake and would be corrected, I got an e-mail from Tim saying that they would “investigate.” Awesome. So I guess it’s still not determined.
What’s the deal, Tim? How about an update? I will NOT be paying over $2,000 for this system. The price I got on what I consider to be the best product out there is the only reason I’m sticking around with Lenovo.
June 15th, 2007 8:37 pm
Do you guys think its a coincidence that all these fraudulent EPP orders happened at the same exact time as the “ordering process problems?” seems odd.
June 15th, 2007 8:39 pm
About the BSOD’s There are coupple of things going on thinpad forumn and notebook reviews. Here is what i learnt
1. The problem is wiht thr INTEL SATA driver and if you update to the latest intel matris storage driver.
2. disable the active drive protection of the DRIVE
3. remove the registry key entry of the iaStorv as prescribed by intel
4. Try to do a disk check and ram memory test.
With that BSOD should be gone and no worries. it is not a problem form lenovo though. Am waiting for my t61 thinking if i should upgrade to the safer 100GB 7400 drive…
June 15th, 2007 8:59 pm
From the beginning the problem wasn’t the wait for me. It was the way lenovo went about conducting themselves. They kept everyone in the dark, even their own customer reps, about the problem. Now that they’ve solved that problem and we’ve decided to be patient and wait, we are hearing about people who ordered on june 7th and are recieving their computers this week. That is a huge insult for me, and it also shows a lack of control over the company. I hope that if I ever have a problem with my computer I don’t have to deal with this garbage.
June 15th, 2007 9:34 pm
Rather than road rage, to me this situation seems more analogous to a terrible dining experience. Have you ever wondered why someone that came in 30 minutes after you gets served first? How does that make you feel? There are parallels to our wait; I see it something like this.
1. I take my family to a nice restaurant. I think they have the best steaks in town, so we order 4 porterhouses. Most of us probably ordered Thinkpads because we thought they were nice computers.
2. Our waitress takes our order and tells us your food will be up on 10 minutes. Then she comes back and tells us that the food will be ready in 3 hours. Then she comes back and says that last info was false, it will be 15 minutes. Then, as the 15 minute mark passes, she comes by and says no, that’s not right, we really don’t know when it will be. Currently, we think it might be 6 hours before you get your steak, but that might be a system glitch and it’s likely you’ll have it sooner. Those of us that have had our ship dates changed multiple times know how this feels. My original ship date was 6/1; it currently shows 8/17 but that’s probably wrong. The fact that Lenovo didn’t let out a single peep until the original ship date passed was the most frustrating part.
3. So, the delays are so obvious that they send a manager over to our table. He apologizes, says that there’s something wrong in the kitchen, or that some ingredients are missing, or whatever, but it’s not really clear what the problem actually is. He promises that he’ll take care of the situation. At this point, we’re thinking about going to another restaurant, but we like these steaks, and it would take 10 minutes to drive to another place and then we might have to wait there. We accept the apology from the manager and we wait some more. This is like Tim’s original blog post. He gave some explanations, but those were clearly not truthful. Essentially, Lenovo lied to us so that we would keep our orders with them.
4. Our waitress walks by, and ignores us. We try to flag her down, but she ignores us. We get up out of our seats to approach her and ask when our steaks will be ready, and we stand in the middle of the restaurant for 10 minutes to just find out that she knows absolutely nothing. Kind of like writing emails to Lenovo. For me, 5 emails, 1 response, zero issues addresses. Was on hold for over an hour to learn that the customer service reps knew nothing.
5. The Manager comes back by the table and says he’s really sorry with how long we’ve been waiting. He offers free desert. He promises that he will personally make sure that our steaks are out to us right away. Most of us go the free battery/charger/bag email. Fine, that’s great. We were also assured that we were on a priority/critical list. That, of course, was a blatant and outright lie. Let me repeat, THAT IS A LIE.
6. We’ve been waiting for 2 hours for our steaks now. We could have gone to another restaurant an hour ago, but we didn’t. If we leave now, we’ll have to travel, sit and wait at another restaurant. 10 more groups of people come into the restaurant; and they all order porterhouses. 10 minutes later, all of their steaks are out on the table in front of them and they start eating. We try to flag down our waitress and still no response. The manager has disappeared as well. We run around the restaurant and find our waitress, and she is shocked to learn that people that just walked in the restaurant 10 minutes ago are already eating, while we are still wondering where out food is. But she doesn’t nothing to help. I guess this is pretty much the stage we are at with Lenovo right now. People that placed their order just days ago have already had their computers shipped to them. The priority critical list? Clearly an outright lie. Customer service reps seem to be totally unaware that new orders are being filled. Nobody at Lenovo wants to give us a straight answer. Nobody there is taking responsibility for what is happening.
So, if I had a restaurant experience like that, I would never go back. Sure, a 2 hour dining experience can be great at certain restaurants, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. People are served regularly in 10-15 minutes at this restaurant. The real issue is that this organization has chosen to treat us like crap. They have lied to us over and over again, and they have decided to accommodate new customers before dealing with the problems that they created. Even if they make the best steaks or notebooks in the world, I won’t be back because the customer service is an insult and a disgrace.
When Jetblue screwed up and stranded passengers, they paid for hotel rooms, and rerouted planes at the cost of millions of dollars to make sure that their stranded passengers were moved as quickly as possible. They stopped booking all future flights until they dealt with all the people that they had stranded. They admitted publicly that they messed up. Lenovo is doing none of this. They are trying to continue to mislead their customers, and they aren’t doing anything to make sure that the orders that they screwed up are taken care of expeditiously. They continue to take and fill new orders even as others wait.
Like jd1010 and others have pointed out, the wait doesn’t really bother me that much. I actually don’t need a notebook right away. The problem has been the lies, lack of information, total lack of response to emails, 1 hr waits on the phone, and the fact that they consciously decided to fill new orders before earlier orders. Don’t lie to me and tell me I’ve been put on some sort of priority list. That’s just plain insulting.
June 15th, 2007 10:16 pm
call me a moron-
but if the whole problem is they forgot to order a pack of screws and a bezel with each laptop- wouldn’t the expeditious thing to do would be ship a few pallets of screws and bezels to the plant in china and tell the assembly workers if the thing comes off the line without screws and a bezel then stick you hand in the pellet over there and get what you need to finish the stupid machine asap?
ignore the fact that we are all pissed like no other-
all the time and money they are wasting to redo everything in their stupid system can not possibly be cheaper then using common sense.
If It’s not that simple and they need to make their dumb computer match then for crying out loud call in a real database admin and have them search for the effected systems and add the 2 parts packs. Probably some kid with 3 weeks DB experience could do that.
it’s unbelievable to me that their recovery is so so so pathetic.
June 15th, 2007 10:18 pm
@Rudy:
You hit it right on the spot. I care to think of myself as a pretty calm guy, but this has gotten to a point where it’s become ridiculous.
—
For those who have had orders re-booked and had their price rise, here is what’s happened for me. I initially received a very quick response stating that it was being investigated. Thank you to that individual for your haste.
A day later, I received an email from the generic custserv@ address stating that *as long as I provide proof* the original price will be honored.
Simple enough, but I say no. First thing Monday, I’m canceling. I put in my order 5/18. You’ve asked me to wait beyond your originally stated 1-2 weeks, and now you want *me* to send you proof of the original purchase price which *you* should have. No, I can put up with a lot, but I’m not going to go through any more trouble for a computer. How you don’t keep track of this information when re-booking orders is beyond me.
At this point, I’m sure it wont be as simple as sending you a copy of the order information from my original purchase… and in fact will turn into another *BIG* hassle. Time is money, and you’ve already wasted much too much of my time to continue to put up with this hassle.
June 15th, 2007 10:52 pm
@rudy, great post, you should get it posted on a site more people can see.
I am fairly sure they haven’t restarted their rebooking after pausing for so many days is precisely due to the fact they didn’t anticipate losing old prices after rebooking. maybe the critical orders team hasn’t found a solution yet. asking your customer to provide proof when the company lost the original record is simply unacceptable.
i have been wanting to cancel but i haven’t had time to sit at the phone to wait for a CS rep. I have no confidence in canceling via email, as none of my emails have been responded to yet. I don’t want to order before i have my old glitchy order is confirmed cancelled. It seems like lenovo is just digging a hole deeper and deeper, making more mistakes one after another meanwhile never really learned from teh previous mistakes.
i guess i just have to find the time while i am working to call lenovo to cancel. of course they don’t work on weekends…
June 15th, 2007 11:22 pm
I’m not saying it’s not their right for them to cancel but I think they are cutting off their nose to spite their face. “Well Mr. BMW salesman, since my BMW won’t be here until 4 weeks I’m off to buy a Hundai I can get now…. there take that!”
June 15th, 2007 11:36 pm
Anyone here with a 7200 RPM HD ship? It says it will delay your order at lenovo. Also, did anyone notice they took off the N wireless card? I configured mine with that, wonder why they took it off.
p.s. where is my computer!
June 15th, 2007 11:36 pm
*Sorry, 60GB 7200RPM HD.*
June 15th, 2007 11:37 pm
It is obvious that for people who ordered between 5/9 and 5/25 the best way is to cancel and reorder again. For many of us, this will cause us to loose the discounts we had on our orders. To solve this problem, I suggest that Lenovo provide these customers with a special promo code that they can use towards discounting there new orders. To make sure these promo codes do not spread over the internet and restart to whole problem again, I suggest that they be a one-time promo code for each order, since some people had placed more than one order.
June 16th, 2007 12:02 am
@Rudy
Love you man! Your analogy was perfact! I NEED MY LAPTOP! PLEASE BY BUSINESS IS SUFFERING. Please! please! please! help me. Tim? Matt? Oh god! off for weekend! means! no laptop for me on time. oh well. Sigh.
June 16th, 2007 1:19 am
@Rudy: Your two posts are just perfect. I sincerely hope that SOMEONE from Lenovo gets the chance to read it. So far, I get a feeling that they won’t care… but just maybe that someone will have the sense to actually try to get this taken care of.
I ordered my T61 on the 17th with a printer and a dock. The latter two have already arrived; it’d be too late to switch to another company if I wanted to. My shipping date was originally 6/06, if I recall correctly (It’s been too long…) but it has said 8/28 since probably the 20th.
Obviously, I want this laptop. I’m going to wait. But what frustrates me is that I’ve received NO word from Lenovo. Any bit of useless information was gained after waiting on the phone. I haven’t even gotten the “free gift” email. I can’t help but wonder if Lenovo has tossed my order in the trash along with who knows how many others….
June 16th, 2007 3:03 am
In my previous post earlier today, I noted a price increase of $55 in the new replacement order. I also posted my cancelation email.
Just took another look at both orders, and noticed that the ABGN wireless had been changed to ABG wireless in the replacement order.
Hope the cancelation email works because I have no intention of spending another hour waiting on hold for customer service. If necessary, I will refuse to accept the delivery.
June 16th, 2007 4:21 am
Thanks for stating how the rest of us feel Rudy.
Surely, the biggest insult is watching people who ordered almost a month after us get their orders filled, after numerous claims that we were put on a ‘priority critical list.’ Many of the customers here, even the ones who have endured long waits, don’t need a laptop immediately. I, however, bought a laptop to go to China with me. Unfortunately, it looks like Lenovo won’t meet that requirement, even though I ordered the system 6 weeks before I was scheduled to leave. Patently ridiculous, if you ask me. I would suggest that Lenovo execs read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point,’ and specifically consult the section on how Lexus’ mainstream success was partially attributable to their amazing customer service, especially with respect to Market Mavens/early-adopters. The point is, almost all of us here know that Thinkpads are the best laptops. However, the best product doesn’t always come out on top. Considering that Thinkpads are more expensive, if people constantly have to put up with this type of treatment while ordering from Lenovo, many will opt to just get Dell/HP or whatever. It’s not just the thousands who have been affected by this delay situation, but their friends and such. I always told people to get Thinkpads before this incident, and I still think that Thinkpads are the superior laptop. However if people ask for my recommendation now, it will have to come with a caveat of ‘well… their order system and customer service are atrocious…’
still hoping for a semi-positive resolution
jeff c
June 16th, 2007 5:49 am
Glad you guys liked the analogy. Businesses in the hospitality industry are on the front lines of customer service. They know that pissing off a single customer will result in negative comments getting out to dozens of their family and friends – this hurts both possible repeat business from that customer and new business from their acquaintances. Restaurants must think about business on a day-to-day basis. The computer business is different, but there’s not doubt that early-adopters influence buying decisions of lots of people and businesses that they come in contact with. They are also the types that buy new systems every year or two (I know people that buy new computers every six months). It just makes no sense to piss people off like this.
It looks like lots and lots of people who ordered in June received notices that their computers shipped today (according to the forum on notebookreview.com). There were also quite a few reports from people who had actually received their computers. It appeared that all available parts and configurations were included (maybe not a T7700 chip); and it’s certain that every single part in my order was made available to people who placed their orders long after I did.
I placed my order on 5/15 so it’s been a month thus far. My estimated ship dates so far have been 6/1, 6/7, 6/26 & now it shows 8/17. Apparently this is not an accurate estimated date, but who knows.
On June 9, Tim Supples posted in this blog (see above) that “Attempts to cancel orders and rebook them now could actually delay your delivery further…” This was a BLATANT LIE. It’s now that some people who ordered around that date ALREADY HAVE THEIR COMPUTERS while many many others have shipping confirmations.
On June 7, Tim Supples posted in this blog “I pledge to keep you informed of all developments as I learn them.” Why is it then, that so many people are complaining that the major problem right now is that they have no idea what the hell is going on? What about the new development that putting in a new order would be the best course of action?
A few sentences later, Tim Supples stated “email is the most efficient communication method at this time.” As compared to what, the pony express? Emails are going unanswered! Emails that are answered are getting canned responses. People aren’t even able to cancel their orders. The email system in place is a joke. Judging by the response here and elsewhere, perhaps 1 in 10 emails is getting answered. This statement is a blatant lie fabricated so that they won’t have to deal with customers they have lied to – A LIE TO COVER UP A LIE!
On June 9, Tim Supples posted in this blog “We are attempting to prioritize the orders that must be rebooked to ensure logical priority by original booking date.” By prioritize I guess he means they are processing all new orders first, while deceiving people that ordered between 5/9-5/24 that they’re actually trying to do something to get their orders taking care of.
Also on June 9, Tim Supples posted in this blog “…we are giving priority to existing orders.” LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE. THIS IS A LIE! In fact, the exact opposite appears to be true. It seems that all new orders are being processed at an accelerated rate, while most existing orders are being held up. In fact the most common reason why an ordered is delayed at this point (based on my observations) is if it was an existing order.
On June 9, Tim Supples promised that he had a team “working over the weekend on solving the re-booking issue, but please just understand that it will be until Monday or Tuesday before I have anymore information to post here.” Just in case you didn’t notice, this was last weekend. It’s a brand new weekend and people are still waiting to have their orders re-booked. Where there be a team working there this weekend as well? Of course, the promised update didn’t occur until Thursday, and we’re actually still waiting for an answer.
Finally, On June 7, in the post that started this blog, Tim Supples stated “To say we are sorry is not enough.” Things had already gone sideways over a week ago; badly enough that he felt it necessary to apologize to all those affected; badly enough that he felt it necessary to close by saying, “Thank you for whatever patience you have left.” It’s now 9-10 days later. Tim, you thought we might have run out of patience 10 days ago. WE’RE STILL WAITING. Why don’t you go over to notebookreview.com and read some of the messages from people that are enjoying their new systems – the people that placed their orders 4-7 days ago. That could have been us, if we ignored the promises you made here and just re-ordered at that time. But instead, you chose to lie to us, saying that re-booking would just cause further delays, that we were put on a priority list, and that existing orders would be given priority over all new orders. THESE WERE ALL BLATANT LIES. You cannot deny that these promises were all false.
So, how about your pledge to keep us all informed? Everyone here is in the dark; everyone here wishes that they knew what the hell is going on.
Here’s a proposed solution. Nobody believes any promises that Lenovo makes at this point because we have been lied to repeatedly during this process. Lenovo can change this by making a promise and standing behind it. Offer a date certain (6/26 I guess is the current promise) for delivery, and then back up the promise by offering a discount of $100 for each day that it is late. This is the type of system used in some building contracts (like roads where they can’t afford to just let it linger). Under normal circumstances, this type of promise would be overkill, but these are not normal circumstances. Customers with existing orders do not feel that they can believe a word that you say. They feel that you are favoring newer customers (which you are). They feel that you lied to them when you said their orders would be given priority treatment (which you did). They feel you are compromising your ability to fill existing orders by continuing to take new orders (which you clearly are).
Promise that you will take care of existing orders first, and promise delivery by a date certain. And put your money where your mouth is. We’re tired of the empty promises we have received thus far.
June 16th, 2007 7:42 am
What’s the story with the BBB? Is there somewhere we can go en masse and file this complaint petition style? Make it publicly known how many people Lenovo is screwing over.
I’m not sure how the BBB works but I’d bet they get some gears turning under the threat of fines. How hard is it to give someone a date.
I’m typing this on a Dell CSx P3 500. This T61 was to be my big replacement machine after waiting a long time to find a good machine at the right price. I could have gone another 6 months on this machine if it meant not dealing with this crap.
PS
Did anyone get the WXGA+ screen (1440 x 900) and recieve their machine yet?
June 16th, 2007 9:39 am
Here is the BBB online complaint link.
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx
Seems like one complaint is more than enough to cause little ground shake for your particular order. One guy reported at Notebookreview forums that.. a day or two after he filed the complaint, a CSR from Lenovo started giving him order updates on a regular basis proactively, and he can even call the direct extension of the CSR without having to go through the 50 minutes wait on phone..
But atleast filing a complain does not hurt.. and it might be more useful than venting your flame here day after day with no use..
June 16th, 2007 9:50 am
Some things never change – I worked for the IBM PC company over a decade ago. Their systems did not work and management’s arrogance was incredible. Couldn’t track their own inventory – though I got their worldwide inventory by phoning a friend at Compaq! Management by meetings and “cops”. Maybe if Lenovo fired the IBM hangovers and got their committed employees involved, they could fix it. Otherwise, this business will be as much as a dog for them as it was for IBM.
While their I ran out of computer storage space – phoned for more – was told I could not have more without my manager’s permission. Told the person my manager was out of the country response was that HIS manager had to give the permission. HIS manager was Lou Gerstner – asked the rep if he really wanted me to contact the chairman of IBM to get a few more MIPS. Answer was yes! Got Lou’s office and they made the request – then we both got the generic email response that request was denied because form was improperly filled out – and that Lou Gerstner had to contact his manager to get the request approved!
So it goes. Lenovo has inherited the same issues of overcontrol and under responsiveness.
I too ordered a Thinkpad because of its reputation – and because when I created the configuration I wanted at HP, Dell, Lenovo – the pricing was equivalent. Had to phone customer service after I was unable to order the specs I wanted on the website. Chris D’Andrea, my CSR, has been fantastic. But the Lenovo systems and processes sure are not – night and day to Dell.
Ah well sigh I cant change the world, or Lenovo.
June 16th, 2007 9:50 am
Some things never change – I worked for the IBM PC company over a decade ago. Their systems did not work and management’s arrogance was incredible. Couldn’t track their own inventory – though I got their worldwide inventory by phoning a friend at Compaq! Management by meetings and “cops”. Maybe if Lenovo fired the IBM hangovers and got their committed employees involved, they could fix it. Otherwise, this business will be as much as a dog for them as it was for IBM.
While their I ran out of computer storage space – phoned for more – was told I could not have more without my manager’s permission. Told the person my manager was out of the country response was that HIS manager had to give the permission. HIS manager was Lou Gerstner – asked the rep if he really wanted me to contact the chairman of IBM to get a few more MIPS. Answer was yes! Got Lou’s office and they made the request – then we both got the generic email response that request was denied because form was improperly filled out – and that Lou Gerstner had to contact his manager to get the request approved!
So it goes. Lenovo has inherited the same issues of overcontrol and under responsiveness.
I too ordered a Thinkpad because of its reputation – and because when I created the configuration I wanted at HP, Dell, Lenovo – the pricing was equivalent. Had to phone customer service after I was unable to order the specs I wanted on the website. Chris D’Andrea, my CSR, has been fantastic. But the Lenovo systems and processes sure are not – night and day to Dell.
Ah well sigh I cant change the world, or Lenovo.
June 16th, 2007 10:04 am
DESASTER AFTER DESASTER
1-Ordered a T60p on May 20th. ESD was June 4 than June 14.
2-On June 12 received the Critical Lenovo email with the free offfers and the chance to cancel via email or phone.
3-On June 15 (yesterday) I got an email with a new ESD of August 30 and a brand new order number (even though all order details seemed to be the exctly the same).
4-I am relocating to Europe and my shipping address will not exist after July 12. I got instantly mad and call customer support to cancel. After a fairly short wait (aprox. 12 min) a very unfriendly Scott pick up and asked me how could he help me today. I started to explain the facts as clearly as I could, that i need to cancel ASAP and why. After I finished he still wasn’t clear why exactly I need to cancel, what was wrong, so i had to explain again. After venting about July 12 as my last day in US, he said that even though the new ESD was August 30 it looks like my order will ship On July 9 and I will definitely get it on July 12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Intolerable!
5-After I insisted to cancel, he said that he is unable to cancel the order, but he will put in a REQUEST FOR CANCELLATION that is subject to aproval within 2-3 business day. He couldn’t provide me with any cancellation record, cancellation number, anything that will prove the fact that I did call to cancel. I also ordered a minidock for the laptop. I received the minidock 2 on May 22….but is useless without the Laptop. I asked about returning it and getting full refund fo it if I cancel the main order: I find out it is not returable because is more than 21 days after purchase.
Very straight forward return policy that Lenovo has in place!!!
6-I replied the initial email from Critical Lenovo, that was giving the customers the option to cancel, stating that I cancelled over the phone and now via email and I need a cancellation confirmation. Didin’t receive anything until this morning.
7-BIG early morning surprise: I received an email from a sales representative ” Thank you for your purchase from Lenovo. Your order has been received and is being processed. We’ll send you another e-mail when your order has shipped. “.
It displayed a brand new purchase (same previous order details).
8-Checked status for order: IT HAD ALREADY BEEN SHIPPED LAST NIGHT, after attempting to cancel via phone and email, I got a tracking number and is on its way. My card hasn’t been charged yet, but the shipping status displayed that the billing information was succesfully received and estimated delivery date is Monday June 18.
9-Am I supposed to hope that things will go smooth now? I have serious doubts…
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP ALL THIS????
WE ARE ALL BUSY PEOPLE. I HAVE NO TIME TO WRITE BLOGS AND WAIT ON LINE WITH LENOVO CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
June 16th, 2007 12:09 pm
All these problems with the re-booking is starting to make me wonder if june 26th is a realistic date to expect my computer to ship. Tim, you owe us some explanations. As was stated in a previous post you said in one of your updates that, “we are giving priority to existing orders.” You couldn’t have been any farther off. I will supply you with some quotes from notebookreview.com.
James Howlett says
“Got mine yesterday morning, T61 XP + nvidia, 14.1″
Ordered on 6/7 and received 6/15 weird is that my lenovo order status was never updated from In process and ESD is still 6/26″
wahaha1 says
“Ordered at T61 on 6/9 and received a shipping notice on 6/13!!!! I am totally shocked.”
James12345 says
“Ordered a T61 on 05/30 and got a notification that my order has shipped on 06/13.”
dj unforgetable says
“Sorry to mess with you guys but…I ordered on monday June 04 (T61/nVdia/4695 + 1g ram) and got an emailing saying it’d take 4 weeks to ship.
I ended it getting it 4 days later (on thursday). But then again, I am an IBM employee
”
ihomewholesale.com says
“I had reorder t61 on 6/5 and it shipped 6/13 from HK UPS express. EST DEL 6/15. Is there anyone’s order ship from HK?”
HKingz says
“I had the Webcam AND NVIDIA Graphics and my order placed on 6/7 shipped yesterday 6/13 via UPS Express with an estimated Delivery date of Friday, 6/15! “
thinkfan says
“Looks like they finally programmed their machines correctly and are now just spitting out purchase.
Purchase date: 5/27
Shipped date: today, 6/14″
Hyvas says
“I am surprised .Mine was shipped on 6/12 and I got it today. I placed my original order on 5/9 . I changed the configuration on 6/7, they canceled my original order booked the new one and they shipped it after 5 days.”
We should’ve all done what Hyvas did!
I could go on and on finding at least a dozen more people that ordered late May and after who have gotten their computers shipped. Thanks for spitting in our face again lenovo. I think you’ve basically screwed up in every way possible, and a spare 6 cell battery doesn’t make up for that. I could only imagine what would happen if lenovo doesn’t start getting out any of these delayed orders soon.(which wouldn’t even be a surprise to me!)
June 16th, 2007 12:32 pm
DID I MENTIONED I ORDER ON 5/9??
….
Then, It means I will get my laptop in the last?
Seems they have bottom up critical list..
Therefore, I will bte the critical but the least critical?
And seems the new order is much critical than the critical list.
What critical list mean?
Oh, I am in oversea for 10 days.
After I realize it is impossible to ship before I left, it makes me feel beter..
However, I really hope could in my doorstep when I back.
Otherwise, I…. I…. I … I just can be angery…poor customer..
June 16th, 2007 12:36 pm
@Crina
What’s your configuration? What processor?
June 16th, 2007 12:51 pm
@yellowriver
What’s your configuration? Processor?
June 16th, 2007 1:39 pm
Crina:
Lenovo spelled sideways is “No Love”.
Coincidence? I think not…
June 16th, 2007 2:28 pm
I recently graduated from high school and before I go off to college in the fall, my parents thought they’d buy me a laptop so I ordered a T61 with the Memorial weekend sales instead of waiting until August to order it (I leave for college in spring).
That said, I placed my order on the 21st of May, and I just received confirmation that my order has been fulfilled and shipped today; I was provided a tracking number and everything. To be honest, I wasn’t too upset about it, but it is still two weeks later than the originally estimated date — but luckily, I didn’t need the laptop in a hurry like many of you.
As this is also my first Lenovo purchase, I do not know what to expect; I just read that the Thinkpads are superior in build quality to virtually every other laptop on the market. Hopefully, they live up to the expectations.
For reference… I have the 2 GHz processor, 2 GB memory, 100 GB 7200RPM HD, X3100 integrated graphics, and Vista (which I’ll probably erase to install XP over it)
June 16th, 2007 3:41 pm
I placed my order on 23 May. My “Order Status” page gave a ship date of 11 June until 12 June, when the ship date was suddenly changed to 3 August, with no explanation whatsoever. When I called, the rep told me I would get it by end of June.
Well, what is it? End of June? 3 August? The year 2011? Lenovo have really botched the communication here. I can show you screenshots of my “order status” page at different points in time. (You made me hand over my email address to post here. Write me and I shall happily provide them.) But may I also suggest that Lenovo do a better job getting the information right when communicating with customers?
How are you going to treat us? It’s entirely up to you.
June 16th, 2007 6:24 pm
@Crina
Wow…that’s amazing story!
So the story is telling us
“If you want they ship your laptop early, call to cancel it!”
Right?
June 16th, 2007 7:34 pm
Dear Tim Supples,
Is there any chance you lurk on your own blog? If so, I would really like to hear Lenovo address some of these issues. Actually the most critical thing is that I’m leaving the country in 6 days, and I’d love to know if I have even an outside shot at receiving my laptop. It seems that if I had re-ordered the system on 6/7 (after already waiting 4 weeks) instead of still being in limbo, I would already have it by now. What if I cancelled my order tomorrow and ordered again? Seems from the speed laptops are going out now, I might still be able to get it before I leave (highly dubious, though). I’m somewhat angry, and somewhat frustrated, but perhaps the most important aspect in restoring trust would be reestablishing communications with your customers. Right now, lenovo doesn’t seem to be answering e-mails, calls take over an hour to get through, and it seems as if nobody is actively monitoring this blog. If we don’t have our laptops, perhaps it would at least be good for Lenovo to let people know someone actually cares. A response from Lenovo brass would be nice.
Regards,
Jeff
June 16th, 2007 8:20 pm
Things seem to be improving I just received confirmation on my laptop too bad they are still having problems cancelling orders so both laptops I ordered will be coming together.
June 16th, 2007 8:40 pm
@jeff
We can expect some stats of how much machines in critical lst have been shipped. including publishing the list of those orders and the ship date on website for everyone to access that include, parts that’s holding the shipments. That need not contain name of the person who ordered but number should be fine along with other information.
June 16th, 2007 8:59 pm
My frustration right now is beyond words. I mean how many people need to complain before Lenovo gets the picture. It am just so annoyed right now after receiving no new information from Lenovo after calling and emailing them on SEVERAL occasions. How the fuck are people who ordered T61s on 6/7 receiving them before I do when I ordered back on 5/14. HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE??!?!?!!
June 16th, 2007 9:05 pm
@Jeff
I am is aboard now and I do not have my laptop.
Do you think you can have a chance? No, I dont think so. They don’t care how emergency is your case. They just keep lying.
I ordered my on 5/9 (Nivida/Vista) and I am supposed on the top of the critical list. But you have seen, most people after us get their laptop.
The critical list is not touched yet. I can understand why.
We are angery enough. Even we do not cancel our order. There is littel chance to get inovolve with Lenovo again. Then, they just fulfill the later order to save the reputation. Therefore, while we talk people about this experience, others will say, oh, you are bad luck, I get my with 1 week.
However, if they deal with the criticl list first, then the average delay will be around 5 or 6 weeks. And then everybody will say, ya, Lenovo has delay and fulfillment problem.
So finally, I understand what the critical means. It works to comfort us a little bit, but has no priority. When they have additinal capaciity. THey will start to fufill ours.
They are liers. We are just cheated again and again.
Fool us once, shame on Lenovo. Fool us twice, shame on us.
Those who do not believe Lenovo and reorder their laptops have theirs on hand.
And we still comment on the no response Blogs.
June 16th, 2007 10:36 pm
@yellowriver
More like “critical list” = “Do Not Touch and Do not Fullfill Orders List”. Most of people in this list’s orders are not touched, not rebooked! Whatever are touched are in random order/fashion. Depending on whom they like.
June 16th, 2007 11:25 pm
i gave up and reordered. the new order says estimated delivery 7/19. i’m going to cancel the order that ships later, so the race is on! i would really be laughing at myself for being a waiting idiot if the second new order ships first!
worst comes to worst, i’ll have some extra computers on hand from both orders if they shipped on the same day!
June 16th, 2007 11:43 pm
I agree. Newer orders which were recently built are getting produced and shipped yet my order from May 9th which was cancelled on May 31st and rebooked still hasn’t been shipped out. get this I was told that even though my reorder was outside the dates of the affected invalid orders they still needed to rebook the entry. I am now almost 1.5 months of waiting
June 16th, 2007 11:50 pm
I ordered the t61 16th May ,and it was shipper 16th June. I am disappointed of Lenovo . even if I was a bit luchier than others . Keep you tolerance ,maybe your laptop will ship tomorrow.
June 17th, 2007 12:54 am
Hi Tim, it’s been about a day since my last post. Like everyone else here, I’m still in the dark. I guess your pledge to keep everyone informed was a lie.
Of course, we all now know it is a blatant lie that our orders were put on a critical priority list. Some people have been waiting 6 weeks for their computers. That’s enough time for GM to build you a new car. By the time we reach the current “promised delivery date” some people will have been waiting 8 weeks. That’s enough time to get a new car built and shipped from Germany. I’ve personally been waiting since 6/15 – I should be thankful that I’ve only been waiting a month. Perhaps I should also be thankful for the 8/17 estimated shipping date currently reflected on my order.
So we know that the promise of priority treatment is a lie, and the pledge to keep us informed was a lie. Right now, I actually feel like crying about another promise that turned out to be a lie: that existing orders would be shipped first. If, instead of telling us that lie you told us to re-book our orders, there’s a good chance we would have our computers already. I’m going to share some comments posted at another site. Instead of sticking your head in the sand Tim, read some of these and try to imagine how it makes us feel. We’re waiting with no believable end in sight, we’ve been lied to, kept in the dark and ignored. Thanks a lot. Enjoy:
Posted 6/15:
The order I placed from 6/7 arrived this evening… Im just getting around to opening it up now. I will provide comments and maybe a mini-review once Im all set up… especially on the display as most people seem to be curious about that.
Posted 6/15
Mine came too! except I got xp instead
HAIII FAAIIIVE!!
6/15
Been using mine all day (got it this morning). Overall very impressed with it.
6/7
Ordered 5/25
Shipped Today (originally told 8/29)
6/6
Order date: 06/04/2007
Ship date: 06/05/2007
I should get mine tomorrow
6/6
Order date: 5/29
First ship date: 8/21
Shipped: 6/6
6/7
Ordered 6/1…expected to ship 6/20….shipped 6/6..don’t live in canada but do live near skokie.
6/7
Ordered 5/29
The next day or two, the 15.4” came out so I call on 6/1 to cancel this order. CSR said it takes 24hrs to cancel it will be canceled on Monday. Monday comes and it isn’t canceled. Deceided to give Lenovo Tuesday to cancel it since we all know they aren’t too good with giving out firm dates, but it wasn’t. Call early Wednesday (6/6) morning, CSR wasn’t sure why it wasn’t canceled, said he was escalate it. So low and behold, around 8:30 that night, I get an email telling me it was shipped.
So maybe the secret is to call and cancel so they’ll build it quick
6/7
I have to tell you, the cancel thing worked for me without even trying. I ordered on Sunday 6/3 and cancelled on Tuesday 6/5. Well, last night they shipped the thing from China!!
Lenovo did redirect it so I would not receive it, but I changed my mind (since it actually shipped) and they were able to cancel the redirect. Short version is – I should receive it next week after cancelling it
6/11
got mine today as well. well the 2nd one that i’m returning cuz i ordered one from buy.com and it came faster.
ordered: 5/25
shipped: 6/7
received: 6/11
6/16
Got mine yesterday morning, T61 XPP + NVIDIA, 14.1″
Ordered on 6/7
received 6/15
ESD has not changed 6/26
The Lenovo order status is still In process!
6/12
Order date: 5/29
ESD: 8/30
shipped: 6/6
delivery: tomorrow
Sorry to bring it up, but I will post some picks of it. Wether or not you enjoy seeing it is another question. Glad you all got something free after this ****.
6/13
I guess I am lucky. I ordered on 5/29 and my order shipped yesterday and is scheduled to be here tomorrow! My system is pretty barebones except I added the nvidia chip. Hope it ends up being what I ordered!
6/13
My T61 shipped today. I ordered on 5/25. Used the SPP discount. Good luck everyone, hopefully this is a sign that things are moving along now. My specs below:
6/13
Horay!!!! My order shipped today! Just got the email!!!!
Hope for all!!!!!!!!!
Order Date 6/8 (dont rip on me about this, my first order was ordered 5/20). Shipped today 6/13 acording to email and status on order page.
6/13
Hey everyone,
Long story short I placed 2 T61 orders with Lenovo with the EXACT SAME SPECS:
Order 1: “Meyers” EPP + TailorMade + Fatwallet Order
Placed: 5/23
Original ETA Ship Date: 6/11
New ETA Ship Date: 8/2
CS Rep ETA Ship Date: (by) 6/26
Order 2: SPP +10% Coupon + TailorMade + Fatwallet Order
Placed: 6/7
Original ETA Ship Date: 6/26
SHIPPED TODAY: 6/13!
6/14
Ordered at T61 on 6/9 and received a shipping notice on 6/13!!!! I am totally shocked.
6/14
Ordered a T61 on 05/30 and got a notification that my order has shipped on 06/13.
6/14
Sorry to mess with you guys but…I ordered on monday June 04 (T61/nVdia/4695 + 1g ram) and got an emailing saying it’d take 4 weeks to ship.
I ended it getting it 4 days later (on thursday). But then again, I am an IBM employee
6/14
I had reorder t61 on 6/5 and it shipped 6/13 from HK UPS express. EST DEL 6/15. Is there anyone’s order ship from HK?
6/14
I had the Webcam AND NVIDIA Graphics and my order placed on 6/7 shipped yesterday 6/13 via UPS Express with an estimated Delivery date of Friday, 6/15! Wow, looks like they upgrade you from Free Ground shipping automatically!
6/14
Looks like they finally programmed their machines correctly and are now just spitting out purchase.
Purchase date: 5/27
Shipped date: today, 6/14
6/14
I am surprised .Mine was shipped on 6/12 and I got it today. I placed my original order on 5/9 . I changed the configuration on 6/7, they canceled my original order booked the new one and they shipped it after 5 days.
6/14
Just checked the web-site for like the gazillionth time since ordering on 5/29 and reading about shipping delays and guess what? It shows a shipping date of 6/14!
Until this morning it still showed 8/30 (I never got any emails from Lenovo explaining why the 6/8 I got when I clicked the order button turned into 8/30).
No tracking number yet, it says that the tracking number will be available the next morning (so tomorrow). Did not get an email from Lenovo that it shipped, maybe I will get that tomorrow as well.
6/15
I ordered my laptop on 5/20. ESD is now 6/26, order has not been rebooked, and I have gotten no other updates except for the one email from critical.
I ordered a laptop for my sister on 6/4. That laptop shipped yesterday.
This company has their head so far up their ass, I just hope the quality of the laptop does not mimic the quality of the customer service.
6/15
Order 6/7
Estimated Ship 6/26
Actual Ship 6/14
6/15
Ordered T61 on 6/9, got shipping notice on 6/13 and received my laptop this afternoon 6/15!!!! My jaw dropped when I got the system!! I just used their free shipping service.
6/16
Got mine yesterday morning, T61 XP + nvidia, 14.1″
Ordered on 6/7 and received 6/15 weird is that my lenovo order status was never updated from In process and ESD is still 6/26
I also ordered the docking station and it was shipped on 6/14, got a tracking number and it’s sitting in HODGKINS, IL
6/7
I got my shipment update today….ordered on 6/7 and it shipped 6/16. I have a 15.4″ screen (the first one that I’ve seen mentioned here that has shipped)
YOU KNOW WHAT ALL THOSE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON? THEY ALL ORDERED AT LEAST 3 WEEKS LATER THAN SOME OF THE PEOPLE HERE! AND…THEY ALL AREN’T ON THE CRITICAL LIST!
So thanks Tim, thanks for putting us on the critical list. Thanks for telling us not to rebook. Thanks for saying that you’ll keep us informed. Thanks for promising to give our orders priority treatment. As far as I could see, nobody on the critical list has yet had their order processed. It is damn sweet how Lenovo prioritizes their critical list.
Hey Tim, maybe you can get one of those people that ordered weeks after I did to stop by my house so I can check out their new computer for a few minutes! I’m pretty sure that some of the parts that could have been used in my computer are with them, so at least this way I’d be able to spend some time with them! You know how to find them, just pick any random name that ISN’T on the critical list. I just gives me a warm feeling inside knowing how much Lenovo cares about us, and how much they are doing to make sure the existing orders are processed as soon as possible. I mean, if Lenovo stopped taking orders for a single day, say 6/7 the date this blog was started, they could have filled every single existing order. But instead, they put is on the critical list! That’s just so much better. It’s fricking awesome baby!
Talk to you tomorrow Tim. I wonder if it’s going to continue to be a one-sided conversation; kind of like the one-sided conversations we get to have with your customer service reps when we send them emails! Feels great to know that those of us on the critical list can have 98% of our emails summarily ignored. Now that’s customer service!
June 17th, 2007 8:15 am
to Rudy:
Not sure where you found the other comments, but after reading them all, there is one story (I pasted it below for clarification) that matches mine: after I received nitification about new ESD August 30 instead of June 14. I tried to cancel via phone and email, not sure if I succesfully cancelled… since they don’t send a cancellation confirmtion email, nor give a cancellation number… Turnes out the very next day the cancelled order gets shipped, on my credit card payment is pending but not posted and tracking number shows the package is on its way, but still in KOWLOON BAY,HK. Are they redirecting it and trying to trap me into calling to beg them not to redirect my order and then put me at the very end of the list, deliverable in 2015? Who would call to cancel an order if they would know the order is getting ready to ship the same night?
“I have to tell you, the cancel thing worked for me without even trying. I ordered on Sunday 6/3 and cancelled on Tuesday 6/5. Well, last night they shipped the thing from China!!
Lenovo did redirect it so I would not receive it, but I changed my mind (since it actually shipped) and they were able to cancel the redirect. Short version is – I should receive it next week after cancelling it “
June 17th, 2007 9:46 am
Good post rudy, it really explains how all of us on the “priority” list feel. I’m thinking about putting in a new order once the new sale comes out and then waiting for one of them to ship and cancelling the one that doesn’t. All I know is I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the june 26th date was pushed back even farther. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the order I’m planning to put on june 19th gets to me before the order I placed on May 11th. What’s even more surprising is that I’m spending $1,700 on a company that treats me like this. Normally, I would’ve been long gone, but I’ve been telling myself that my next computer was going to be a thinkpad for the last 1.5 years.
June 17th, 2007 10:38 am
@Tim,
I hope you are listening to the comments made on this and other forums. This is no way of treating your “early” adopter customers. I have been waiting since 5/11 for my order, and have been given June 26th as the date, even though ESD still reflects 8/3. It’s not fair that people who have ordered in June are receiving their orders before us. Please stop all the lies, and just update us as to when our computers will be shipped! I don’t need to hear about issues, lists, etc. I just want a confirmed date!! Judging from this experience, I doubt you will have as many early adopters for your next product, and even less big corporate buyers for your product. I will not be recommending buying from Lenovo again!
June 17th, 2007 11:23 am
Hi All,
I have filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau. I am tired of waiting and been lied to since the begining. Here is a link if anybody else wants to do the same.
http://www.bbbenc.org/complaintsearch.html
June 17th, 2007 1:08 pm
Hi All,
I got this on Friday:
Dear Valued Lenovo Customer
Thank you for responding to our recent email, advising you of the delay and recovery efforts underway for your system order. We appreciate your patience and your business.
We will be monitoring your order closely until it ships, and have noted your selection of a battery as your free gift, which will be shipped, following your order.
Thank you again for your loyalty and understanding.
If you have further inquiries, please reply to critical@ca.lenovo.com.
June 17th, 2007 1:14 pm
What about availabiity of Santa Rosa T61 laptops in Europe ?
June 17th, 2007 1:23 pm
@sameer
I did my part in complaining. If everyone complains then we can make lenovo to stop their malpractise of shipping new orders first and ignore old orders.
June 17th, 2007 1:25 pm
@nicolas
If United States is scheduled to receive T61 in 2015 then you’ll get in 2025. LOL. J/k.
June 17th, 2007 3:00 pm
I just filed a complaint with the BBB.
June 17th, 2007 3:11 pm
complaint to BBB filed here as well
June 17th, 2007 3:32 pm
Does this fall under Attorny General?
June 17th, 2007 5:03 pm
I just filed a complaint as well.
June 17th, 2007 5:04 pm
That’s great! I hope everybody else on this and other forums do the same and file complaints with BBB. It WILL make a difference.
Cheers!
June 17th, 2007 5:53 pm
My order also fell in the date range of orders that had problems. There was an issue with the ordering system…orders placed after ours are being fulfilled, theirs were being built while ours were sitting around stuck in limbo due to the issue. Thousands of orders were placed, software had to be written to repair the data on all of those orders. I understand none of that can be done instantly, the issue had to be noticed, then resolved.
I ordered my laptop the first day I saw it up for sale after waiting for the release of the T61. I’m slightly annoyed that it took so long to resolve, but I’m satisfied with the offer of an extra battery. It’s also not like we’re charged for the laptop until it ships out regardless.
I’m excited as heck waiting for this baby to come in, and after seeing the video of the motercycle riding over the laptop, I’m confident I will be able to stop bullets and fight crime with this laptop, making it well worth the wait. If only Lenovo would add a handle to the T61s…it would also be able to double function as a bludgeoning weapon. Thank you Lenovo.
June 17th, 2007 6:11 pm
I am getting weird answer from my rep. He says i should be waiting until 26th June! but when you see critical list is not moving atall and all other people are getting it how can you think in your good sense of mind that they will be able to rebook thousands of affected orders, build them, test them, pack them in short time. We are already in 6/17 and now 9 days are left! I don’t think they can met 6/26 date.
Here is another instructions to file complaint to Office of the Attorney General for the State of North Carolina where lenovo’s office is located. You can call them and file complaint there as well. Its under consumer protection.
http://www.ncdoj.com/consumerp.....ctions.jsp
June 17th, 2007 9:26 pm
@ sameer
I just filed a complaint with BBB.
June 17th, 2007 9:40 pm
I also filed a complaint with the BBB. I really hope something is done about this. I don’t know how much longer I can wait. It makes me sick to my stomach seeing how many people who ordered in early June are already using their T61.
June 17th, 2007 9:56 pm
@Tim:
I didn’t want to post anymore but I’d really like to hear an explanation why people who ordered in June already have their T61 (assuming this information is accurate). In particular because you had told us that cancelling and reordering would delay delivery even further.
Also, in your 6/13 update you promised a “more comprehensive update” soon. What happened?
June 17th, 2007 9:58 pm
Have you considered the Dell 630 – it seems to compare nicely to the T61. See http://www.notebookreview.com/.....itude+D630
I was one of those who bought into the Memorial day rush. Ordered my T61 on May 25, got an absurd ETA, corrected three weeks later to end of June etc etc.
I cancelled and shopped around before settling on the Dell 630. The price turned out be be in the same ball park. The upgrades are slightly more expensive but the starting price is lower.
Some how the Dell D630 differs from the T61
+ longer battery life ( I value this greatly)
+ longer free warranty
+ built-in smartcard slot
- inferior keyboard
- slightly heavier
- no express card slot
But most of all – the ordering process is as different as day from night.
June 13 – placed order
June 14 – went into production. Estimated Shipping date June 24
June 16 – shipped! ETA June 20
June 17th, 2007 10:09 pm
@Tom
I asked my sales rep the same question, but he said there could be “parts” available for those orders, but when i see their configuration and our configuration, it lists the pretty much same parts, so their argument is void and BIG BS if they say that. I am really curious to know WHY THEY ARE IGNORING US and ENTERTAIN LATER ORDERS.
June 17th, 2007 10:15 pm
it seems like everyone is now on the criticial list. I think it means nothing now because lenovo still can’t place the orders. I haven’t been given an explanation why my order from May 9th still hasn’t been built yet. I even rebooked a new order after the dates of the affected invalid orders yet lenovo decides they will rebook all outstanding orders with model #7662CTO. As of friday my order was in limbo waiting to be rebooked. There is no reason why almost 6 weeks into my initial order why it hasn’t even hit the assembly line.
June 17th, 2007 10:20 pm
@POC
What’s the URL of this news story? If this is true and we have to wait till 2008, lenovo better prepare for class action suit.
June 17th, 2007 10:21 pm
lol
June 17th, 2007 10:53 pm
That story about the X60 tablet posted just above this ….. do you mean X61?
June 17th, 2007 11:01 pm
By the way people, dell just annouced some really nice new Inspirons and the XPS M1330. Only if they had annouced this 1 month ago, many of the poor souls wouldnt have been burned by lenovos empty promises
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....?p=2057737
June 17th, 2007 11:38 pm
@jason
except dell sucks
June 17th, 2007 11:45 pm
I don’t know… the new M1330 looks promising…
June 17th, 2007 11:55 pm
i think dells are little bulky, toshiba very bad customer support for recalls, HP so so.
June 18th, 2007 12:01 am
That new dell XPS M1330 looks really nice. It’s due out at the end of this month. The potential problem for me it is that it might not be durable enough for my current needs. That’s the same reason why I decided against the Sony SZ notebook – those are awesome as well. If, by the end of the month, Lenovo still hasn’t delivered my computer, I will definitely check out the new Dell.
So Tim, the silence is pretty deafening, but it’s a Sunday so I guess I’ll give you a break. There are two good things that happened today. 1) Because it was a Sunday, nobody that ordered after me reported that their computer was delivered today! Of course that’s only because shipping companies don’t deliver on Sunday. I expect tomorrow to be another day filled with people who ordered long after me reporting that their computers have shipped/arrived. 2) Since Lenovo didn’t communicate with us, we weren’t told any new lies!
I had another observation. I happen to run a small business that does manufacturing in China – I believe our Thinkpads are supposed to be manufactured in China. I know that when I have issues with the factories that I deal with, Sunday evening here in the US is the best time to get in touch with them – it’s Monday morning in China and they are starting their week. It’s a good time because my business obligations in the US are on hold for Sunday, so I can really focus my efforts on taking care of business with the people in China that I work with. Conversely, the factories in China have far fewer obligations to their customers in the US because few people are working – so they are poised to deal with any issues. I wonder… is Lenovo working hard right now to correct the problems they created? If Lenovo were actually serious about solving these problems, they could have solutions for all of us within the next 6-8 hours.
June 18th, 2007 12:14 am
Dell “sucks”? – they are releasing some of the more durable road tested machines on the market and if they sucked they would not be as popular as they are today. XPS machines are reviewed at the top. Even with my new MBP I will consider the new M1330. Lenovo screws you over and you are still brainwashed thinking they make the best computers. They can push you all over the place with that stance you are taking.
June 18th, 2007 12:18 am
I don’t get some of you guys … d’you want a well-built product or just instant gratification? I wouldn’t buy a Dell to save my life. So wait a little … you’ll get your notebooks.
June 18th, 2007 12:33 am
With dell, we had battery blew up problems, toshiba was not ready to exchange motherboards, we had to put too much pressure on them.
June 18th, 2007 12:55 am
It’s really strange how Rudy’s posts have expressed exactly what I’m feeling inside. I, personally, can’t seem to write out my frustrations that well, but Rudy is pretty spot on with his. The funny thing is, I’ve probably spent more time posting about this issue in various forums and blogs than it should have taken for my T61 to be built and shipped to me. The best part is, from all the emails and phone calls I’ve made, I have yet to get a response that actually provided me with any new information whatsoever. Take my advice Tim……
If you are straight forward with your customers and tell them exactly what is going on , I bet a lot of people would not be so upset right now. I know, personally, I would be more than happy to wait if I could at least be in the loop and not feel like I’m being kept completely in the dark about everything.
Oh and also, I don’t know about anybody else, but I felt insulted when Lenovo offered us our choice of a free gift. It is obvious that Lenovo is not concerned with establishing a loyal customer base and would much rather try and buy us off with our choice of free shit that, guess what, MOST OF US ALREADY HAVE. I would MUCH rather get a sincere apology, timely response to my emails/calls, and some genuine, truthful information rather than a 2nd battery, 2nd ac adapter, or 2nd carrying case….
June 18th, 2007 1:01 am
@adam
I totally agree with you. Lenovo should do timely and honest update then i don’t mind waiting. But not like that kind of wait where people who ordered after you gets first and you still wait like stupid.
June 18th, 2007 1:16 am
I’m going to start making “I Ordered a T61 and All I Got Was This Crappy Carrying Case” t-shirts.
Any takers?
June 18th, 2007 1:52 am
I’m selling “I Ordered a T61 and All I Got Was This Crappy Carrying Case” t-shirts – any takers?
On a more serious note, this is absurd. We aren’t shoppers waiting to recieve this season’s latest trendy fashion item – these are $1500 machines we rely on as necessities for business and education. I placed my order on 5/30 and was immediately given a ship date of SEPTEMBER THIRD. After calling customer service I was assured that this was “a glitch” and that my laptop would ship in 2 to 3 weeks – at most. I was told that I would have to rely on his words as I would not be receiving a written confirmation. After reading these comments I: A) Have no faith that my laptop will come when the rep said it would; B) Have no faith that I’ll recieve a truthful or accurate answer if I call back; and C) Am starting to wonder if my computer will arrive before I head to law school in August where, guess what, laptops are required.
I NEED my laptop by early August and I’m not sure if I should cancel my order, any suggestions?
PS: You’re doing a fantastic job Mr. Supples – that is if your job is to abandon your blog after promising anwers. A fine job indeed.
June 18th, 2007 2:01 am
Just FYI… the BBB has zero power.
If you really want to complain it should be to the FTC:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/index.shtml
http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/cmplanding.shtm
June 18th, 2007 6:08 am
To all the Lenovo haters out there:
1. They DO make the best notebook computers out there. If you don’t think so, then don’t buy one!
2. If you’re only buying a Lenovo because of the price, then don’t complain. It’s the low price, high volume, pressures that are degrading the quality of the ThinkPad products. I’d personally rather have Lenovo raise the price and keep the quality high, and keep all the bottom feeders away.
3. If you’re just posting hateful, unproductive things and wishing that Lenovo goes out of business or loses all of it’s customers, then grow up! Stop acting like a bunch of 3rd graders in a playground fight before someone comes and steps on your pee pee.
Now with that out of the way, the situation is bad. Lenovo has a big problem on their hands and so far it seems like their efforts aren’t enough. I say seems like because we’re only hearing of people having problems on this and a few other blogs and for the most part, those would be the more experienced and vocal users. We don’t know how widespread these problems are, we just know that according to the blogs that there are a number of problems. Only Lenovo can know for sure how many users are impacted. For all we know, they’ve taken in tens or hundreds of thousands of orders and only a few (vocal) thousands are affected. That would still be a pretty crappy situation.
I agree that Lenovo could offer a better offering to help smooth out the situation, like offering warranty extensions, warranty upgrades, etc., but since that also involved services back to IBM, they might not be able to ofer that.
I’m still shocked that the ordering page for the X61 tablet still shows the screen options incorrectly as a WV SXGA instead of a SV SXGA+. It’s been almost three weeks since this system was introduced and the error was reported right away. Whomever is updating the website needs to get off their butts.
June 18th, 2007 8:07 am
I dont want to whine, I just want a little attention. I have called and been on hold twice for 1+ hours before hanging up to meet prior obligations. I have sent 4 emails, some over a week ago, with zero response. I was not sent the “freebie” email even though my order date was in the “infected” group. I get no responses at all from Lenovo.
I dont want them to go out of buisness, I want them to finish the buisness that we have together. I did receive the “rebooking” email in which my orginial configuration was changed. So now they are substituting parts that I did not order into the new order. I would like to ask someone about this, but apparently no one there is available for comment.
- frustrated
June 18th, 2007 8:19 am
I’m a little surprised you ‘took out’ my mild remark, considering it was entirely supportive of Lenovo and the product … these whingers on the blog need to get a grip!
June 18th, 2007 8:51 am
Ordered T60 on 4/30, still havn’t received it, but did get a tracking number (not by email but had to call a rep. I had a direct number to who started my investigation claim into why my order was so delayed (not that it will help me any).
As of this morning for my tracking number…
Location Date Local Time Description
GUANGZHOU,
CN 06/14/2007 7:00 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 06/13/2007 5:31 P.M. THE SHIPMENT IS BEING HELD BY BROKERAGE FOR REASONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL
GUANGZHOU,
CN 06/13/2007 8:03 P.M. EXPORT SCAN
SHENZHEN,
CN 06/12/2007 7:31 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
CN 06/13/2007 10:19 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
June 18th, 2007 9:41 am
At least someone who’s been waiting for months is getting their computer. Congrats Aileen, you won’t have to be wasting your time on this blog any longer.
June 18th, 2007 9:52 am
I’ve kept pretty quiet since I have ordered my T61. I ordered on May 30th, which is a date I have not even seen mentioned yet. I was given an estimated shipping date of June 18th, which has not changed. Well, today is June 18, and my order still says “In process.” We will see what happens, I will keep you updated….
June 18th, 2007 9:53 am
Hi,
I ordered my T61 on 5/22. The CR who took my order told me that there is a glitch in the system & will be resolved immediately. He also said that my order atmost would take 2-3 weeks. We owned couple of Dell’s before, but my husband loves this Thinkpad. I want to present this Thinkpad to my husband for our anniversary (june 25th). But these guys are about to ruin my plans. I contacted the Customer care so many times,but they always that the shipping dates were in correct & it wont take too long. But now, one of the executive customer service person informed that I can make a decision whether to wait or cancel. But in oder to make any decision I should know the approximate shiiping date.
1) Lenovo should provide the approximate shipping date for all the customers.
2) They should atleast provide a written statement regarding the delay.
3) Lenovo should apologize & keep the customers informed about the glitch on the website.
4) Can’t they really fix this glitch since 20-25 days? ( I dont agree)
5) They should understand the pain of the customers.
The CEO must be sued.
June 18th, 2007 10:11 am
I ordered my T61 on 5/29, immediately the shippied date is showing as 8/31. but I was asked not to panic as it was the glitch in the Lenovo system. From that day onwards, I kept on calling the Lenovo customer care to verify the shipping date. I didn’t have any luck, as they kept on lying. Every day I have to listen to different kinds of stories. After all these conversations & the frustations from the customers, Lenovo is not yet fixing their problems. Why is this happening? Atleast Lenovo should be able to give us an approximate date of shipping so that everyone can make their own decision whether to wait or cancel? This so called glitch ahould not be that bad that even Lenovo like company couldn’t fix it since 3 weeks.
Lenovo customers are annoyed, frustated & vexed. This is humble request to Lenovo that sorrry & apologizes from customer care doesn’t solve the purpose. Please give us some meaning information.
June 18th, 2007 10:30 am
Been on hold for 45min so I thought Id post while Im waiting. Has anyone who ordered the N wireless card received their computer? This option is no longer available on the website. This experience makes me feel like Halle Berry in Monsters Ball. I just want to “feel good” but Lenovo “Billy Bob” just keeps screwing me.
Tim, where’d you go?
June 18th, 2007 10:46 am
Over an hr on hold…cant give up now. Normally I would call my sales rep but he went on jury duty then took a 2 week vacation since I ordered my computer a month ago!
June 18th, 2007 10:48 am
Robert, I’ve been on old for 20 minutes and one of the questions I’m going to ask is why the thinkpad AGN card isn’t an option anymore and if it’s on backorder. I also want to know what I’m supposed to do with my price quote that is going to expire in a few days. They told me to wait till my computer ships to adjust the price, but my price quote will be expired by then and I shouldn’t be penalized for their mistakes.
June 18th, 2007 10:52 am
The order process has yet another problem, as shown in the confirmation e-mails I’ve received — it is overcharging a recycling fee. I reported the problem to Lenovo on 5/25 but they acted like it’s unfixable. I’m in California, which requires paying a recycling fee when purchasing a new monitor. Lenovo automatically added this $6 fee for the ThinkPad’s LCD panel , BUT ALSO INCORRECTLY charged another $6 for the video “card”, which is actually the motherboard video. Lenovo by phone confirmed this is a mistake, but they CAN’T ADJUST MY ORDER!! They said after I receive the computers, I should contact them for a credit. But, it appears they continue to add this incorrect charge to orders in California — the largest state in the U.S., so imagine how many adjustment credits/refunds they’ll be facing, when all they have to do is correct the bill of materials to not add this incorrect charge in the first place!
Of course, I’ll do this once I get the computers, which is seeming unlikely. Since receiving the rebooking e-mail last week, I’m still waiting for an update on my 5/23 T61 order, which got moved from 6/8 to 8/3. I never got any rebooking e-mail on my 5/23 T61 order, which is still showing 8/29 shipping after being originally promised 6/12. We’re buying these for evaluation, to see if we should adopt the newest TPs, but of course, we can’t make this decision until we get them. Meanwhile to fill user needs, HPs are readily available.
I wrote to the Lenovo critical address, no response. I tried to call recently, impossible. I never received any offer of a free gift or mints on my pillow or anything.
Idea: Moving to the newest series requires discarding the mountain of older ThinkPad 16v power adapters our company has accumulated (been using TPs for 15 years) that work up through the T4*/X4* series. Since we are forced to start over buying 20v adapters, they might be a truly valuable way for Lenovo to show that it didn’t buy the IBM PC Ccompany just to destroy it. How about tossing in a couple more of the new 90 watt adapters on the mishandled orders?
June 18th, 2007 10:54 am
@ Robert and jd1010:
The option for the thinkpad N card is not an option again on the site….although it “will delay shippment”. But then again, everything I ordered a month ago appears to do that.
June 18th, 2007 10:54 am
@ Robert and jd1010:
The option for the thinkpad N card is an option again on the site….although it “will delay shippment”. But then again, everything I ordered a month ago appears to do that.
June 18th, 2007 10:55 am
They still offer the Intel wireless N
- Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
Not sure though if that’s the reason why I don’t get the computer.
June 18th, 2007 11:12 am
Joe, where do you see the option for the thinkpad N card? I don’t see it anywhere. I didn’t really get anywhere with the rep about the thinkpad N card. He told me it wouldn’t delay my shipment, but can you ever really believe these people?
June 18th, 2007 11:14 am
@jd1010
It was there this morning. I see it is off again. I think they are doing updates to the order pages this morning. It was an option for about an hour this morning.
June 18th, 2007 12:08 pm
I reordered yesterday
I’m calling to today to cancel my original. Maybe I’ll actually get a machine!
Tim Supples, way to keep us informed! 5 days goes by, not a word? Thousands of customers just kinda sittin around pissed off and you drop off the face of the earth?
June 18th, 2007 12:32 pm
I am so shocked that I still don’t believe it. I called my CSR directly, and I got him immediately. No waiting!! I cancelled my order, and when he asked why, I said I have waited forever and I have no indication of when I will receive the laptop. No comments. No arguments. No company propaganda. I think he even believed Lenovo is BS. So after that he offered me an ‘in stock model’, and momentarily my heart jumped and I got excited. Could it be possible that I could still get a T61, even if not exactly my specifications? Welll the answer is no. He meant T60. I said no thanks, not interested in old technology. He said they give no confirmation numbers, which still surprises considering we’re dealing with thousands of dollars here. He said he would delete my order. let’s see if it shows up next week anyway. I am going to buy a dell D630. I have an Inspiron 600m that has lasted me for 4 years. The only problem I have had is software related (nothing is worse than Windows). I must say I am a little sad because i was so excited about my T61, the so called elitist Thinkpad. I’ll go back to Dell who has been good to me, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I would reorder the T61 if it were posting shipping within 3-4 weeks which to me translated 6-8.
June 18th, 2007 1:20 pm
I just got my laptop; but I was under the impression that orders after mid-May came with the X3100; my parts sheet says it’s the IntelGMA960 w1394; is this even the Santa Rosa platform?
June 18th, 2007 2:12 pm
John, I am in the same boat w/ you that I was overcharged for the CA Recycle Fee. I will try to call them when I receive the system.
In addition, I found out something interesting about the operation system:
From the Confirm Email:
42V8011 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM
42V9565 SBB MSWIN VHP64 US ENGLISH
***************************************
From Order Status:
42V8011 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM
42V9565 SBB MSWIN VHP32 US ENGLISH
Which vision of Vista am I going to get? 64 bit or 32 bit?????
Just want to see if anyone faces this problem or not.
June 18th, 2007 2:13 pm
Is everyone on vacation at Lenovo. I have called 2x today and been on hold for over an hr each time and no one has picked up! Are you serious! I even did the call me option and no one has in the past 4 hours. Nothing like giving me confidence about my recent 2K purchase. Thanks Lenovo, I cant wait to recommend you!
June 18th, 2007 2:16 pm