When you order an item from Lenovo, your item could be out of stock, backordered, shipping sometime in six months, or have falled into another dimension never to be heard from again. At least, that’s what Eamonn discovered when ordering a USB thumb drive along with a Thinkpad. Lenovo first showed an absurdly far-off shipping date, and then finally–days later–admitted that they had sold something that was never actually in stock.

I purchased a Thinkpad and USB key from Lenovo’s website on December
22nd and when I looked at my order status I was a little surprised:
the estimated ship date on my USB key was May 12th. I called customer
service and I was assured that listed ship date was May 12th was in
error.

“Call back in a few days to make sure the information is updated” is
what I was told.

So I was a little annoyed, when I called back, and the shipping date
hadn’t been changed. I was told again that this would be taken care of
and to call back in a few days.

I called back in a few days and I was more annoyed when, after talking
to two customer service representatives, that the order still hadn’t
been updated. When I finally spoke to a supervisor, I was told that I
could call back on Monday “after we hear back from the warehouse
department” because “this item is actually out of stock.” I was also
told that I could cancel my order or wait for a “transitions option”
which would allow me to change my order to a new product in about a
week but they couldn’t tell me more about this option when I was
talking to them (I had to call back in a week). The supervisor I spoke
with also told me that he couldn’t understand why I was angry because
“you’ll have a transitions option a week from now.”

I understand that Lenovo is large company with many customers but
still it would’ve been nice if they had:

1) Not sold me an item that wasn’t in stock.
2) Notify me that I had ordered an out of stock item as soon as the
issue was brought to their attention (I don’t think I should have to
call Lenovo three times before they admit error.)
3) Offered me the opportunity to change my order sooner than three
weeks after the initial error seems “too little too late.”

I ended up cancelling the order. I can walk to Best Buy and get a new
USB key in less time than it would take Lenovo to ship me one. The
whole event has been frustrating because I’ve alway been a fairly
loyal Lenovo customer and I was put off by their callousness when
handling this problem. If I wanted lousy customer service then I
could’ve gone elsewhere and spent less money.

Yeah! Like Best Buy! …Oh.

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