Brand New T410s Arrives Defective - I have to fix it myself - Don't pay the premium for Lenovo

Question

Don't pay the premium for "Innovative and Professional Grade" Lenovo products.
I purchased a Lenovo T410s with an onsite warranty. It arrived and would not boot because of a bad hard drive. I called tech support and they had no record of an onsite warranty. I was put on hold and transfered to Customer Service. I provided my customer and order numbers but they could not find the onsite warranty either. I was required to fax my receipt to prove that I paid for the onsite warranty.
I was told I needed a second case number for the system software. Then I was told I would need to reload the machine myself. The system restore disks will take 3-5 days to arrive. So much for next day onsite support. Then it was recommended that I just fix everything myself because I could do the repair at my convenience.
I was very frustrated and regreted the purchase so I asked to return the laptop. The sales department's floor manager offered an RMA with a 15% restocking charge. I was told that it is company policy to require a re-stocking charge on defective products that technical support could fix. I asked multiple times for reconsideration and the floor manager said that was the final word. I asked to escalate my problem and the floor manager responded that I would not get a different answer because he was quoting company policy. I asked for confirmation that company policy was to penalize the customer if they want to return defective product and were dissatisfied with the support. He would not agree to that statement. He kept insisting that this problem was a minor inconvenience that tech support could fix, which meant shipping me the parts to fix myself. I said this was an unreasonable response to a customer that paid $1500 for an innovative, professional grade Lenovo product. The floor manager responded by quoting company policy again.
What the floor manager did not know was that I am the EVP for a Point of Sale company that resells Lenovo products. I will be moving those purchases to a new vendor with a commitment to a better customer experience. Lenovo better spend my $225 re-stocking fee wisely because they are losing my reseller revenue.
The rant of an abused Lenovo Customer and Reseller.
Kevin Struthers

Answer 1

Kevin,
I'm just guessing, but I think the warranty for your specific machine (via serial number) can be checked at this webpage:
http://www.lenovo.com/support
in the warranty section.  I believe the warranty is activated at the manufacturing and starts when the product is shipped (that's pretty much industry standard).  Perhaps the manufacturing plant didn't activate the correct warranty and so it didn't show up correctly.
To the best of my understanding, if the hard drive turned out to be dead, they can do an on-site repair/ replacement if you do have on-site warranty.  I am not sure, but I don't know if the replacement of the drive includes the factory installed software on the drive.  (probably fine print somewhere says if it does or not).  If the machine is DOA, right out of the box, I don't see why they wouldn't just cross ship a replacement machine to you.  Did they give you this option?
I think I would call them back and ask for a customer satisfaction rep to step in.  And this time, tell them who you are.
Hope that helps.
Walter