I would not recommend bringing your Lenovo here for warranty service. My computer sat here for nearly two weeks with nothing happening.
I give this place a star, because everybody seems nice, from the woman who answers the phone, to the person who checks in your computer, to the tech who eventually gets assigned to your computer. And honestly, I think my assigned tech, Justin, is a good and honest person.
The main problem is more with the system that Lenovo has set up:
Like for me, it may appeal to you to bring your computer to a "Local Authorized Service Provider" rather than mail it in-- you can talk to a real person and your computer isn't shipped across the country. In the ideal, this would be like talking to a "genius" at the Mac store -- They'd be helpful, empowered and be able to fix your computer. (I'm a former mac user, and probably will be switching back after this experience).
Instead, these service centers are just another layer of bureaucracy.
It's Ameritech's policy that if you want a tech to look at your computer as a "walk in" they charge $85. So unless you want to pay, you need to leave your computer with them. Inconvenient, but fine---after all, you wouldn't have your computer either if you mailed it across the country.
But here's the problem and why you don't want to leave your computer here for warranty service: no service ticket is generated with Lenovo, and there is nobody at Lenovo you are ever allowed to talk to, or who even knows your computer is here. Instead, Ameritech is supposed to work directly with Lenovo (or a subcontractor assigned to warranty repairs? this is still unclear to me).
In theory, this sounds OK. In practice, not so much, because Ameritech was not very effective at this part of the process.
Like I said, nearly 2 weeks passed with nothing happening. Ameritech never sent me an update on their own initiative, but they were responsive to my calls and emails asking about what was going on. When I asked for it, Justin showed me proof that he was repeatedly contacting a "warranty rep" via email. It appeared his emails were just being ignored. When a warranty rep finally did respond almost two weeks later, it was clear this person hadn't read the description of the problem. She literally wrote back to Justin to "go to the website to see if my computer was under warranty." Back to square one.
I believe that Justin may have treated my case incorrectly as an accidental damage request. He later tried his best to rectify this, submitting an update in a later email, but like I said, the warranty rep appeared to ignore him and the contents of any emails.
Everybody at Ameritech can agree with you that your problem should be covered by warranty, but this amounts to nothing in the end. Ameritech needs to be effective at communicating with customers and with Lenovo, and Lenovo needs to be responsive to their techs at service centers. Neither of these things happened in this case.
Instead of wasting 2 weeks of your time too, call Lenovo service at 1-855-253-6686, get a box overnighted to you, and deal with Lenovo directly. At least they promise to return your computer in 7 days. read more
