Lenovo replaced my HDD under warranty then sent me a bill

It's pretty standard practice that warranty parts have to be returned.

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht101058

Keep Your Drive

Under the Lenovo Limited Warranty, when Lenovo replaces a defective part of Your product, the defective part becomes the property of Lenovo. Under Keep Your Drive, You may retain a defective hard drive that is replaced under the Lenovo Limited Warranty. This Service applies to the original hard drive in Your product and any replacement hard drive provided for Your product under the Lenovo Limited Warranty. You must provide Lenovo with the serial number of each hard drive which You retain under this Service and execute any document provided by Lenovo acknowledging Your retention of the hard drive. This Service does not apply to any hard drive provided by Lenovo for a product not purchased by You

Yes, that's how it works.

I have used Lenovo warranty service a couple of times over the years and it is always explicitly stated that the replaced parts need returning.

It seems to me that the OP chose not to read the warranty terms, or communications he would have received, and chosen to ignore any information told via their phone support. Then, the OP either discarded the hard-drive or used it elsewhere, and now wishes to claim that the end of the world has occurred and that Lenovo are evil.

Actually, every hardware supplier I know of requires the hardware back. It is extremely rare when someone doesn't (Amazon in the early days of Kindle spring to mind as the exception tends to stand out).

On a related note (this happened two weeks ago ish):

I recently had to warranty return my Surface Pro 3 power supply because only six months in it has split near the Magsafe-like connector. Getting a new one was easy, they asked a few questions, asked me to send them some digital photos of the old one, and then sent me the new one.

The CS said they didn't need the old one back. So I was going to throw it out as the old one looked "dangerous" to me (the split had wire coming out, etc). However the day the new one arrived I got an email from Microsoft with a pre-paid FedEx label in it asking for the old one back.

Now I might have been irritated by this but here is the exact text of the email (names removed):

> Hi <whatever>,

> You recently contacted Surface Support regarding an issue with your Surface that required a replacement power supply to be sent to you. So that we can better understand the nature of the issue with your power supply, we would like to collect the non-working power supply from you, if you still have the device. We understand if you do not, as we normally advise disposal of the non-working device.

> Attached to this email is a FedEx shipping label. Please print the shipping label provided, pack your non-working power supply into the same box your replacement arrives in, affix the shipping label, then drop off at a nearest FedEx location.

> If you have any questions or concerns, please call us at 1-800-Microsoft (1-800-642-7676). Thanks for your cooperation.

> Sincerely,

> <name>

While they were inconsistent, the way the email was worded acknowledging the inconsistency definitely makes it better, and it also doesn't come across as demanding just a "if you can, that would be great, otherwise don't worry." I actually sent them the old PSU simply because the email was so polite and acknowledged their contradictory advice (and also I obviously hadn't thrown it out yet).

I am just posting this since it is effectively the same exact problem you had with Lenovo but handled in a massively better way.

I'd be tempted to ignore it.

But if you want to talk to them you'll need to talk to their finance department, the details /should/ be on the invoice. If not, wait until the red reminders - they will have contact details for the accounts dept on them

Customer support which is likely outsourced, as many companies outsource their call centre and warranty fulfilment will have exactly zero tools to cancel invoices.

Normal customer support would explicitly tell that they don't want to spend money to have the broken item returned, and normal customers would ask for instructions (typically volunteering to return the item, to avoid suggesting a scam). So, how could such a misunderstanding happen? Is it your fault?

There was a slip on the bottom of the box with a return label so it's most likely my fault for not noticing it. I only saw it 3 weeks after they sent it and I started getting the emails from them. And by then it was too late. Still I would have really appreciated someone telling me about this policy from the start.

Either way, regardless of who is at fault I just want to actually talk to someone and resolve the issue. I've been on the phone for 1 hour this morning and someone is actually listening and trying to help so that's a plus. :)

The lesson I am taking away from this is: Regardless of what a company claims, I am going to hold on to the old one for at least a month after. Just in case they change their mind.

Plus I also drill my dead HDDs anyway if it isn't encrypted, and keep them for at least a year to let the data (e.g. passwords, banking information) become less valuable to an identity thief.

Even a dead HDD is still often recoverable (depending on HOW it died, a lot have electronic failures or the head dies, the platters remain in working order). And while realistically nobody wants to steal my data, why take the risk? Drilling a HDD takes five minutes, and tipping salt water in takes a few seconds...

I agree. My first thought was "Wait you want MY HDD?... The thing that has ALL of my personal information on it?????"

I was try to renew my warranty just a couple of days ago. I called multiple times, Lenovo CS just keep telling my credit card didn't go through(Of course, I have enough credit). And my bank told me there was NO ATTEMPT to shop on my card at all! They just wasted a good chunk of my time(put me on hold, transfer between departments) and did noting. Lenovo is just killing the Thinkpad from all ends(ergonomics, build quality, CS)

You need to contact Lenovo in your country (US?) directly, and inform them of the issue and misunderstanding.

That said, your warranty may require you to provide them with defective hardware. You may be on the hook whether you realized it or not. They may eat it, but unlikely.

I have had absolutely horrid support from Lenovo. I love their machines, but pray that I never have to have any interaction with the company. The story follows...

I got an X1 a few years back while in grad school in another state. My experience with the company started out poor when their fraud prevention made it nearly impossible to buy the machine. Making sure several forms of identification referenced my location and where the product was shipping (why does shipping have ANYTHING to do with purchasing!?), I ended up being unable to ship it to my desk at school, but did get the product to my apartment at least. All of this made the order several weeks later than I had anticipated, not that I had things to get done or anything. I know this doesn't have to do with product support, but it's foreshadowing.

Half a year ago, I spilled some water on my laptop. Disaster. In fact, my wife had done the same thing a week earlier to her Lenovo as well. Both keyboards were dead; we had to use externals until we could get the issue resolved. Funny, because the X1 has little holes through the keyboard to drain as though it is at least somewhat resistant to such things. It isn't.

I called the support line and actually felt like I had gotten pretty far until the guy on the other end quoted me something like $400 to repair the machines. What? I just need keyboards, that's not going to happen. Turns out full service repair out of warranty is crazy from them, I should call the "parts department" at one of three numbers he gave me and order the specific parts for manual repair. Okay, now I'm getting somewhere. I wanted just the parts to begin with (and thought I had asked for that). Of course, figuring out which of the random phone numbers was correct was another labor of pain.

We called the parts department for two months. They're open for exactly eight hours a day and the wait is no less than an hour in our experience. Pain. Eventually, we got through and received the keyboards for around $50/ea. I'm not new to repairing laptops, I just wanted the exact parts that belong in the computers at a reasonable price.

My X1 is several years old now and still chugging along. Someday its battery won't be sufficient and I don't know if the X1 Carbon will tempt me or not. As a Linux user, Lenovo is the safest bet I know of for laptops so I'm fully expecting that I'll deal with all of this again someday.

> why does shipping have ANYTHING to do with purchasing!?

Because that is an extremely effective way of detecting fraud.

If someone's billing address is in location X and their shipping destination is location Y (e.g. X = Washington State, Y = Florida) then in terms of your fraud score, it shoots through the roof. This goes astronomical if it is cross-country (e.g. billing in US, shipping to Mexico).

If you're a student it might be worth your while calling your bank and having your billing address moved from whatever your home state is to the state where you plan on living. If you're doing online billing this won't have much impact day to day, but will make it so you dodge most fraud protection.

Unfortunately most (all?) banks don't allow you to add multiple addresses onto a single account.

So I do understand that and did at the time too. My point there is that it doesn't change that I should be able to ship something I buy wherever I please. My story abstracted the many support calls to try to work around their inflexible fraud prevention. It just highlights the toil of trying to work with a company uninterested in their customers.

I bought an X201t, got a 3 year warranty. I've gotten everything replaced multiple times. Mostly because it just gets so damn hot. Apparently heat is something most people simply don't notice. Or isn't penalized enough in reviews. But I just call up or use the online tool, and next day a wonderful person from IBM is replacing my fan or motherboard. Even for damage like me dropping it on the floor and cracking part of the case, no questions, free replacement, no problems.

Dell only beats it as I called them up while traveling and they actually sent a guy up a mountain in Guatemala to replace a failed HDD.

Perhaps you didn't get the next-day warranty?

I'm so sorry to hear about your awful experiences. Peach (joinpeach.com) exists to be an advocate to consumers in these warranty nightmares. There's no cost to our service. We would be happy to help. You can email us at info@joinpeach.com

very cool. looks like you guys also provide warranty options on lots of other stuff too!

Is it possible to contact Lenovo through some other channel? Support forums, email, chat? Maybe they are not run by the same people.

With a bit of luck they also feel that phone support is a stupid outsourced division and will immediately realize what has happened.

What country are you in?

I'm in the USA. And thanks for the replies everyone.