Providing false troubleshooting data, to avoid honoring extended warranty & protection, which we paid for. No other word than "scam" is accurate.
Company laptopt. Paid extra to allow for urgent repair or replacement insurance. The laptop stopped charging, it was working but slowly died, just as if the charge port stopped working. I contacted support and based on my description, they said the battery was broken, and sorry the battery is not included in the insurance, or in my warranty. I would have to send it to some repair shop, for 2-3 week repair, not possible in a business, I would have to buy a new. But then the disk contents would be lost. Catastrophe. With the last 10% of battery I panic saved data externally. But how can they know it's the battery without checking? I asked for them to send a repair person out, and at least check. If it is the battery, I will pay for the repair person. They refused. You can't with confidence do a computer diagnostic. They said "Yes we can, our diagnostic process is fair, it's the battery.". So I googled the issue. Turns out this is a common issue on Lenovo laptops. The reason is static buildup in some component inside the computer. It's NOT a broken battery. I repeat it's NOT the battery. I unscrewed some screws, unplugged a single interior cable, pushed and held down the power button for a few seconds, screwed everyting together - it started working immediately and haven't had an issue since. It was NOT the battery. It was -NOT- the battery, and they -INSISTED- and rejected the warranty AND the insurance on this false diagnostic. Now note this - this diagnostic was made through their process which they insured me was accurate. But it was not. It means they have designed a faulty troubleshooting process, which returns incorrect causes of error - the process incorrectly returns causes of errors which is not covered by warranty or extended warranty, even when the real cause of the error IS covered by the warranty AND extended warranty. In other words, they have designed a process to not honor the warranty, or extended warranty. Very unethical. I would actually call it an outright scam - you pay for something and when you want to claim it, they have a process to avoid delivering it under false troubleshooting data. Is that a company you want to trust your company hardware with? Keep this in mind the next time you buy a laptop, or any hardware.
September 20, 2023
Unprompted review