Shady consumer unfriendly practices are nothing new in our great country and it is a long known and accepted fact that India serves as a e-waste dumping ground for many tech companies. The best models of electronic items are reserved for U.S. and European markets.Over the years, have learnt to accept this as our reality but what I saw recently on the Lenovo India site brought back old memories. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is just going to be a long rant.
Suddenly finding free time on my hands, I decided to use it most productively by loitering around on the Lenovo India website. Made some pretty interesting observations over the last few days. Observations limited to Thinkpad models. Will try to put them down as briefly as possible.
The latest gen 3 model of the AMD Thinkpad E16 has made it to our shores. Right up till a few days back, it was priced at 68K and with additional configurations, a pretty solid rig could be had for around 75K. Now, the base model itself has been hiked up to 72644 from 68. Probably there was some demand for it and hence Lenovo decided to strike while the iron is hot.
However, they didn’t stop at that. The base model was providing a touch screen but now that option has been converted into an optional one that costs extra. Secondly, this model in question comes with 2 options for the battery. A 48whr battery and a 64 whr battery.And the 64whr was present on the config list initially but again right after the price hike, the option for the higher battery disappeared from the site. Congrats on Shady 101, Lenovo.Any newcomer to the site would assume that this model comes only with one battery variant but internationally both variants are available. Maybe, Lenovo ran out of the 64whr variant but a good consumer facing policy would have been to put out an update on the same.
They have different prices for daytime and night. I saw models of Thinkpad having different prices during the day and different prices during the night.
Joining the Lenovo pro business store resulted in a hike of 4K rupees of a Thinkpad model I had configured. Same configuration was priced at 71k on the regular shopping cart but once I logged into the Business store the same config became 75K. So, because I have committed a crime of having a small business I’m supposed to pay more?
Seeing the above was really sad. Companies know that they can get away with anything in India and therefore carry out practices without fear of consequences.
Tht’s probably because of AFTER10DEAL coupon auto applied at night.
Forgot small businesses What about regular employed people ? Why are the lazy college students who plays games sitting in their parent’s basement get more discount when their dad/mom paying for laptops anyway ? Never understood the logic of student discount in INDIA.They aint flipping burgers for tuition fees.
Well pump out more kids to get more discounts… but yeah brand websites never work in India and with hardly any regulation (comsumer related btw) they dont have to give a F about service either.
And with how many (direct and indirect) hurdles are deliberately put on small (honest) businesses, they should just criminalize it altogether.
TBH,buying from lenovo website is the recommended way, they offer more discount coupons (7% coupons for partners/15% coupons for lenovo employees/10% Credit card offers/ 3 yr warranty offer @3999 etc some can be stacked) but not all models get listed there.
Yes, all their coupons will show as pre-applied which means that none of the prices that you see initially when you open a product page will get reduced.
Perhaps they give good discounts for certain folks with the right credentials as you have mentioned above, but the core issue which I am talking about is the misleading pricing and false practices which the company follows. Which 3 year warranty are you talking about? Perhaps you’re talking about the ADP for 3 years. Onsite support for 3 years will cost you another 4622. So total of Rs. 8641. And this is just for the basic level of support. They have three different tiers of support starting from the basic onsite support. Prices can become a lot based on the tier of support you buy.
If you buy from them, you get all except Battery(1 year) for 3 years at 3999 INR. Option available after you add the laptop into cart atleast for all legion/loq series. No idea about business laptops.
My point is, you simply cant buy lenovo laptops cheaper anywhere. Even offline stores dont match official online store most of the time.
My suggestion to you: Call the Sales support, it works.
Ah,ok. We are talking about different laptops. I was talking about the thinkpads and you about the legion/LOQ series. I get your point about lenovo laptops not being cheaper elsewhere. Good for buyers like us then, but only if they stop with their deceptive pricing practices. Having said that, I have seen few Yoga models on FK at lesser prices than what is there on the Lenovo site. Of course, those are from third-party sellers and its FK so there will be risks involved in buying from them I guess.
Just adding to my rant and as a record for posterity - Lenovo India takes scamming to a level that can’t be described in words. As I make a record of the following events from today, I feel sad and sorry for myself and also for our country. For each and every aspect of personal or civic life, too much corruption exists at every step. And then some people claim, we are Vishwa guru.
Anyway, to keep things short, after the above incidents mentioned in my earlier thread, saw a new low of scamming on Lenovo website when after adding configured laptops to the cart, I asked a sales rep on chat if any discounts are possible and available as they have some so-called ‘Freedom sale’ going on. I had just finished typing my request and the rep asked me for my cart id. I asked the rep where I would be able to find the cart id. Almost simaltaenously, I saw that the items on my cart had changed their price. Two items were there and both increased their price by around 3.5K each. I wrote back to the sales rep asking what had just happened. No response came. After waiting for like 2 minutes, I was like enough is enough. F*&* it. Goodbye Lenovo. That has been my experience with Lenovo India. I have visited Dell and Asus websites as well. Would rank Lenovo’s practices the shadiest out of the three. Not saying that Asus and Dell are better. In India every big ticket item electronic business runs on zero accountability and the customer is just a pawn in their hands. I have no doubts about that and this is experience of 20 + years as a customer speaking. However, what I witnessed today with Lenovo is at a different level altogether.
I don’t know about dell but for asus I can tell that once they delivered a laptop to someone I know with a 1mm thin & 2mm long connector broken inside the laptop after it was opened at their service centre for ssd upgrade & as per them it was due to physical mishandling (either by customer or delivery partner) & not their manufacturing defect when there was not even a hair line scratch on laptop’s entire outer body even if looked with a magnifying glass.
The best laptop service I have seen is Xiaomi. I had a xiaomi laptop and it was the smoothest warranty claim i ever had. One Assist customer care called me daily to find out whether the issue was resolved.
Made some pretty interesting observations over the last few days. Observations limited to Thinkpad models. Will try to put them down as briefly as possible.
What about regular employed people ? Why are the lazy college students who plays games sitting in their parent’s basement get more discount when their dad/mom paying for laptops anyway ? Never understood the logic of student discount in INDIA.They aint flipping burgers for tuition fees.
but yeah brand websites never work in India and with hardly any regulation (comsumer related btw) they dont have to give a F about service either.