OK, so I thought that I was finally making some progress with my "free" Windows 7 upgrade that comes with my new Lenovo PC.  It took a very long time for them to validate my purchase - they check to see that you really have bought a Lenovo PC that qualifies for the free upgrade.  I have no problem with that, but why did it take so long? In the end they validated my purchase 44 days after I registered for the upgrade.

So now they have actually taken my money, yes that’s right there is a £16 "shipping" charge.  Don’t get me started – it does not cost £16 to send out a piece of software.  Anyway, I have paid, they have taken the money off my card.  In fact, they took the money 12 days ago.  Their e-mail confirming the payment said: "A notification email with the shipping details will be sent to you when your order has been shipped".  Guess what?  Nothing.   So they have taken my £16 and not shipped anything.  So I thought that I would drop them a line via their Windows 7 Upgrade website.  So far all I have got is an automated response: "This is to acknowledge the receipt of your enquiry and you will hear from us within 10 business days".  Whoa! Two weeks to answer an e-mail?  What’s interesting is that before they took my money their responses said: "This is to acknowledge the receipt of your enquiry and you will hear from us within 1-3 business days".  Fascinating how they lose interest in you once they have taken your money, eh?

So, it's now been 21 days and I'm still waiting for Lenovo to validate my free Windows 7 upgrade.  I have chased them up again, and this is the e-mail reply that I received today: "Dear David, Please, be patient, our team needs some more time for checking all received POPs. Once your POP is validated you will receive a confirmation e-mail. Best regards Jana".

My question is: when should a customers patience end and be regarded as bad customer service?

I bought myself a new PC.  I’m pleased with it, a Lenovo ThinkCentre with a Quad Core processor.  It’s nice and fast and has excellent build quality, the first thing I did when I took it out the box was peek inside the case.

One of the reasons I bought from Lenovo was because they’ll give me a free upgrade to Windows 7.  I tried to avoid Vista completely, but as it turns out I will need to use it for a few weeks.  I can put up with that.  So, when my new machine arrived I filled in Lenovo’s on-line form to request my upgrade.  Part of the process is to prove that I really did buy a Lenovo PC, so I have to send off my proof of purchase (an invoice or a receipt).  I did that, which was easy because it can be done via e-mail.  All good so far.

But that is where things have stalled.  I can check my order on-line and it still says: 'Pending for Proof of Purchase'. I want to know that I will actually get my upgrade! After chasing them up via an e-mail (and it took about 5 days to get a reply) I get this: “Dear David, Please be patient our team needs some more time to check all received POPs. Once your POP is validated you will receive a Confirmation mail. Best regards Jana”.  It’s now been 11 days since I submitted my proof of purchase.  How long will I need to be patient?  Come on Lenovo.