Let down

My story is a sad and disheartening tale. I have always been an avid supporter of online shopping, especially local South African businesses. I am a music producer and was looking for a very specific solution. After reading several online reviews about which Laptop would be the best suited for me, I quickly realized that with my limited budget, there was one laptop that made it into every single review. The Lenovo Legion Y520. So I proceeded to go price hunting. Not long after that I found Evetech. What a website! With the ability to customize your required amount of RAM and SSD size, and with advanced search options they have by far one of the best websites in South Africa. I requested a quote for the Legion Y520 with 16GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Within an hour I received a quote of R15500, at least R2000 cheaper than the closest competitor. And in addition to the amazing laptop, I would also receive a wonderful laptop bag, a headphone set, a wireless mouse, a one year fetch and carry Lenovo warranty and free shipping. But I was in Johannesburg at the time and I made the trip to the Evetech premises. And what a sight to behold! You are welcomed by friendly staff who take your reference number and within minutes your product is brought to you. Whilst waiting, I reflected on how well Evetech was functioning, the massive call centre could be seen through the windows and there was a constant buzz as client after client happily received their products. I rushed home and opened my brand new laptop immediately. Everything was working just fine, and I was a very happy customer. But alas, my wonderful Lenovo Legion started to give me troubles. It was causing audio dropouts when I made recordings. At first I thought it was a windows 10 issue and discovered that many audio troubleshooting websites recommend disabling the Wireless card in device manager. This I did, and the audio dropouts went away, but I think most would agree that this is not an ideal solution. What about when I need to access YouTube whilst making a recording, most producers will know this is vital? Several months later I encountered a new problem. My Legion would simply crash and show a blue screen whilst using Google Chrome. I called Evetech and they referred me to Elijah Thabethe from Pinnacle. After talking about the issues we decided that it would be best to stop using Chrome and see if the problem went away. I was also did not want to go through the trouble of sending away my laptop, because it was an integral part of my business, and I used it daily. The problem came back. My once wonderful Lenovo Legion started crashing at random times even when I did not open any applications. The audio dropouts became more severe as well. Eventually, I was unable to use Netflix without getting audio dropouts. Even listening to music caused audio dropouts. Disabling the wireless card did nothing to remedy this either. And as most should know by now, something was seriously wrong. So I called my good friend Elijah and shipped my laptop to Pinnacle on 15 April 2019. Which proved to be quite a headache in and of itself. Mr Thabethe was very unreliable when responding to my emails, and after a week, he had still not contacted me about when my laptop was going to be fetched. Eventually I drove to Port Elizabeth and dropped it off at Pinnacle so that they could ship it to Johannesburg. From here on Mr Thabethe and I corresponded via email. I gave him permission to do whatever it took to fix my Legion. His last email came to me on the 24th of April. By the 16th of May I had sent about five emails asking him to update me on the progress of my laptop, but he simply did not respond. At one point an automatic response informed me that he was on leave, but that was only for a few days. So on the 17th of May I sent a very troubled email to Evetech and Mr Thabethe and finally I received the news that my Laptop was irreparable. Mr Thabethe informed me that I was going to be credited with Evetech and that I will have the opportunity to order a new laptop. I said that it was fine as long as I could get the same laptop, or a laptop with very similar specifications. He said that it was up to Evetech. So on the 18th of May I began a very disappointing fight against Evetech. My request was simple, I would like exactly what I had or something very similar, because my music production requires a very specific solution. Evetech informed me that there was no longer stock of the unit. So I asked for suggestions on a replacement. They suggested a Dell laptop, but it did not match the specifications of my Lenovo legion Y520. I soon realised that I was going to have to look for a replacement myself and found only one laptop that could compete with my Legion Y520 in that price range. The Legion Y530. I assumed that the Y520 was old and replaced by the Y530. The Y530 cost R2000 more than the Y520. But when taking inflation into account since last year when I made my original purchase, it only cost R1000 more. However, Evetech ignored my request. Saying that they will keep looking. By the 28th of May the Legion Y530 was also out of stock and Evetech informed me that I only had two options left. Take a cash refund or look for a different laptop. I demanded that my laptop be replaced by something similar. Because there was no way that I could buy anything similar anywhere else in South Africa with that sort of Budget. Evetech responded letting me know that I was going to have to wait for a new shipment. It is now the 11th of June and I was informed today that they “cannot find any unit with the same spec and price range, we do not have an ETA on shipping. That's why I suggested refund or credit or a upgrade so that you do not have to wait.” This is very troubling to me. I feel let down by Evetech, Pinnacle and Lenovo. It was Lenovo who sold a broken and faulty unit. It was Pinnacle who was completely inadequate in upholding Lenovo’s fetch and carry warranty. And Evetch has been especially disappointing when it came to remedying the situation. I understand that not all things can be controlled and that in some ways no one was responsible for a broken laptop. But then again, as a consumer I have learnt that this is the best that we will get in South Africa. The marketing departments promise us first world standards, but the service centre provides us with sub-third world service. I hope that you can find a way to fix this situation.

Thank you