Lenovo Requires NDA For Windows License Refund

tykev writes "A customer wanted to return the license for preinstalled Windows Vista Business that came with his Lenovo laptop. After some lengthy negotiations with representatives of Lenovo's technical support and management, he was offered financial compensation for returning the license in the amount of CZK 1950 (USD 130, EUR 78), pending his acceptance of a non-disclosure agreement that would cover the entire negotiations with the company and its results. He declined and published his experiences on a Czech Linux website. The website editors decided to reward the customer for publishing the article by paying him an author's royalty in the same amount as was the offered compensation for returning the license."

Comments

Right Now, In the U.S. Vista Cost You $349

[mpapet]

Before anyone goes blathering on about "ufair" this and "innacurate" that, follow my test.

1. Visit Dell.com on two different browser tabs.
2. Tab #1 starts here.http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
3. Tab #2 starts here. http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19
4. Configure the Vista product with the ultimate version. That is roughly feature equivalent to Ubuntu.
5. Pay attention to the hardware options because the Linux product has fewer and generally more storage/RAM.
6. At the end, you should have a spread of about $349.

So, Vista costs the consumer $349 OEM through the consumer URL.

Re:Consise and entertaining

[Anonymous Coward]

"The operator girls on the Lenovo phone line were very nice. After hearing my request they wanted to reject, but after I cited them the respective part of the licence, they asked for few days to find out the current state from the company management. Obviously I got with that one level higher, as next round of phone talks started"

Re:The only english story on the site

[LubosD]

The article was published in English, because it was found interesting for people outside the Czech Republic. We have published several other articles in English so far, typically interviews, but it's always an exception.

Re:The real question:

[azgard]

Exactly. By the way, we are just Czechs now, but for Slovaks this procedure could easily apply too.

Situation is not better for resellers

[PsyQ]

To my company, the best Lenovo could manage was a "If you bulk purchase 100 laptops of the same type we can negotiate downgrading them to Vista Home, but we will not refund the license.", after about a dozen e-mails.

Dell, on the other hand, refunds licenses after just two minutes on the phone.

Disclaimer: I've been trying to purchase brand-name laptops without an operating system for more than eight years now. Recently I've signed up as reseller for several big laptop manufacturers, who will remain anonymous. It's still impossible to get even a single one of them to accept the EULA and refund licenses to my customers. Also, the EULA says that my company would have to refund my customer, but none of the manufacturers so far gave me a way to get my money back from them. So if you're wondering why every store tells you that refunds don't exist, this might be it.

If you want to sell brand-name stuff without OS, the only choice you have is to contact another reseller who is a key account with the big guys. These resellers can sometimes get you built-to-order machines. Those, on the other hand, are often more expensive than a similar stock machine WITH Vista Pro, so if you think your customers are saving any money there, think again. All you get is the added inconvenience of waiting for the BTO.

If the manufacturers would at least honor the EULA, I could buy those machines with Windows and return the licenses myself, passing the savings on the customer. Since they don't, I can't even do that.

Re:Vista is pants

[Atti K.]

This might help.

Re:He's from the Czech

[operagost]

You must be missing the first punchline, which is, "Looks like the bitch got Hungary."

Re:Vista is pants Is this in reference to Lloyds?

[davidsyes]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/shropshire/7585098.stm

"A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not"."

""But what really incensed me was when I was told I could not change it back to 'Lloyds is pants' because they said it was not appropriate.

"I asked if it was 'pants' they didn't like, and would 'Lloyds is rubbish' do? But they didn't think so.

"So I tried 'Barclays is better' and that didn't go down too well either.

"The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried 'censorship', but they didn't like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long." "

----

So, this is my position/question:

Why the HELL was a low-level functionary employee able to "see" the true password of a customer? The frackin password should have been a reduced or hashed form so that even if an IT person can copy and paste it in a local system, they could not know the contents and be able to type it in at a point of sales station or an ATM, or on any sites that reject copy-paste-in passwords...