Blamed us for their mistake
Dave Matthews of South Wales Computers (also called South Wales Computer Repairs (1-2 Usk St Newport)) recommended a laptop for my daughter's university course. We gave the list of 3D CAD programs and the SPECS provided by the university and Dave suggested a particular Lenovo Thinkpad. I was impressed and chose to go with this small company rather than, say, ask Curry's staff. We collected the computer from the Newport shop, but the next day, found it only had return-to-depo Lenovo support. I'd made it clear from the start that good support was important. The invoice specified 3 year Premier Lenovo support, as did the receipt. It turned out be Dave Matthew's mistake. He hadn't checked the support for the model supplied, against the invoice. That is when things went bad. I expected South Wales Computers to take responsibility for their mistake and upgrade the support politely and without fuss. I was shocked that Dave Matthews appeared to think that because it was a genuine mistake on his part, we should pay for it. It would cost £500 to upgrade to Premier and time was running out - I had a couple of days off work, but then needed to get daughter with working, well supported laptop, to university. The low 2 stars are for Dave's attitude and tone in his emails. Dave offered a full refund, but my daughter wanted to keep the computer on which she had downloaded much software and get South wales Computers to provide the promised Premier support upgrade. By that time I only had a few hours left in which to decide and I phoned Which and my bank Natwest and talked through alternatives. I complained to South Wales Computers and discovered that Dave had emailed a link to an upgrade the day before. That email never reached me, but he forwarded it. The link didn't work, so daughter and I drove her and her new laptop to university, with the Lenovo support still uncertain. Lenovo have since emailed my daughter instructions on what South Wales Computers should do, which I emailed on to Dave Matthews. I hope this resolves the problem. I am not completely impressed with Lenovo Premier support anyway and have reviewed that in a separate review.