COMMENT: Lenovo Australia appears to be ducking out from telling consumers they may be working on a PC that could burst into flames.Instead of issuing a press release to technology writers which they do when they have a new product to brag about, Lenovo has chosen to only issue a recall notice via the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for their Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z all-in-one Computer which due to an issue with the product’s power supply has been deemed a fire risk.

According to the ACCC recall, “some metalized capacitors inside the power supplies may be defective, leading to possible overheating and smoke,” and “there is a potential fire hazard as a result of overheating of the product.

This is not an acceptable process as most consumers don’t visit the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission web site to read recall notices.
Compounding this issue is the fact that Lenovo don’t know who has purchased their product as retailers are more interested in selling a product than knowing anything about their customers.

Research shows that consumers are reluctant to fill in a vendor warranty card because they don’t know where the data will end up or they do not want constant emails offering them additional products that they may or may not want to buy.

In the case of Lenovo the recall applies to ThinkCentre all-in-one computers with the model number M90z, which were sold by Lenovo and its distributors and resellers across Australia between 1 May 2010 and 30 January 2012.

The company is not saying how many they have sold in that period but ChannelNews believes that a lot of these affected models have been purchased by corporate enterprises as well as consumers for use in a small medium business.

What both State and Federal Governments need to do is bring in new conditions that force vendors like Lenovo to issue a press release to technology journalists as well as the mass media alerting them to a problem as serious as a device that may or may not burst into flames.

When we approached Text 100 to ask why a Lenovo press release had not been issued they said this was “corporate policy” and that the matter was being handled by “global PR” executives who ChannelNews understands are based in China. 

The ACCC notice claims that  “Customers should immediately stop using the affected system and unplug it from the power outlet,” the recall notice read. “Consumers with a potentially affected computer should visit http://www.lenovo.com/aiopsurecall or call the Lenovo Support Centre on 131 426 noting the serial numbers on the back of their machines and check if the machines are affected.