Lenovo shipping times are a lie

Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant, but I wanted others to be aware of the deceptive marketing practices used by Lenovo on their online store.  Think of this as a "public service announcement" and perhaps a nice change from my usual rants about injustices in telecom.  Recently I needed to buy a desktop PC as part of a customer project and since the device had to be compatible with Microsoft Managed Desktop, I opted to order a Lenovo device.  This was a time sensitive request, so the other requirement was that the device would ship and be delivered quickly.

Doing some research on which Lenovo device would best meet the requirements, I settled on the "ThinkStation P360 Tower Workstation" and proceeded to configure the system on the Lenovo site.  The entire time the website said the expected delivery date was "between Feb 14th - Feb 16th".  I placed my order, got the conformation email, and thought everything was on schedule for me to receive the device next week.  A few days after I placed the order, I checked the "Order Status" on the Lenovo site and it still said the delivery date was the same.  Today, to my dismay, I checked the order status and it now says "Est Delivery: 03/09/2023" - almost an entire month later than the website indicated at the time of purchase and far later than I need the device.  I specifically ordered this device from Lenovo because the estimated delivery date met my timelines.  It kinda reminds me of the Seinfeld car reservation joke - they can take the order, but they can't keep the order, which really is the most important part.

Reaching out to Lenovo support, I was told that "you have ordered a customized product and for the customized products it takes 3-5 weeks for the order to be delivered".  Out of curiosity, I went back to the website and attempted to build the same machine again, and low and behold, the website told me that if I placed the order today, the delivery would be between "Feb 21st and 23rd" - 3 weeks faster than mine will be delivered!  I questioned the support representative about this, and the response was basically "sorry!"

I understand that customized products take time, and my gripe isn't with that, my problem is with the misleading shipping dates being displayed on the site.  When a customer "customizes" an order, the site should stop showing an impossible delivery date.  It's downright deceptive to show a date you know you can't deliver by.  Show the real date or don't show any date at all - its really that simple.  And if you need to update the shipping date, let the customer know instead of just updating it on the website without sending a notification.  This is just customer service 101.  

Somewhat related, Amazon got slapped on the wrist for this in 2018 by the UK Advertising Standard Authority for claiming "unlimited one-day delivery" when most items couldn't be delivered in a day - perhaps someone needs to look into Lenovo for the same thing.  For now I need to go back to my customer and figure out what we're going to do with this unforeseen 3 week delay.  Thanks Lenovo.