(Yicai Global) Nov. 13 -- Chinese consumers are again bemoaning Lenovo Group, a computer maker based in Beijing, after it offered discounts to American buyers that were unavailable on the Chinese mainland and ran limited deals the Double 11 shopping festival.

Lenovo, which was once the largest personal computer vendor by sales, is currently running a promotional campaign in the United States in its build up for Black Friday [Nov. 23], offering discounts of up to 35 percent and laptops for as little as USD271, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

But the offer excludes direct delivery to China and consumers there believe that if they place an order it will be rejected and refunded, causing them to express dissatisfaction over Lenovo's treatment of buyers in China compared with other countries. The price gap is so large that it is cheaper for Chinese consumers to buy in the US and goods shipped internationally.

Lenovo did offer discounts to Chinese consumers in the build up to Double 11, China's own, bigger version of Black Friday. Some of the products included bestsellers like the Thinkpad A275, A475 and Y7000P and the Z5 smartphone. The A275, which retails for USD25 more in China than the US, actually sold for USD87 less in China at the discounted price.

However, it offered the discount in limited runs -- releasing products on offer every few hours at a 50 percent discount so they sold out in seconds, several online users reported. Some tried and failed over several days to take advantage of the offers.

"The products on the promotion are out of stock, but it's strange that the same products are available if you pay the full price," one said about the deal.

Chinese consumers complained about Lenovo's international pricing back in 2015, when a Thinkpad W540 sold on Amazon US at USD1,375 but an almost same spec computer sold at no less than USD2,195 in China -- with the only difference being 500 gigabytes in storage memory. Lenovo blamed the discrepancy at the time on hardware differences, tax and promotional activities.

Editor: James Boynton