Garmin International
Garmin ripoff unfair licensing North American City Select NAVTEQ NAVTECH

I am a long-time customer of Garmin International, having owned no less than four of their GPS and Mapping Products in the last four years.

My complaint centers around one of their products, North American City Select (NACS), Version 5/6. The dual numbers signify an upgrade, provided at no cost by Garmin when it came out, and is not at issue here.

What is at issue is the licensing of North American City Select and my ability to use my maps, or, rather, my newly-found lack of ability, as I shall explain.

The way the licensing for NACS works is like this: You buy the software, then you are allowed to use the software on up to two
Garmin GPS Receivers able to use the map data.

I really don't have any problem with the two-unit limit, but I do have a problem when I'm not allowed to drop the two units from Garmin's licensing database (as I recently sold them) and add my new gps without any fee.

I paid for the NACS mapping software. I am not convinvced that I should do what amounts to "re-paying" for what I've already purchased once.

Garmin purchases some of their map data from a company named NAVTEQ (I've also seen it spelled NAVTECH). This logo is sometimes seen in the corner of some GPS Receiver Displays, indicating that this data is being used, or is a part of the system.

I have had it explained it to me twice—once in a Garmin Technical Support Email, and once on the phone—that every time Garmin generates an unlock code for one of their mapping products, they have to pay a fee to NAVTEQ for the data, regardless if they have a customer who already licensed the mapping software once with two units.

Apparently, the mapping software remains licensed perpetually for the original two units, and is not trasnferable to other units, due to the way their agreement with NAVTEQ is set up.

I feel that I am being cheated and that being forced to re-license software that is already on my computer is ludicrous, just because I upgraded my hardware; the hardware accepts the same maps and simply needs an unlock code, which, as far as I am concered, should be able to be generated sans problems with NAVTEQ.

I own only one Garmin GPS Receiver at this time, a GPSmap 76CSx, one of Garmin's newest products. It has a better receiver chipset inside it which makes it more sensitive than their older units, specifically my old GPSmap 76CS and Vista C, which I recently sold.

So I sold these, plus three more that I wasn't using, so I could purchase the GPSmap 76CSx, which is, in my opinion, a fine product. MapSource—Garmin's cartography (mapping) software, is somewhat lacking in detail in some regards, but it generally does a good job, is easy to understand, and use.

However, when the only reason I'm given is that Garmin can't re-generate a code without paying an outside vendor a fee, is, to me, a very weak argument, especially when I have, repeating myself, already paid for the CD's in the Store.

I do not feel I should be obligated to do what amounts to "re-buying" software that is already on my computer, and has been for over two years now.

This is my report. Thank you for your time.

—Stephen
—Columbia, Missouri

Company: Garmin International
Country: USA
State: Kansas
City: Olathe
Address: 1200 E. 151st Street
Phone: 9133978200

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