Search the Internet for Magellan GPS and you will find plenty of stories of its bad, nay, horrible, customer service. I have a Magellan story that shows not only bad customer service, but what I would say amounts to a scam. The summary of the issue is this: Magellan is selling map updates that are suppose to be newly released maps, but that are 16 months old, they are fielding complaints about this issue by transferring the calls to the trade-in department where they are offering a "great" trade-in discount of 40% off the prices on their web site.
The biggest kicker is that their web site prices are the MSRP which are about 40% higher than you can purchase the same unit from Amazon.com. It is clear that they are selling outdated updates to force people to upgrade their gps devices and tricking people into thinking they are getting a great trade-in deal.
I have a RoadMate 700 GPS system, which is now a few years old. Magellan, like other GPS companies, occassionally releases a software/map update.in November they announced version 6 of their maps. I excitedly ordered my update, wanting to move up from the preinstalled version 4. I also wanted to finally have my 3 year old neighborhood included in my GPS maps. I had checked a newer Magellan Maestro in the stores and saw that Magellan now had my neighborhood in their maps.
After several attempts of ordering the software (horrible web site issues), I finally got my order in. I then waited 4 weeks for the $70 software (if you check online you will see that people paid for expedited shipping and still waited weeks and weeks to get the software). The software finally arrived and all seemed well until I tried to enter my home address and it did not come up. After some research I find out the new updates that were just released were actually maps from the third quarter of 2006. That made my "new" maps 16 months old upon their initial release.
I called Magellan support, and although reports on the web say you can never get anyone, I did get someone. I was told that if I was unhappy with the update I should talk to the trade-in department which would have a great offer for me. I asked what if I was unhappy with the offer, the rep assured me that I would be happy. The trade-in department's offer was this "40% discount off of the units sold on the magellangps.com website". Sounds like a great discount until you do the math. The Maestro 4040 for example is $450 on the web site or $270 after their discount. That unit currently sells for $290 on Amazon.com. So for a $20 discount I have to give up my old unit for which I just spent an extra $70 to upgrade?
I got escalated up to Kevin Peterson, the floor supervisor. He told me that he was as high as I could go and wouldn't give me anyone else's name. The buck stopped with him. He said the 40% discount was the only remedy that I had. I tried several things like "okay, give me the $180 that you claim you are giving to me through the discount and let me buy the unit on Amazon". No die. I asked for my money back for the map update. No die.
The worst part is this. I asked why Magellan was issuing new map updates that had 16 month old maps, when Magellan clearly had new maps at their disposal, given the fact that I found my address on the Maestro 4250 in the store. He said I couldn't expect my old unit to have maps as new as the latest model out there. I said "but that model came out in August and your map updates came out in December. That makes no sense. Tell me how that makes sense." His only response was "I understand your frustration but there is nothing more than the 40% discount that I can offer you." That is the wall that I have currently run into.
I just called back and was told by customer service that I could not talk to Ashley, the customer service manager. I told my problem to the rep and asked him just to explain why map updates that came out in December were older than what was on their latest machine. He told me the latest machine had 2007 Q1 maps on it, but that the unit wasn't available from Magellan's web site until January. I said, well Amazon.com has a release date of August and has reviews from the beginning of November so it makes no difference when Magellan's web site is going to start selling it, it's been available since at least the first of November. He told me that I could buy the next map upgrade to see my neighborhood and that he couldn't tell me anything more. He then quickly said "thank you for calling Magellan" and hung up.
The only explaination is that Magellan is purposefully selling outdated maps to steer people into buying newer devices. That, or they got a great discount from NavTeq, the map company, for outdated maps. Either way, this is shady, and anti-consumer behaviour.
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