I purchased a Skycaddie SG5 back in I paid the $29.95 for the one year membership for the golf course downloads in Texas. They offer a worldwide membership, nationwide membership at different rates. I joined and paid for the state membership, since I never leave the state to play golf.
I downloaded ten courses which I play, the SG5 model only at the time only holds ten courses. Now, if at anytime I wanted to play a different golf course other then the courses on my Skycaddie, I had to hook it up to my laptop and download the course, this was part of the membership.
In July I paid my membership again, updated the SG5 software which gave the unit the abilty to now hold tewnty courses. Great, I could now hold up to twenty golf course on my Skycaddie and not have to worry about having to delete courses and add the one I was going to play the next day. I thought to myself this is good I have all my courese in my Skycaddie SG5, no need for downloads or changing and moving coures around all the time.
Well, I also thought I was done with having to pay for a membership that I was not using any longer. I no longer had the need to plug up my Skycaddie SG5 to my laptop and change courses on my Skycaddie. Since the unit now had the option to hold twenty courses, I thought great, this is good.
Well, I was wrong, I was wrong not to read the fine print when joining the online membership, I was wrong not to ask questions when I purshased the Skycaddie SG5. I was wrong for not letting my lawyer read the agreement for me.
Now wait, I have a GPS on my fishing boat, no membership. If I want chart software cards I buy them for a small price, and load them on the unit. I download things all the time, I have a IPOD Touch, no membership, I pay for the music I want and download it.
What Skygolf AKA Skycaddie has done is created a product at a high price for the consumer with a life long membership for as long as you own the unit. They also created a way to insure you pay your membership dues as well. Just because you purchased the unit for $399.00 and pay membership dues to download courses of your choosing to play does not mean those downloads are yours. Whats really interesting is how they were able to pull this off the way they did. When purchasing the unit there was nothing said of this option they have have deleting the unit remotely. Really how do you purchase something and give someone the power to be able to remotely modify your property.
I think this is dumb on my part for buying the unit and not asking more questions. I think its criminal on the part of Skycaddie AKA Skygolf to sell a product that requires a life long membership to be able to use the product that I purchased for $399.00. Now I do know we all get what we pay for and should pay for what we use. Hey, if I was always changing courses and downloading courses all of the time, I would gladly and cheerfully pay the annual membership dues. But I feel and it is my oponion that if you download a course onto your unit, that download is now yours. I have a hard time understanding the need to pay for a membership that I am not using, I had the courses of my choosing already downloaded for my use on my Skycaddie SG5. I also do not understand what gives them the right to delete the software on my unit.
Yes, I should have read the really, really fine print on the membership agreement page when signing up.
Please do not purchase there product, yes it does work great, but I think they need to change there policies for the consumer first. They can start by having the retailers explain there operarating procedures. They can start by having you sign a document that explains terms and conditions of memberships.
Oh wait, if they did that, no one would purchase there products.
So, before you purchase a Skycaddie please read the fine print. They have the power (you do not)
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