magellan customer service/review

I agree, Magellan customer service sucks

I have a smilar issue with magellan. I purchase one today and to take advantage of a 30 day map update, they make you fax the reciept to them. Have they not heard of EDI or web services with their dealers to sync records? I have NEVER had to fax a receipt to obtain a within 30 day of purchase software update. I aske to speak to a manger and got Brian. With Brian, I asked to speak to his manger and he refused saying he was it! I doubt Brian is the CEO of the company! In fact I know he is not, so he is either a loose cannon or the manager of the overseas call center.

In ether case, Magellan has a good product, but their customer service and customer policies suck. For that, do NOT buy Magellan.

I had a similar experience with Garmin. Apart from being spoken rudely, the agents didn't blink hanging up one me without responding to my question. I don't know anything about TomTom yet but will soon find out.

This is my experience with Magellan Technical Support and Customer service.

Since I had registered with Magellan after purchasing my Maestro 4250 North America and log in from time to time. And since I had since I had installed one of the updates before -Version 4.60 sure I wanted to try out the new update Version 4.85.

I tried to do this in March before our spring break trip to LA and San Diego. The installer said something about a file being corrupt- the installation continued without my being able to stop it. The result- constantly rebooting gps, cancelling routes resulted in hanging the machine, the 4250 was always lost or was always having difficulty re-finding it's location. In short a trashed GPS to be used in a thousand mile roadtrip (and I bought this from ToysR'Us Dec 22, 2008.)

I tried what I could to fix it before and after our trip. I called technical support many times. Hit the reset switch more times than I could recall. Downloaded the software update again and again from the Magellan site. Tried to install the software in Safe Mode. There is no undo to go back to the previous version of an update (I later learned from Customer Support.) And I am fairly comfortable around technology.

I sent this back to Magellan. I dilly-dallied before doing this. I had read all the negative reviews about Magellan Customer Service by then. But I couldn’t return it to ToysR'Us since it had phased out the sale of all gps units. Finally I bit the bullet, crossed my fingers hoping the same things wouldn’t happen to me, and sent it to them It took all of three weeks to get the 4250 back to me. They replaced it with a refurbished 4250. Sure it had the 4.85 update and seemed to work well. But it now had the Navteq 2.9 maps. My Magellan had the 3.1 maps, which I take it to be the 2008-2009 maps. That already had many outdated and false POIs and I was supposed to take this? Also the screen of the thing was really rough- they didn't bother to wrap the screen with a proper screen protector just an ordinary plastic wrap. Try as I might I couldn't take the roughness of totally with the use of lcd wipes. Also the bezel was creaking on one side. The worst thing of all was when I looked at the serial no it was manufactured about 173,000 plus units before mine was that would place its manufacture at around 2007. None only was it old looking, it was really old. I say this because my new 4250 was very sleek and nary had a scratch on it.

Of course I had to send it back! I explained my concerns to a customer rep then asked for a supervisor. The MANAGER I talked to, ASHLEY, on Magellan Customer Support told me that I couldn't get my original unit back, I could get another replacement though. I also couldn't get a new 4250 since it had been phased out according to her. I then insisted on a service gps while they went about sending me a replacement. She told me she needed my credit card information in case I didn't return the service gps when the replacement gps arrived. What person in his right mind would do this- sending good money after bad? So we settled on I sending the unit back and receiving it from Magellan within 6 days. My thinking was I had shamed them into expediting the replacement.

They sent me an RMA through email. I used this to Fedex the gps to Lavergne, Tennessee where their repair/return facility is located on May 5. It's now day 8, on the Magellan web site, my repair status says they now say they received the gps on May 13. I guess Magellan or their Customer Support took me for a ride!

So my advice to you is don't install any more updates from Magellan! Don't rely on their support! In the future DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM MAGELLAN!!!

I hope this helps someone.

FB Castro in N. California

PS.

While I was writing I was on hold at Magellan Customer Support for more than 30 minutes already. To be fair before it took a lesser amount of time to reach a customer rep. Now maybe they know my number already and just want to wait me out. I decided to hang up and just continue writing this. Maybe I’ll send this to the BBB and to other exasperated-with-Magellan blogs later.

I had nothing but problems with these people. It took my numerous (10+) calls to get them to send me another unit. That after I had an RA# and had sent mine back via UPS as per instructions. I will NEVER purchase a magellan product again.

My Magellan experience has been awful. I also tried to do an upgrade as instructed on the internet. This completely wiped all maps off my GPS - Magellan Maestro 3200. I received a replacement after returning my GPS. The replacement was old and refurbished. The touch screen worked intermittently. I've returned that only to be told that they have no record of receiving it. I've finally decided that it's not worth the fight after talking with at least 5-6 company reps. It will soon be Black Friday, and I'll be buying a Tom-Tom! MAGELLAN CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!