The Map Upgrade Issue for Out of Date, New Devices

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

I was a TomTom Go 700 Novice, as of Christmas Day. Since then I seem to have gone through a rapid, steep and (on occasions) highly frustrating learning curve; with regard to TomTom map versions and the issue of how to obtain up to date map data for a new device that is out of date. I hope that some of the information that I have picked up during this painful exercise may be of use to those of you who are experiencing a similar predicament. Apologies if you find it too verbose.

1) TomTom Replacement Policy For Newly Purchased, Out-Of-Date Devices
If you bought a Tom Tom Go 700 with the Western-Europe_Map v568 after November 20th, 2005 then, from my experience, TomTom will offer to replace your device for another one that includes the latest software and map data. I was not led to believe by them that any charge would be made for this service. This policy was in effect as at 4th January, 2006, although I have seen no information to suggest how long it will remain in place. I would guess that the same policy might apply to other out of date map versions and/or models, but this theory would need to be tested out in practice.

2) Flexibility of Criteria for TomTom Swap Out Offer
TomTom did not offer me any flexibility. My Go 700 was purchased just before their 20th November deadline, by an overenthusiastic relative on an early Christmas shopping spree. TomTom were not sympathetic to the fact that the device was unpackaged for the first time on Christmas Day. The purchase date was the critical factor in their eyes. So much for 'Goodwill Towards All Men'!

3) Advice From Citizens Advice Bureau - A Potentially Reasonable Case For 'Unfit for Purpose'
I contacted the Citizens Advice Bureau and described my dilemma. I emphasised that no 'meaningful information' appears to be provided by either the retailers, or from information provided on TomTom packing, to indicate how current (or out of date) the installed maps are. Given the fact that the maps in Wester_Europe_Map v568 were out of date by two years and that one of the missing major routes was fundamental to the location of my home address and my travel habits, Citizens Advice suggested that I had a reasonable case for claiming that the product was 'Unfit For Purpose'. They then also suggested that I should contact 'Consumer Direct' for additional help. This morning I received some supporting documentation from Citizens Advice, detailing relevant Acts of Parliament; relating to consumer rights.

4) Advice from Consumer Direct
I repeated the story to Consumer Direct who have decided to raise the matter with the Office of Fair Trading. What interests them also is the lack of information provided about the maps at the time of purchase. I am currently awaiting contact from the Office of Fair Trading. The most important advice that Consumer Direct gave me was to remind me that the contract of sale was between my relative and the retailer, not with TomTom. They advised me to prepare a letter of complaint to the retailer (on behalf of my relative)and post it off, using recorded delivery, as soon as possible.

5) Problem Resolved By Very Co-operative Retailer
Many of you reading this may be wondering why I did not contact the retailer right at the very outset. The reason for this was that I quite frequently buy PC related hardware and I have become accustomed to registering a new product and then immediately downloading and installing the latest drivers and software etc. When I originally set out to resolve this TomTom issue, it never crossed my mind that I would not be able to obtain the upgrade that I needed direct from the TomTom Website Downloads area. When I couldn’t find it, what followed thereafter was a protracted exchange of correspondence with TomTom support (mainly on my part); that got me nowhere.
When I finally contacted the retailer to get a contact name and address to write to, they wanted to understand what my problem was. After I explained, they voluntarily offered to exchange the device, on the off chance that their current stock was of a newer version. As it turned out, it was, but I think it was more by luck than judgement. The replacement device has Western_European_Map v606 installed, which includes the critical route (to me) that was missing from v568.

Conclusions
I count myself very lucky that I achieved a satisfactory resolution to my problem. I realise that not all retailers may be so accommodating towards their customers under similar circumstances.

What I do not understand is why TomTom do not adopt a system that requires their products to be activated, similar to Microsoft XP. The TomTom range could be designed to operate normally for 30 days, during which time product activation should be carried out by the user; either online, or via a TomTom call centre. Once activated, new customers could be given 30 days, or perhaps 90 days, to download and install the latest maps. Thereafter, map upgrades would be chargeable. If TomTom were to do this, they would not have to be so cagey about what map versions are installed on the new devices within their boxes, or in providing detailed map version and release date information on their website.

I hope that anyone who has a new TomTom device with out of date maps installed will pursue it with TomTom. All said and done, it is not really the fault of the retailers. I also believe it would be advantageous for those people to contact Consumer Direct as well, to reinforce the complaint about the lack of map version information that is provided by TomTom, either on their packaging or on their website. Consumer Direct's contact details can be found at http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/. As far as I can see, the only way this ludicrous situation will be resolved properly will be through different people exerting continued pressure on TomTom to do something about it.

No one would dream of walking into a book shop or petrol station and part with good money for a road atlas that doesn't indicate upon it how old the maps are within; would they?

[zardoz]

NB. Please note that the following information was omitted from the previous posting in section 1)

THE UNIT YOU RECEIVE BACK FROM TOMTOM WILL BE A REPAIRED UNIT WITH A PART NUMBER ENDING IN "R".

This will NOT be your original brand new unit but one which may have been damaged or failed in the past and will certainly have an unknown history. Effectively, you are getting "old for new".

People have been told by TT representatives by email that they will have thier original unit (defined by serial number) returned, but in fact have discovered that this is not the case in practice. They have been supplied a repaired unit with no recourse to obtaining the original unit back again.

CAVEAT EMPTOR.

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Further to my original post, the Trading Standards representative for my region contacted me this morning. They agree with my complaint about no meaningful information being provided by the retailers or on the TomTom boxes to indicate how old the map data is on the device inside.

The case is apparently now being escalated to the relevant Trading Standards enforcement department. I still think it is worth other people registering similar complaints with Consumer Direct. The more noise there is on a subject, the more likely that something will be done to improve the situation.

[TuurG]

i don't really see your point.
When TomTom announced early December the new map for Europe on SD to be offered , they immediately also announced that GO700 users who bought the product in the previous 2 weeks could get a free update/replacement to that same map.
How would it help that the map version was mentioned on the box? When you knew what version to check for, you were already eligible for the free update.
Before that period it would just state the version, but no other version was available since the GO700 was released, so it's pretty useless info then.
Besides, that 'old' mapdata was of Q4 of 2004 (TeleAtlas release 2004.2), released in may/june 2005 on GO700, so 2 years old is a bit over de top.
_________________
GO1005
MGC GT 1968
MGB Cabrio 1973

[Andy_P]

[zardoz]

Suppose a suplier has a stack of units in boxes waiting on the shelf to be sold. Suppose that some of this is old stock, with older maps. Should the purchaser not have the ability to say, "I know this unit is old stock, so I will choose the newer version in the box next to it". Rather than find out later that he has unknowingly purchased an old version map, which would need to be upgraded, thereby losing his nice shiny new unit for some unknown refurbished one.

Admittedly, when I shop for a unit of this value, and IF I can do so, I always look for the highest serial number on the outside of the box. This is on the bottom of the TomTom GO 700 boxes...

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Sorry I haven't been around on the forum for a while. Thanks Andy_P2002 and Zardoz for giving TuurG your responses to the querys he raised. I agree with everything you said. I would like to add my own commments, if I may.

TuurG, I think you may have missed some fairly key pieces of information that were included within my original post, when your queried my logic.

Re your statement:

"i don't really see your point.
When TomTom announced early December the new map for Europe on SD to be offered , they immediately also announced that GO700 users who bought the product in the previous 2 weeks could get a free update/replacement to that same map......
......you were already eligible for the free update."

My unit was purchased just before November 20th, which was before the critical purchase date necessary to qualify for the free upgrade to the maps announced in December 2005. I was therefore not eligible for the free upgrade. However, my original unit had map version Western-Europe_Map v568 on it. Whilst I did not necessarily expect TomTom to give me a free upgrade to the absolute latest map data, I did feel that I should have at least been entitled to whatever map version was the latest on the date that I bought the unit. At the time, TomTom had previously confirmed that my map data was not up to date, but thereafter refused to answer my further question as to what the latest map version was, as at the date of purchase.


Re your query:

"How would it help that the map version was mentioned on the box?"

Allow me to explain this in a little more detail. As I said in my original post:

"My Go 700 was purchased just before their 20th November deadline, by an overenthusiastic relative on an early Christmas shopping spree."

My dad was introduced to the TomTom as a result of a taxi journey he took last summer. He was so impressed with it, he decided to buy me one for Christmas. He is getting on in years and not very IT literate. He simply went down to a high street retailer and bought the TomTom. He would not have even realised that there could be been an issue with the age of the map data installed upon the unit.

Whilst my dad may have the savvy to rummage through the 35p yoghourt pots at his local supermarket, in order to select the one with the most distant "Sell By" date on it, he would not equate that process with needing to rummage through £500 TomToms, reading the serial numbers on the bottom of the boxes, in order to find the highest number; being (theoretically) the most recently manufactured unit!

What it boils down to is that if a layman were to walk into a petrol station next week and see a road atlas with "2005 Edition" printed on the front of it, unless it was going very cheap or he was desperate, he wouldn't buy it. If the same layman were to walk into a high street electronics shop next week and see the equivalent information on the outside of a TomTom box, the same principal would almost certainly apply.

My preference would be that TomTom should put a mechanism in place to allow all their new customers to upgrade to whatever map version happens to be the latest, at the date they purchased the unit. New TomTom owners should certainly not have to accept a refurbished unit as the only means of receiving a free map upgrade (which Zardoz brought to our attention when I first posted this topic).

If TomTom are not going to provide a sensible map upgrade mechanism for new customers, then they should print some sort of map version and date information on the outside of their boxes. My guess is that they certainly will not want to have to do that. If the Trading Standards authority push TomTom into a corner on this topic, then they will have no choice but to comply or sort out their map upgrade procedures for new customers.

Finally, you made the point:

"Besides, that 'old' mapdata was of Q4 of 2004 (TeleAtlas release 2004.2), released in may/june 2005 on GO700, so 2 years old is a bit over de top"

Whilst you are obviously very well informed on this particular topic, I was basing my assessment of the age of the maps on something rather more fundamental. During the first journey with my TomTom, on Boxing Day 2005, 10 minutes after leaving home the TomTom seemed to think that I was ploughing across open countryside. I was of the impression that I was driving along a major dual carriageway that had been open since January 2004. From my simple minded perspective, to me that meant that the maps were 2 years out of date (you can call me a liar for the sake of 5 days or so, if you like). The road atlas I had already been using for a year included the road in question, therefore I did not consider it unreasonable to expect a brand new sat nav system to be at least as up to date as its humble predecessor.

I think we have probably put this subject to bed now. Despite my gripes about TomTom the organisation, since receiving a brand new replacement unit from the retailer, which fortunately already had the bang up-to-date map data on it, I can honestly say that my TomTom GO 700 has been one of the best pieces of information technology I have acquired in years.

[gingernut777]

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

By "bang up-to-date" I was, of course, referring to that in the context of the TomTom GO 700, i.e. it was their most up to date at the time.

[gingernut777]

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