Tomtom Support Nightmare

hspallek · 01-29-07, 01:23 PM

This is my experience with Tomtom Support. So try to stay away from this product if you are not an engineer who can fix everything on your own:

Soon I will fly to Switzerland. I tried to buy the maps for Germany/Switzerland/Austria for my Navigator 5. Four weeks ahead, I contacted Tomtom via the support homepage with 4 questions in this regard. See below Appendix A. For a week they were "unresolved." Then, suddenly they switched to "resolved" which made me happy first, but then when checking it was only an automated reply which did not answer a single one of my questions. So, I tried to call the number provided on the Website only to find out that no matter when you call you get after each option "All circuits are busy" or you get a busy signal right away. I tried about 10 times on 4 different days. Now, I have a GPS, Tomtom Navigator 5 and still can't use a GPS in Europe.

Appendix A:
I have 4 questions related to my Tomtom product:
1. I have Navigator 5 on my iPAQ hx4700 Pocket PC. Should I upgrade to Navigator 6 and if yes, which advantages do I get from this? Obviously, I cannot use your live data about traffic since my PDA is not a phone/PDA combination.
2. Can I buy the Germany/Switzerland/Austria map package you offer? Meaning, will it be compatible with my Navigator 5 with the ipaq?
3. In case you do recommend to go to version 6, can I combine my upgrade with the purchase of the Germany/Austria/Switzerland maps?
4. I tried to buy the Germany/Austria/Switzerland maps already, but did not succeed because I had to enter my country of residence in your purchase system, but USA is not listed. So I could not buy anything. What do I do wrong?
Thanks!
Heiko

buygpsnow · 02-05-07, 06:34 PM

Sorry about your bad experience with TT Support. I am an authorized reseller of TomTom and I will try to answer as much as we could:

1) New features added in TT6 but the list may not be very long. The most benefit you could potentially enjoy is the new map data updated from their first edition of merging TeleAtlas map data with GDT (a US company they acquired a few years ago).

For complete list of new features, please see our product page using the link below and click on the Features tab:
TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 USA & Canada Software & maps for PocketPC, Palm, Nokia and Smartphone(Add to Cart to view Discount)

2) There is a lot of confusions on this. There is no straight answers to this. Why? Check out the PocketGPSworld.com TomTom Compatibility Matrix they have put together: TomTom Compatibility matrix for program builds and map versions and the 10-page discussion on this topic (link located on the bottom of that page)

3) TomTom 6 tends to render / re-draw maps a little bit slower (not talking about significantly slower such as longer than 1 or 2 seconds and not completely un-usable). Not sure why and I cannot offer the details explaination to this reason. Can you combine TomTom 5 you currently have with the latest maps, the answer is yes and no.

Yes if you purchase TomTom Maps of Western Europe, SKU 458: Maps of Western Europe

OR

If you have upgraded to TomTom 6, you will need "omTom Maps Collection Western Europe - DVD ", SKU 708 instead: TomTom Maps Collection Western Europe - DVD (compatible with TomTom Navigator 6 North America, GO series, ONE, Rider)

NOTE: Alternatively, you may purchase TomTom 6 upgrade from TomTom.com. Once you have installed this version 6, you will get a TomTom HOME, a PC program. With this program, you may purchase a list of latest maps compatible with your TomTom 6 North America Upgrade package.

4) Cannot comment on this potential issue on their e-commerce website. Our website will definately accept your order.

Hope this helps.

hspallek · 03-06-07, 01:18 PM

I tried to transfer my Favorites from TT Nav 5 to TT Nav 6:

I used: Answer

But when I follow these instractions to the letter it results in an overwriting of the file MapSettings.cfg upon startup of TT Nav 6 on my PDA. Thus, each time I start with empty Favorites instead of the file which contains my Favorites form TT Nav 5.

I send this problem to TT Support and received the following answer:
"Response (STCR Antonio) 03/06/2007 12:52 PM
Dear Heiko,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your Favorites and how to transfer them. We are glad to help.

In this case we need to inform that we have found several reports of this situation, we recommend you to keep checking and registering for TomTom News and be first to hear about all the latest products and events, because unfortunately we don't have an estimated time for this problem to be fixed.

We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any further questions or comments, please reply to this e-mail or call us at 1-866-486-6866 Monday through Saturday, 8:30am to 7pm EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way, the easy way. "

Reply to this email is a joke since the email address in the from field reads do_not_reply@tomtom.com!

Heiko