I've given up on Tom Tom

A Response from TomTom!!!

2009-07-15T16:01:00.002+02:00

Dear Mr Ward,Thank you for contacting TomTom Customer Care

The reference number for your query is 090xxx-00xxxx.

Thank you for your e-mail, although you feel that the compensation is laughable please be aware that this is a compensation for the loss of services. It is not a monetary compensation. You were unable to use the services for two days and we have therefore given you an extra two days of services. We are under no obligation to offer you monetary compensation for this issue with the services. The unit was still useable, just without the services. This is what we have compensated you for. The price for two days worth of services is 48 pence however it is a compensation equal to the loss you experienced.

We feel this is appropriate customer service as we are replacing the loss with an equal compensation.

With Kind Regards

Jxxx

The TomTom Customer Care Team

I just HAD to respond to that;

LIVE Services Not Available

Discussion Thread
Customer (Tony XXXXX)

15/07/2009 03.00 PM

Jxxx

Please do not think this is directed at you personally as I'm sure you are bound by company policy etc but your response is indicative of the.....shall we say inflexible approach to customer service I have experienced from your organisation to date.

I also work in a customer services environment and understand the issues but I do find the whole thing a little officious to say the least and I always take the view that the most important thing is to ensure the customer is satified at the end of the day as so much depends on repeat business or recomendation.

Many thanks for the 48p compnsation. I doubt it pays for the fuel I used stuck in a particularly lengthy incident the other day due to the lack of availability of the Traffic service however something is better than nothing.

I doubt I'll get any further with this so shall we call this case closed?

Best RegardsTony

TomTom Latest!!

2009-07-15T14:48:00.003+02:00

OK, despite the fact "I've given up on Tom Tom", I actually haven't;

After sending both units back to Amazon the other week and sending Tom Tom Customer Service (sic) a piece of my mind, I came across the Tom Tom stand at the Goodwood Festival of Speed the other week and took great pleasure in telling their Product manager what a piece of cow excreta his XL Live IQ Europe model was!

To cut a long story short, following a lengthy and grovelling apology, he offer to take my old (and completely knackered) Tom Tom One off my hands for £70 in return for me purchasing another XL Live for £50 off, knock 50% off a 12 month subscription to their Live service and throw in a carry case. Well it was genuinely an offer I couldn't refuse having spent the previous week trying to navigate my way around Andover without the benefit of one and wondering how in God's name people ever managed not to crash their cars while reading a map!

Anyway, its a couple of weeks old now and was behaving itself just fine.............until..............the traffic service stopped working. After a couple of days i got fed up of seeing "traffic service currently unavailable" so I called Support and asked them what was going on. To their credit they were on the case immediately and informed me that their "servers were down". As I work in the IT industry, I can tell you now that if I had a customer with servers "down" for two days I'd probably be out of a job but I digress..............

I asked if they would consider compensating me for the loss of service and was told "I'll ask"

Now in this day and age you don't actually expect a company to come clean and give you a £100 voucher for M&S but I wasn't expecting the following email;

Dear Tony,

Due to a technical reasons, 'LIVE EU' has been temporarily unavailable. To compensate for this inconvenience we have granted you a compensation product of the same subscription.

This compensation product will give you access to your subscription for an additional period (equal to the duration of the outage) at the end of your normal subscription.

LIVE Services UK + abroad - COMPENSATION EUR 0,48
Compensation discount - EUR 0,48
Total EUR 0,00

Best regards,TomTom

Laugh? I nearly soiled myself!!!

I then emailed Support and informed them that I thought they had a slightly skewed understanding of customer service and that I would be sending a letter explaining what had happened to every car magazine I can think of.

I await their response with interest.............

Clap Trap

2009-07-15T14:45:00.002+02:00

A link to a story which quite frankly beggars beleif. I can't type any more because I'm laughing so much!

Enjoy!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/5621035/Popeye-to-be-given-18-certificate-for-smoking-pipe.html

Colour Blind

2009-07-09T10:44:00.002+02:00

Last night on the way home I was incensed to see a cyclist completely ignoring all the red lights on the way down Preston Road, so incensed in fact that I wound down the window on passing him and shouted "you do realise red means stop don't you"?. Of course this was met with some choice language and hand gestures.........

Unfortunately for the gentleman in question I got to the next set of lights at Preston Drove well before he did and stepped out of the car. Now I'm a reasonably large guy and this along with my request that he repeat the expletives he had so eloquently delivered previously made him think twice and he stopped at the lights to converse with me on the relative merits of stopping / not stopping and / or obeying the law.

On informing said mobile genitalia that I was in fact the proud owner of a "better bike than that piece of s*it your riding" and that when I used the road system I "bloody well obeyed the rules of the road for my safety and that of others" he became rather sheepish.

This demeanor was quickly replaced with a smug smile as another cyclist went straight through the red light....................

Freak Show

2009-07-08T09:17:00.004+02:00

Last nights Michael Jackson "Memorial" confirmed two things; 1) Americans are emotionally and morally bankrupt and 2) "The King of Pop" is very much alive and well and living on an island somewhere with his chimp.

What a freak show and the sad thing is so many people bought it!

What kind of family wheels the coffin (supposedly) containing the remains of their loved one into the Staples Arena in LA in front of thousands of people to listen to the pre-pubescent winner of one of our talent shows over-egging the pudding with a show of singing that rivals the wailing of the pneumatic Ms.Carey?

The tickets were free but.......the lot was captured on High Def and will be coming to a DVD near you soon. The whole thing is a massive money making exercise and "his people" are rubbing their hands because they get all the money without having to do 50 dates at the O2 were never going to happen in a million years.

Basically the whole thing is a bloody setup!

Dear Sirs...........

2009-07-08T09:08:00.004+02:00

I thought you might appreciate reading the letter my partner wrote to Brighton & Hove Bus Company yesterday following a somewhat troubled journey home on our wonderful public transport system here in Brighton. I'll post the response should they deem it worth replying to although given previous dealings with Mr.French and his company over the rather poor standard of driving demonstrated by his employees I doubt anything will come of it.

We shall see...........

Dear Sirs,

I thought you might be interested to hear the tale of woe that was my journey home this evening, with a view to re-training at least one of your drivers.....

At about17.15 this evening, I was waiting for a bus heading into town from the Mithras House stop in Moulsecoomb; I am not normally a bus user - I walk the 2.5 miles to and from work to home because it is quicker than using public transport, however due to the unusually inclement weather I had no other option.

I prepared myself for the long slog home on the bus...however what I was not prepared for was the 49 bus pullling into the stop so fast, taking no heed of the flooded gully, and spraying me and every one else at the stop from head to foot in dirty water. No apology was offered by the driver for his manner of driving (driver number xxxx) when we all dripped onto the bus. Neither was there any apology to any of the other customers or passers by that he also soaked at the next two stops as he sped down Lewes Road on his way to the Garage.

When we arrived at the garage, the reason for this disgraceful driving became apparent...he jumped out of his cab, turned of the engine and disappeared...another jobsworth late for his end of shift with no concern for his passengers. We then enjoyed a five minute wait at the Garage whilst a new driver was found...he at least had more concern for his passengers by driving sensibly in appalling road conditions, and taking the time to slow down at bus stops so as not to dampen new customers any further.

Whilst waiting for my second bus (on the 5/5A service) on London Road, I was relieved to see that a 5 was due imminently. A 5 service liveried bus duly appeared at St Peter's Church junction but then, to add insult to soggy injury, it pulled up at the wrong stop, displaying a "Sorry I'm not in service" notice, let 6 people off and then pulled away, with a bus load of passengers with room for several more....a significant number of prospective passengers were then left waiting for an indefinate amount of time - the transport information service promptly stopped working I expect due to the weathe - for the next bus on the 5/5A service!

I eventually arrived home in Preston Park at 18.30. What would normally be 25 minute walk home turned into a one hour 15 minute debacle. I realise that the weight and slowness of traffic is not your fault, however the journey would have been altogether more comfortable had I not been soaked by one of your drivers at the start...or left at a stop on a main route by another driver not using the right stop or displaying the right information.

I shall continue not using the buses for my commute to and from work in normal weather conditions, simply due to not having the time to spend sat in traffic. I will however be investing in a second set of waterproof clothing to keep at work in case we have a repeat of todays downpours....I will at least then arrive home in a timely manner and dry!

Yours Sincerely

Take it Home!!!

2009-06-29T18:22:00.004+02:00

Looking into the park this morning I was dismayed but not surprised to see the usual piles of rubbish which unfortunately seem to be the norm after a warm weekend. The woefully inadequate bins are overflowing so at least some people have made the effort to "throw away" their rubbish however the question I have to ask is why can't they take it home with them? There seems to be an attitude in this country that rubbish is SEP - Somebody Else's Problem.

A contributing factor is public litter bins are either too small or simply non-existent. We still seem to be suffering the fallout from the reaction to the IRA's bombing campaign of 69 - 97 where almost every litter bin was either blocked up or removed. The problem is that they have never been replaced hence they are a rarer sight than a cyclist with lights (another rant to follow).

Put some bins back please Mr.Council and you lot - take your rubbish home with you!!!

The King is Dead........or so they tell us........

2009-06-26T09:50:00.003+02:00

So, poor Michael Jackson has finally gone to perform at that great gig in the sky rather than suffer Docklands and the O2. Of course that's assuming he is actually dead and its not just another publicity stunt.............

Of growing concern I would imagine is what to do with the body if reports of his death do infact appear to be true: Governor Schwarzenegger will doubtless ban any cremation ceremony on the grounds that there is so much plastic it would doubtless contravene the Clean Air Act however there is a potential upside - this is an ideal recycling opportunity although care would have to be exercised in what parts of Michael are recycled into.........plastic cups would not be an ideal choice...........

Cats - Intelligent Life after All?

2009-06-24T15:36:00.006+02:00

What is is with our feline friends? These are supposedly independant, cunning and intelligent creatures yet give them half a chance and they'll sit all day long watching one woodpidgeon sitting on a wire. there is one little black one that sits outside our office, sometimes for hours as if Paul McKenna has done his worst!

The fact that it has absolutely no hope whatsoever of catching afformentioned avian seems to have been short circuited by the natural instinct.

I suppose a good analogy would be Sunday evening drinking; you know that the next day at work will be awful if you have that extra bottle of Organic Cider but your natural instinct takes over and .......well, you know the rest.....

Fuel Prices

2009-06-24T10:15:00.004+02:00

I quite literally had to do a double take this morning when I passed the Esso garage at Patcham.; unleaded was 101.9p...... the same as diesel!

Could it be that somebody has finally woken up to the fact that the canny ones who don't do 20K a year are moving back to petrol vehicles because of the (up until now) price differential between it and the black stuff.

Now the cynical amonst us would think that this was due to some secret government quango deciding that enough was enough and they were in effect missing out on some of that lovely tax revenue but no, its down to the fuel producers. They claim that because so may people are now driving diesel vehicles they cannot cope with the extra demand and this automatically inflates the prices.

Silly me, there I was thinking that the producers were ripping off the customers in the same way as the domestic fuel suppliers are doing.The wholesale prices of a barrel of oil went up and the energy companies hiked the price of gas and electricity went up. Then the wholesale prices came down and guess what?............

Oh and while I'm on a charge, what the hell are Texaco playing at charging 108.9 for diesel?!!! They are consistently the most expensive and should be stopped.

So there.

Undertaking Leads to Undertakers......

2009-06-24T09:42:00.003+02:00

08:10 and I'm taking part in the usual battle for the A27 / A23 junction that occurs each and ever morning. It's the battle that ensues between "us" - the Northbound A23 drivers and "them"; the morons joining from the A27 slip. For some strange reason almost ever single car that comes sweeping down the slip road is on mission to get into the outside lane of the A23 by hook or by crook. No prisoners are taken in this battle and every tactic is used including "I've bloody well got my indicator on so I'm coming over even if there isn't room", "oh sorry I didn't see you", "it's my goddamn right to be in your lane"..........the list is long.

Well this morning I was witness to the moron of all morons, le grand beignet, Signor stupido etc in, (yes you've guessed it) a white van. Specifically in this case a white Volkswagen Caddy 08' with blanked out rear windows (why would he need to look behind?). This was driven absolutely flat out up the inside lane, undertaking all the way, across three lanes of traffic and ultimately shoehorned into a space just large enough in the outside lane. Now not only is undertaking contrary to the Highways Act of 1983 section 2 clause 4 with a maximum fine of up to £145, it can carry up to 6points for the offending dimwit. This is also major cause of shunts on motorways and other fast roads ....... such as the A23 on a sunny Wednesday morning which is populated by a lot of people who are still digesting their cornflakes and are not necessarily expecting to suddently have a white van materialise 6" from their front bumper like an Away Team from Star Trek!

I did think of reporting the moron to the Police but whats the point? The current obsession with sticking speed cameras everywhere means that there are fewer Traffic Officers on the roads to deal with numpties like this, hence the standard of driving is deteriorating to the point where I'm considering getting a sodding great big Forward Control Landrover and fitting steel beams to it. At least that will enable me to say "Oh sorry mate, when you cut in front of me I didn't see you. I'm so sorry I've written your little white van off".........

Either that or a bumper mounted machine gun.........

They Just Don't Get it........

2009-06-23T18:15:00.000+02:00

the new Speaker of The House John Bercow said MPs felt "very sore and very vulnerable" (that would be down to the rogering from their constituents) in the wake of the expenses scandal but added "large sections of the public also feel angry and disappointed" (no sh*t!!)

"We do have to reform but I just want to say that I continue to believe that the vast majority of members of this House are upright, decent, honourable people who have come into politics, not to feather their nests, but because they have heeded the call of public service," he said. Obviously he was excluding himself from this;

As an MP, Mr Bercow has claimed £20,000-a-year for his second home since 2004.
He also came under fire during the expenses row for 'flipping' his second home to avoid thousands of pounds in capital gains tax.

At this point I threw up my cup of tea all over my long suffering keyboard and went to Tesco's to get some Fridge Raiders Chicken Bites.

I really HAVE given up on Tom Tom

2009-06-23T17:15:00.000+02:00

Don't you just love it when technology that is supposedly mature falls flat on its face?

I've owned a TomTom One for years now and to be fair its put up with getting dropped, hit sat on, prodded and generally abused. On a recent trip to Wales last month when I could REALLY have done with it, it failed completely with what looks like a thermal problem. I've spent the past month procrastinating over what to replace it with and came to the conclusion that nothing else would suffice other than a new TomTom only this time it would be an all singing, all dancing model with "Live" functionality including traffic, Google search etc. After trawling the net I secured the best price from Amazon and sat back and waited for my toy to arrive.....

Saturday came and so did my TomTom and as I greedily unwrapped the sleek black unit from it's packaging I knew I'd made the right decision. 2 hours later I'd changed my mind and the bl88dy thing had almost exited stage left from the fifth floor balcony at least twice. Basically on connecting it to a PC it checks for updates and offers to download a 2GB (yes that 2 Gigabytes!) file which is the updated map. Well it got to 50% and fell flat on its face with a juicy fat error. This left me with a nice looking but completely useless and inoperative £220 piece of junk and guess whats not open on a Saturday, yep TomTom Technical Support.

A call to Amazon Customer Services in Manilla of all places resulted in a transfer to their in-house technical support which consequently suffered the wrath of Tony for ten minutes. Eventually the guy agreed that the unit must have a fault and I should .......... contact Customer Services to get a replacement. "can't you transfer me back to them please" .... "er, no" came the sheepish response. "its a new system and we don't have that (important) facility so you'll have to call them yourself"............ (grins inanely and starts to think how high that TomTom would indeed bounce from the fifth floor..........

To cut a long story short, customer service agreed to ship me a replacement for Tuesday. "so what about the fact that I paid £8.99 for express delivery so I could use the unit on a 600mile round trip on Monday then" I asked...............a refund of postage was duly issued. Full marks to Amazon. It appears Customer Service really does mean just that in this instance.

Tuesday arrives and so does my replacement TomTom Live IQ Routes Europe Edition (seriously that's what it says on the box!). I plug it in and............things come to a grinding halt because apparently you can't register more than one unit per email address or change your unit type more than twice in six months. Definitely a case of shooting ones foot clean off and then feeding it to the dog .................

A call to Technical Support was duly placed and after working my way through their systems they assured me they would reset my account within the next 20 minutes. 45 minutes later I followed their instructions and everything appeared to work..............apart from the latest map update so guess what?.............yep, another call to Technical Support ensued which resulted in them giving me more instructions to follow and to their credit, the download kicked off. Only another 2hrs to go.................

...........2hrs later and just as the Copying to Device progress bar reached 98% there was an error. This time it was a really big fat juicy one with the no mistaking "it's screwed pal" red warning triangle and I was once again left with a non functioning device with a partial installation of the latest maps only this one got further than the first! Another call to (yes, you've guessed it Technical Support) results in MORE instructions which result in 1hr later.............. the same thing happening again.

It was at this point I gave up, called Amazon (in Cork this time), spoke to a lovely lady with the most gorgeous accent in the world and requested a full refund.

Both units are getting picked up by DHL tomorrow and this is where I'm ending my association with Tom Tom. A company that seems to have completely lost its way and is selling products that appear to self destruct every time you try and update them. Don't take my word for it, go and Google "Tom Tom problems" and see what I mean. This is not rocket science guys and it appears that there are an awful lot of people out there who've spent hours trying to revive their units.

Oh and one more thing - if you are going to offer a £10 "voucher" to spend on accessories then for Pete's sake make sure that somebody who already has an account can actually register for the benefit. Even your own Technical Support department is fed up with calls from people over that!

Tomorrow I start the hunt for a new navigation partner for those long complicated trips. I can only hope whatever I buy next time actually works for more than 10 minutes!!

Watch this space!!