Garmin
reviews and complaints

In November 2017 I purchased downloadable software for my Garmin GPS online from Garmin South Africa.
I made an error and placed the item into my shopping cart three times.
Later I also discovered that the product I had purchased was not compatible with my Garmin model. I contacted Garmin South Africa and explained the situation. Primeshan responded and emailed the necessary paperwork to me (Refund Form for DTS). I duly filled in the form in triplicate (one for each item) and returned the forms to Primeshan on the 27th of November 2017.
I have since then phoned and emailed Garmin South Africa to follow up on the credit many times. I have been put on hold, transferred to various people, I have had to resend the refund forms numerous times and have been promised resolution. To date, 16 March 2018, I have not received my refund and my calls are not returned. I have phoned and asked to speak to a manager on at least three occassions and each time I have been told that the manager is not available.
On the 8th of March 2018 I was again put through to Primeshan, and not the manager as I had requested, at which time Primeshan promised he would get back to me by 5pm that same day. He did not.
I believe that Garmin do not intent to refund me and I am frustrated by the time wasted and the lack of customer service.
I would like to get my money back and I don't think it is an unreasonable request as I am unable to download the product.

My order ID is [protected]
The product code ordered is TOPO Southern Africa Light 010-D1591-00
The reference ID is Q#:1005504>

My GPS is Nuvi 40, unit ID: [protected], software version 2.90

I just come to Thailand Bangkok Garmin Centre to update my GPS map. The working staff inside the Garmin centre told me that my GPS are too old and unable to update. When I purchase for this product, the seller told me that this unit can be update for whole life, but now they told me cannot be update and ask me to purchase new GPS. What the hell is this? Is it GARMIN are cheat the customer to buy their product? If I purchase for the new GPS, and promise will be get update Map for whole life, and after 4-5 years and told me that unable to update again? Really disadpointed with garmin product. What the service that garmin give to customer? If my GPS are broken and unable to function, yes, I willing to change a new GPS, but then now my GPS still good in functioning, and you all force me to change new GPS because cannot update map? Dont be naive that customer will continue support for Garmin, there are prenty of brand GPS in this world, some more the Google map in phone can be work better than yours. Really disadpointed.

I have bought an old GPSMAP 162 to replace the one I have lost. I also have BlueChart Americas V5.51 with St-Lawrence River and Bahamas that I still use to plan my sailing. But I cannot re-load my charts into it, buy a new one or update the charts I have!
I have contacted Garmin Customer Service, write to 3 different and they are unable to give me any other option.
I am very frustrated about the support they (don't) give to older products and charts.
I am stuck with a GPSMAP with no map, no possibility to update my charts and Garmin gives me or suggest me no solution! What a poor and incompetent Customer Service!
I will not use or buy any Garmin Products especially on my new sailboat.
My email: [protected]@edumicro.com

Hi there

I am submitting a complaint based on an order I made via Fit2Run on the 27th of November.

In short, the following happened:

-Earlier in the day (of the 27th of November) I submitted an order for a Garmin 5S - Silver/White Band

-Two amounts were deducted from my credit card

-I did not receive an order confirmation

-I contacted Fit2Run Team and was told that the billing address needed to match the credit card address in order to make payment

-I tried to reorder using my South African details and could only choose American States

-I then contacted Fit2Run team again and was told you only accept payments from American credit cards

-I then contacted an American friend to assist with the payment

-She made the order and I had arranged an international payment to her American bank account in the meantime

-Order confirmation was received

-My friend contacted your team to request a tracking number the following day and was told the item is not in stock and that they will be issuing a refund

After speaking to Tia (a manager at Fit2Run), she said they do not have any further stock and a stock request will be sent to Garmin, however, she could not guarantee the order will be honored by Garmin.

As discussed with Tia, I expect Fit2Run/Garmin to honor the purchase as the item was in stock when I made the order and I could of purchased the item at another store on the Cyber Friday Day. Therefore, offering a refund and 20% voucher does not solve my problem.

My friend will be returning to South Africa on the 26th of December.

I really hope you can assist me in resolving this situation.

Kind regards

On 11/25/2017 I purchase my smart watch, this will not show e mails and when Garmin app is closed watch pairing stops. Only works when app open. Talk customer service agent on 11/27/2017 time 03:30 pm, he told I must pay for app issues. Can someone tell what to do, return to store or what. You can reach me at(410) 944-2198 or e mail ( [protected]@outlook.com) . Thanks

The accuracy of the unit is not even close. On some days it tracks evenly with my older Fitbit One and other days it is so far off it is unreal. I have tried to contact them several times but no luck, all I get is to do the reset for accuracy and see what happens. One day I went for a hike up a 700 foot vertical rise hill on a 5 mile trail. It credited me for 3 flights and only 6500 steps. The hill exceeds their % grade by 2% and the Fitbit tracked all the distance and vertical rise. I wish I would have never wasted my money on a Garmin product. You can be sure I never will again!

I purchased a garmin fishfinder fron antonette marine in Hudson Florida on
Approximately 10/24/2017. I specifically asked the sales manager if the unit was capable to support maps and show channel markers. I had ask this question numerous time, and my wife said to stop asking the same question. The item was installed and it does not have map capabilities. I tried to return the item and obtain the same model that had map capabilities. Antonetti marine indicated I would have to call garmin. Garmin stated they would not take it as a return unless I bought it at garmin.com. But when you go to garmin dot com, it directs you to a dealer. So they have a bogus re turn policy. I would like assistance in returning this product.

Hello

My Garmin stopped working within a year of my purchase, well within the warranty period. I called to report this, and was told to send the unit in. My RMA# is [protected].
I put it in my car, and forgot to send it in until last week. I was contacted by customer service with a question about the model, yet when I called, the service rep (who was very polite) informed me that I had six months to send it in, and therefore Garmin would not honour the warranty. I understand that I took longer than usual to return the device, but I was not told about the six month period. Since the company is aware of the fact that my device stopped working within the warranty period, and has documentation of my tickets/calls, I am quite frustrated that it is not being honoured. I would appreciate a reappraisal of this situation.

Bought a satnav from garmin to go away on holiday with my touring van .Two mile away from my destination this took me of a main road up a tenfoot wide road with ten inch speedramps .I scratched the side of my caravan getting out the thing is there was a perfectly a good road we were on so had no reason to take me of the main road .Over the ten day holiday this satnav would take me of main roads down farm tracks then back on to the main road .I had only purchased this ten days earlier on getting home i contacted live support garmin to sort the problem.I tried what they had suggested nothing worked also just got cut of by them so i complained to the escalation team loads of time over a month which i was promised twice that somebody would ring but never happened.Today he finally rang basically he said because i had got a refund on it their was nothing he could do bearing in mind i had tried what they had said, So did not want to be left with a satnav that did not work.Escalation are saying i should have kept this this does not sort the scratches out on the side of my caravan, I googled the satnav issue this is not just a minor issue thousands are stuck with garmin satnavs that dont work properly .I thought buying of a big company would be better how wrong i was they have just trod on me like dirt saying they are not responsible and wont pay for damage.When you read about garmin satnavs they say they take you down the best roads rubbish i tried all the setting just the same totally annoyed about garmin .Thank a very annoyed person

I have a Garmin product, branded as a BMW Motorrad Navigator III. Serial number [protected] or I3J004606. This item is not supported by Garmin express which I have for my Garmin Nuvi 2569 LMT-D. I want to update the maps on the Navigator III which I am instructed to do via the Map Update tool on the web. I cannot get this to run as my Internet Explorer 11 version 11.608.15063.0 will not support the Garmin Communicator plugin, nor will any other internet option (Microsoft edge or Firefox).

I cannot afford to upgrade the Garmin / BMW system or purchase an alternative navigation system. I know this product is probably 9 years old but surely I can update the maps.

Please tell me how?

The red button on my watch stopped working two weeks before warranty expired. Contacted Garmin via web form to ask how I get my watch fixed on warranty. The site said to give them three days to respond. One month later, have yet to hear from them. Two things:
1. Disappointed by quality of product that does not last even a year.
2. Very disappointed by complete lack of service - no response at all except for an auto email saying my web form had been received.
Not sure if this is Garmin's way of avoiding fixing on warranty.

I bought a new garmin vivosmart hr + I lost it in the sea few weeks ago while windsurfing I thought it was my fault but I was suprised by the fact that when I tried another newly bought vivosmart the lock on system was totally unsecure it went off very easily unless the main activities supported for this kind of sport watches are indoor or running this is not acceptable you should provide a more secure lock system this isa very expensive loss and you cannot be all time concerned if the watch is still on your hand while doing an activity @&#%^#%*&^# (&@*^*# (

I've bought the City Navigator Europe map to upload to my nüvi 55 LM on July 8th 2017.
But I could not upload it even after chatting for a long time with Garmin services representatives Zahrah and Lynn on the web. Zahrah has instructed me to buy a micro SD memory card, which I did (16Mb) but I still can't upload the European map. My computer has a compatible OS Microsoft Enterprise 7, it does recognize the Garmin device as a portable one, I could get 2x a message of successfull instalation but no map is actually installed to the device. I'm in Europe and have been renting GPS devices to drive around, since the Garmin product is not usefull w/o the European map.
So I asked that Garmin reimburse me. Garmin tells me they can'd reimburse me because the sw has been unlocked and asks me to contact a phone number, which puts me on queue for 35 minutes for an international call. Unfortunatelly I can't stay for 35 minutes waiting for Garmin to answer a call I'm making from Italy to the US.
The sofware was not loaded into my devide due to problems with Garmin. It's not on my device (or the device is not identifying the European map) and I'll need to use rented GPS service due to this problem caused by Garmin.
Garmin owes me a refund and is not responding to it as a trustworthy company.
My family is with me to testimony that I'm not using the Garmin device because it's not working in Europe. The sales person that rended me a car in Portugal can also testimony that the Garmin devide didnt work in Europe. It has failed in Portugal, now it doesn't read Italian maps and tomorrow I'm travelling to Croacia.
I want my money back because I'm not using the map due to a Garmin error.

I purchased a Fenix 5s at the end of April. I have had nothing but problems with. Getting someone from Garmin to help me has been a terrible experience. It can take them up to a week to respond. My watch stopped connecting with my phone. I made them aware of this situation multiple times and got no responses. When they finally responded they gave me basic instructions, that were not complete, on how to send the watch back. The watch is malfunctioning due to no fault of my own. However, I am responsible to pay the shipping to have it sent to them. I also will not have a watch for up to 10 business days while they look at it. When I spent over $600 on this watch it was under the impression that I would be able to use it every day. Not only has my training been interrupted due to the fact that their product is terrible, now it is being interrupted because it takes them days to respond and I now have to send away for up to 10 business days.

Sent Garmin my 62s for a screen replacement as the current one was scratched. Paid them £82. They sent me a replacement 62s that looked new. I then puchased a TrekMap Italia V4 Pro map from Garmin and installed it on the 62s. It seemed to be ok. Arrived in Italia about 2 weeks ago and the 62s comes up with a message "external power supply lost, continue with battery power" after which it turns off. In ten days I have received two bits of advice from Garmin, the first was to do a reset, the second was to do... a reset. The emails I received are possibly created by a not very good AI software as there is something weirdly not right about them. The current situation is that the 62s is going back to Garmin soon, at their request.
I feel that Garmin has little or no respect for it's individual customers and the sooner they get a hit from competition the better.

Rip off alert garmin support technicians ripping off customers for money for fraudulent repairs to personal computers
My garmin was not updating, I contacted customer support, customer support had a tech call me back "steven kz01075" he told me for $70 dollars he could fix my computer, I said no I then called the computer guy in the area he said its a scam just reboot your computer, he also said when your tech can into my computer "remote access" tech tend to turn stuff off to get money to repair, this is a crime per this computer guy, also all this happened in about 8 min from the time I first called. I then called to report my crime to a supervisor, "dan decrure" told me all was well and laughed at my problem, I asked for a head office number he said no! And hung up. I will if need be contact some person that will investigate if this is common practice there at tech support at garmin

For a number of years I have used a Forerunner 50, an Ant stick and Garmin Connect to track my cycle training. I recently started my spring training and recorded the ride on the Forerunner. I came home and attempted to download the data to Garmin Connect. Garmin Connect appears to be no longer available an I was told to download Garmin Express. Garmin Express was unable to find the Ant stick. It returned "Serial Number: Unit ID: 2058019 The specified Unit ID is invalid". I called Customer Service and was told that the Forerunner 50 and legacy Garmin Connect" were obsolete technology" despite the fact that it worked perfectly for my needs. I don't understand why the legacy Garmin Connect was removed. I bought a Garmin Forerunner 50, a GPS car mapping unit, and an Etrex 20 because I believed that were well built and would last. Your sales tactic of intentionally obsoleting the Forerunner 50 to force me to purchase new equipment will force me to look at another option, certainly not from Garmin. In addition, you still advertise the Forerunner 50 and the ability to save data through Garmin Connect. See https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/10527

I googled Garmin to find it's website to download current maps. When I clicked on the link, it said to call an 888 # to get assistance. I called the number and it was answered by a woman with a heavy Indian accent, making it difficult to understand her. After many requests by me to repeat what she said, she said it would be better if I allowed her to sign on to my computer. I made the mistake and allowed her in. Once she took over my computer she checked numerous things and found that many of the drivers were manually shut off. She said she would connect me to a Microsoft technician to fix the problem. The gentleman she turned me over to went over a few things and said there would be fees involved in fixing the computer. I said I would contact someone I knew. I did get his phone number before I hung up. I then tried to sign on to my computer and was unable to do so. When I turn on the computer, I get a different view, it asks for my password, I type it in, my mouse does not appear on the screen so I tabbed to the OK to click it and sign on. What it then does is erase my password, asks for it again and the same thing happens. I am now unable to use my computer.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any advice how to fix it?

Bought this unit brand new and had it professionally installed. Initially it worked nicely, but after I arrived on the Irish west coast the unit began to freeze and loose satellites. The unit was shipped with outdated or defective software and the GARMIN support staff, in a most inefficient way has conveyed that new software is needed, and this cannot be updated with an SD card, even one purchased by GARMIN. One must obtain a Windows computer, secure a wifi connection, remove the unit, plug in a jump cable, and try to upgrade. This was quite impossible if one is cruising in remote regions. GARMIN support has tried to help, but have led me down many dead ends to try to fix a product that should never been shipped in the first place to a cruising customer.

I think that garmin express has changed the format of my garmin.img files into unix files somehow I spoke to Garmin support and overtime I contact support they give me a different person as yet my problem is not resolved so far I have been asked to download the maps again at a cost of £30.00 where did I purchase the maps from Garmin they do not seem to hold the records for my purchases. and when logging in on garmin express it registers my oregon 450 again something wrong with the software here I suspect anyone else had problems with garmin express? be careful buying from Garmin they want money before fixing some of their products.