Review on Enhanced Magellan RoadMate 3000T Portable GPS Navigator with 3.5-Inch Display by Ricardo Knight

This RoadMate 3000T is my third Magellan product I have owned and by far the most disappointing. I expect good quality products like my original Magellan GPS 315 which has worked great for many years since my first purchase. In this particular case, the 3000T not only comes with old maps, but often "blocked" making the product unusable. I expected this to be an obvious deficiency that Magellan would handle professionally, courteously and without issue. Unfortunately my experience to date has been nothing short of a nuisance just to get a simple warranty repair approved. My first phone experience with tech support (to inquire about outdated cards) was terrible - the person on the other end didn't seem to understand or care about my issue and when it escalated it was dealt with by a very rude " Supervisor" treated. It might just be a language issue, but it doesn't matter - I was pissed and felt "ripped off" after purchasing this product. Magellan doesn't do its own customer support, and its outsourcing partner cares little about properly solving problems or keeping the goodwill of customers. In fact, I didn't give up and was able to locate one person at Magellan's San Diego office who was very professional, caring, and dedicated to "fixing everything." My card issue was resolved to my satisfaction because this person took the time to listen to me and respond with a customer focused solution. However, it didn't take as much perseverance and digging to find someone who was capable and cared to handle the situation. My second contact with support (1-2 weeks after initial interaction) was via email to resolve persistent pending blocks. this interaction would somehow be less complicated. This, too, proved to be misplaced hope. Aside from some requests appearing to have been "lost" and needed to be resubmitted, I was offered ineffective "solutions" to lock my problem device. It seemed to take a lot of effort to convince the support team to open a warranty return authorization. My unit was sent back for repair at my expense and it took 4 weeks to return. The repaired unit came back repaired and so far so good, but it was almost impossible to get repair status. The whole customer service process seems intentionally designed to be frustrating! So much for trust in the brand, which I have always respected very much. The product would be relatively easy to use if it didn't have all of the issues I've encountered so far. I regret buying this Magellan product despite the high Consumer Report rating and would happily choose a Garmin or TomTom unit. If the company I bought it from would have accepted the return after a 14 day window it would be gone.