unhappy spot customer

[Fixit]

I received a spot gen3 for christmas 13 months ago, and sure enough, there was an automatic charge on my credit card this month, for 65US$ more than last year. WTF?

so i call customer support, wait 20 mins on hold, where they explain that i had enhanced tracking, plus a 15 dollar maintence fee was added


things started off well when i explained that i just wanted basic service (149.99)," total will be 165" she says. I ask why their website says its 149.99 and she says theres a system maintence fee.
I told her im not interested in paying that fee - she says i have to.....


so i cancelled my service. said i did not appreciate getting upgraded and additional fees added ( she couldnt have cared less )



end rant of unhappy customer


what else is out there for similar "keep GF/wife happy at home"

[Badlands62]

I called and told them to cancel my SPOT subscription, spoke to a gal and told her as to why and she renewed mine at the old rate of $99.00 for the year. My buddy did the same .

Badlands

[Island Idiots]

I have the delorme InReach.

Many different plans from about 20 bucks a month to 75$/ month.
I like it cause I can cancel the service anytime and pay nothing but this requires paying set up fee when I restart, or I can suspend for less than 5 per month.
You can also adjust plan at anytime.
Used it all last fall and it works awesome, texting and tracking.

[TARCHER]

I have in reach and have been really happy with it and the different plans and ability to put your account on hold til next time you need it

[morphiend]

Another InReach customer. Guys I hunt with that have a device all use InReach. Company I work for is moving away from Spot and Sat phones for InReach. Reasonable plans though I could comment on the customer service. I not needed to call them.

[Fixit]

i would have been happy with 99$, heck even 149, but ill be damned if im paying system maintence fees. (are they really doing tune ups on the satalites?)

[jimh]

I had both Spot and Globalstar sat phone. The Spot I had for a few years and the sat phone just for the one year but when they raised their prices on both over 50% I called and cancelled both. I have now got an In-reach that is working out much better. My text ( instead of a canned message ) goes out much quicker and I get confirmation when it's been delivered. I was also going to look into an Irridium sat phone but I am usually calling my wife to let her know I have arrived, but she is often at work and can only access her phone on her breaks so the text is there for her to read which has been working out good so far. So now it looks like I will just stick with the In-reach. One thing I did notice was when I used their app to pair it with my Iphone I had to turn on the location services on my phone and by mid-afternoon my phone battery was pretty much dead but when I turn off the location services on the phone and use the In-reach on it's own my phone has still got at least a 75% charge left when I get home in the evening. I'm not too tech savy so I'll just continue to use the In-reach as a stand alone device which works just fine for me. Jim

[ufishifish2]

I run a forest based consulting company with employees. For a safety check in we tried running a fleet of Gen I Spot units. They sucked but the company rep told me Gen II would be much better.
A little while later Gen II Spots came on the market so I bought those. They sucked a tad less than the paper weight Gen I units. Still fairly useless.
I won't be fooled a third time by getting the Gen III that is already out there. Spot can't get their act together and I am done with them.
We now have had the DeLorme InReach units for 9 months and they work very well. The only exception is that they really don't seem to work for us at all when we are working on steep slopes. We have to wait until we get to flatter ground before the InReach devices will work.
Just my 2c.

[todbartell]

I use Delorme inReach, I believe Garmin now owns them. Look for a wicked GPS / Messenger unit to come out soon

[frase]

Have a SPOT for both myself and my son but cancelled this year when they increased the annual costs.