Practical Product Review: Magellan Roadmate 5625

Magellan's Roadmate 5625 was on a Black Friday special.   I picked it up as an "upgrade" from our TomTom XL that was about 5 years old.   I did a bit of research on it ahead of time, and it looked like it should do the job nicely. We should be able to set a route to it, with some waypoints, and the Magellan name was reputable.

It worked OK for some local area stuff.   but it didn't get its first real test until this past month, June.   How would it perform on a trip to some of our nation's national parks, in the Southwest?

I did not rely on this device, blindly.  In fact, I brought along maps for each state we were going to be in, as well as printouts of stop-to-stop directions for most of our anticipated stops.

Part of the GPS role was intended for fine-tuning along the way.   You know, looking for a gas station or such that wasn't part of the printout.

How did this unit perform?   It did just fine on the first couple days.   Understandable it didn't catch some of the businesses that changed hands (Ramada became a Super 8, Shell became something else...)  But there were some glaring mistakes that came up

I understand that maybe within the parks, all the points of interest may not be found.   Visitor Centers were generally available POI (point of interest), but campsites and some vistas were not.  Fortunately, we had the tools to get where we needed to go when our device was unable to help - or steered us wrong.

Here are just a couple of the failings of the Roadmate:

• In Las Vegas, NV, the Exxon station we were guided to was actually someone's house in a residential courtyard.   Not a business that may have formerly been a gas station, but a house.
• In Rachel NV, the Little A'Le'Inn is not only not shown as a POI, but the street address is outside the permitted range of the device.   Fortunately, it's visible from NV-375
• In Tombstone, AZ, it shows "east" instead of "west" on Allen St for some of the tourist sites.   
• In Glenwood Springs, CO, it has an incorrect address for the cemetery trail.
• Near Devils Tower, WY, it tries to throw you into a loop, instead of the actual path on US 14 to Devils Tower National Monument.

This on top of some other items that were either non-searchable, or had bad or invalid directions (suggestions to turn off interstate highways, exits that were not present, etc)

I spoke, at great length, with a representative at Magellan.   I am not left with a feeling of satisfaction with the product from this.    One of his lines was that the device was right 95% of the the time....  This is not a comfort, considering how significantly wrong the 5% of the times were.   Again, fortunately, I did my homework ahead of time, and we were able to adapt when our GPS proved itself an accessory for the car battery more than a directional aid.  

I  discussed my situation with the Magellan representative.   In discussing resolution, I am really not satisfied.   some things may get updated in the next map update.  Great... that helps us last month.   I didn't even get a token apology from my discussion.

If I were to give a review of this product, I would have to say it was poor to minimally adequate.   It's not the ratio of right to wrong/missing, but the quality of such.   I can understand some errors/lapses, but not some of the things we experienced.   This device seems OK for some local area navigation.  I don't put stock in it for a significant road trip though.   I don't recommend it to others.   I believe we'll be testing the market for other options as well, just based on our experience with the device - and the company.

Hacked or Hocked Email Database

In general, I prefer when I can call out a business for something good.  Unfortunately, sometimes the opposite is true.   I prefer to give the criticism directly, and not "in public"; but sometimes there's a level of apathy or incompetence that trumps keeping quiet.

Enter company Instant Checkmate.   This outfit claims to be a reputable public records database, and background search company.   Under normal circumstances, I would have linked to their company; but here I do not believe that I want to drive any business their direction.

My interaction with this company began a couple of years ago.   I was working with a client, who was considering making use of their services (through my company), but changed his mind near before any financial transactions had taken place.   For the purpose of this interaction, I had created a unique email address, provided only to this company.   For a couple of days, that email address did receive a couple of "Are you still interested?" emails, which were ignored, and they eventually faded from memory.

in recent weeks, however, that email address has begun receiving mail again. Though none of it is for the company.  Now it's for fake viagra (I'm not capitalizing the scam product), assorted diet pill scams, counterfeit goods, and an assortment of other spammy things designed to make some scumbag money - from your pocket.

Now for the fun part of this:
Had this been just a generic email address, it could be chalked up to "general spam of unknown origin".   At some point a lot of addresses end up on some kind of spam list, and get sold and resold, and you get the garbage that fills spam filters. 

The fun thing about running a domain, though, is the ability to assign unique addresses.   I have done that.   To a degree the intention is for organizational purposes.   However, it has another benefit of identifying which companies are selling addresses - or have been hacked.  In fact, because of this, I was in touch with a couple of prominent companies which made headlines for their database hacks a few years back, prior to making the headlines.

Back to Instant Checkmate:
Rarely have I encountered the level of apathy and incompetence that I have met with this company's staff.   To be fair, I understand that your basic call center representative is hired with a particular script from which to read.   Deviations from this, especially complicated ones, can short-circuit them.  Some things should trigger escalation, though. 

When trying to address this issue, the call center reps - and even the "supervisor" I spoke with seemed clueless.   It was very clear that this was something off the script, and that none of them had the slightest clue about.   It also seemed that either they didn't care - or that this company does not have any provision for this contingency.    All attempts at contact get routed to the same unhelpful call center staff.

Further, this company has fallen to "you must have given the email address out to someone else."  No, it was uniquely created for their company.  They've also tried "Maybe I used it to sign in from a compromised machine".  No, It was on a secure machine, and only generated on their site.   The two remaining options are - They sold the email list (they claim they don't), and their database was compromised.  

I did have one "supervisor" claim that it may be their "marketing partners".   If this is true, then I have complete and utter contempt for a company that uses "marketing partners" that use a series of short-term domains registered with false contact information, , and spam-"advertise" through fake email addresses.  Frankly, if your "marketing partner" is using a fake Fed Ex email message to send you to a fake pharmacy that promises "Free v****a with every order" and "No prescription needed"; then you deserve to be called out and go out of business.

Fortunately, for me, I've killed the email address they had.   All they had was an email address, which they sold or had compromised.  However, others may have had financial information compromised. 

Professionally, I would advise against any dealings with this outfit.   They seem to have no capacity to deal with anything beyond basic call center script.   They also refuse to take ownership where there is a fault and resolve the issue.   There are better, more reputable and more competent choices out there.