Rand McNally Wins the Worst Customer Service Award Hands Down

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On Monday, May 23, we decided to order it on their website before you could purchase it in the stores. For ordering it before June 1, we would save $70 and free shipping, so we did! That was without a doubt the beginning of the worst customer service we have ever had to deal with, so much so that even though for the few hours we had it in our hands we believed it was the greatest invention since sliced bread, we are now going to wait until another company comes up with the same product and for now purchase another GPS or possibly just live with the one we have.

Where do we begin…?

Anytime we order anything online, we track our packages. In the past, we have almost exclusively ordered from Wal-Mart or Amazon because they have the absolute best shipping in place, something as a full-time traveler is very important to us. We need our packages to be delivered without any sort of delays since we plan them so precise to our travels.

After the initial ordering, we tracked it and for days nothing…we became increasingly concerned since the holiday weekend was upon us and we needed it to be delivered on the following Tuesday as promised. We had already sent three emails asking for some sort of status and received NO reply. Then, on Thursday afternoon, we called again but this time refused to just leave a message, we insisted on speaking with somebody in charge. We were advised that there was some sort of warehouse issue and the package may not even begin processing until Tuesday of the following week. This was not acceptable to us. We went back and forth and we had to finally settle for them sending it to the next park we will be at next week.

Just a little side note, during all of this, we found that our credit card had been overcharged and we were dealing with another department for this. Finally, after several calls and emails we got this resolved…well not totally resolved as yet, but they said they would credit our account the overcharge, as of this moment it has NOT happened.

We received the package on Wednesday, and let me say for a few hours we played with it and absolutely LOVED all the different things we could do with it. We will not get into it too much since what happened next took away from all of its greatness!

On Thursday, we connected it to our computer to download the software and get the latest updates and weird things began to happen…we tried everything and all we kept getting were critical errors. Finally called the technical department. This time we got a very helpful guy who said that this has never happened but we tried this and that and finally diagnosed that we would need to send the device back it to them so they can repair it and then send it back to us, which could take a few weeks.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

After many conversations with the supervisors, we all agreed that we would send this one back to them but did not want it repaired and returned to us. Instead, they would IMMEDIATELY send us one so it would get to us by Monday (since once again we would be leaving this place on Tuesday) and we would send this paperweight back to them. He suggested calling on Friday for the tracking number.

That call was suppose to be simply calling for the tracking number…NOT! Once again, the representative turned out to be a nincompoop. There are plenty of other descriptive words that could be used to describe his inability to communicate with me, but for now, we will stick with this one. He began reading script to me on what the policies were for Rand McNally on returns and continued to talk over me when I tried to explain to him that this was an extenuating circumstance that was approved yesterday by a supervisor. He put me on hold so many times and upon his return would once again quote his script. Every time I asked for a supervisor, he said they were all busy and would take a message, I told him I would hold. He told me he had other calls to take, he would give a supervisor my message, and he would return my call within 48 hours, I told him I would hold. This went on for so long, finally when he returned once again quoting the same script and I once again told him I would hold for a supervisor…he said thank you, goodbye now and hung up on me! You could see the steam coming off my head for miles…

I gathered my composure, called a different department this time (sales), and got a wonderful young man who was so sympathetic with my dilemma. He read all the notes and added more of mine that the last young man did not write in. After us going back and forth, we came up with a compromise that I was not happy with but was willing to settle for. He would place a brand new order for a new one to be delivered to us by Monday immediately and he even said he would personally open the box and test it once again so that it would not have any issues. The only problem with this idea is that he would have to charge my card again but it would be refunded once they receive the broken unit. As I said, I was not thrilled with this idea but it would get us our new device to us before we leave this place. He said he would call me later on Friday with the new tracking number for delivery on Monday. The call never came…

I left messages on his direct line he gave me along with numerous messages on the other line, along with several emails to all sorts of different departments and still not heard a thing. Today is Saturday, we do anticipate any sort of resolution, and our only recourse at this point is to just let it go. Too much hassle and annoyance and when that much is against us, we know that it is not meant for us. We will now only fight with them to get all of our money back and then find another GPS or as we said, we may just stay with the one we have. I am so tired of fighting…