Toby Johnson’s Blog

I bought a Garmin Nuvi 785T recently, which has a built-in receiver for the MSN Direct over-the-air service. Now, there’s not much that Microsoft does these days that impresses me in the slightest, but MSN Direct is definitely an exception. It sends real-time traffic data (although the data in Louisville isn’t the greatest), gas prices, movie times, weather, and more directly to the GPS. Plus the coolest feature is the ability to find a location or route on my desktop (using Bing Maps) and send it directly to the GPS while it’s still in my car.

Nevermind the fact that Google Maps Navigation has just made most of this obsolete, I was pretty happy with the service for now. After the 3-month free trial, it cost $50/year, or $100 for lifetime service. Figuring I would use the GPS for several years, and then my wife would use it for several more, I bought the $100 lifetime service in October.

So I was of course dismayed to get an email from them stating that the service would be discontinued in 2012, and that I would only get a pro-rated refund based on three years! Fuming, I searched my inbox for the TOS from when I signed up, and it said that “service was not guaranteed beyond January 1, 2014″! So they (at least implicitly) promised me two more years than what I was getting.

Not only did I buy a more expensive GPS that had the necessary (but soon useless) receiver for the service, I was getting swindled on the service too! With threats of a class action lawsuit on the tip of my tongue, I called their service department to give them a piece of my mind. I asked the very polite girl on the other end to explain the two-year difference in promised service and said I wanted to cancel now and get my money back instead of wait until 2012.

But apparently they were ready for this. She told me that yes, I can cancel now and get a refund (still prorated to three years), but that they will still let me keep the service until 2012! So I’m getting back around $98 of my $100 fee (all but about 1-1/2 months worth) and still get over a year of free service.

I’m still not very happy with Microsoft, but at least they made things right financially. So I have real-time updates on my GPS until January 2012, by which time I’ll surely have Android 2.0 (and Google Maps Navigation) on my Sprint Hero to get me where I’m going.