PLUS traffic is broken

[Germerican]

So, I went ahead and got the 740. Since Amazon is refunding the cost for the 630 (kudos to them by the way, for taking the unit back, even though there's technically nothing wrong with it) and TomTom responded to my BBB complaint by refunding the full cost for Plus Traffic (although nothing has been credited to my bank account as of yet, maybe they'll send a check?) I figured why not get the 740. By the way, I also contacted TomTom to ask about a refund for the Fuel Service since it is already integrated into LIVE service. Their first response was no way but after explaining to them why it even came that far and threatening that I'd drop the 740 and the $10/month LIVE service all together, they're currently "researching" my request (or at least that's what my open ticket with TomTom says). I asked for a refund of the cost for the Fuel Service or two months of free LIVE service, which would be about equal.

Anyway, this morning I got to try the 740 on my way to work and I'm already in love with it. I have a 30 mile commute to work (give or take a little) and it can take me anywhere from 45 minutes on a good day to 3 hours and 30 minutes in the dead smack of winter. I would say I have about 7 different options available to get to and from work, with at least one of which is almost always congested.

As soon as I entered my destination the 740 showed three trouble spots for a total delay of 72 minutes on the route that I would have taken without traffic information available to me. To make a long story short, the 740 routed me around it and I made it to work in 50 minutes.

To be honest, the 630 probably would have given me the same information if Plus Traffic would have been working and compared to the 740 it's only missing a couple of features that I could live without if I had to (not considering LIVE service of course). What I do like is the fact that I can now take a call through the unit without traffic information being impacted.

The $10/month for LIVE service is a little steep in my opinion but I'll gladly pay it because if you consider the time and money I save by NOT sitting in traffic, I probably break even if not save a buck or two.

I still hope Plus Traffic will be available for everyone else as soon as possible. If I didn't like TomTom as much as I do I probably would have switched to a Garmin.

 

[InfojunkE]

I too have given up the fight, I went to the BBB and requested a full refund of the plus traffic service, they said they would comply however I haven't seen it as of yet. I'll stick with RDS-TMC until I decide to get a new unit, then it will most likely be the 740

 

[Germerican]

I too have given up the fight, I went to the BBB and requested a full refund of the plus traffic service, they said they would comply however I haven't seen it as of yet. I'll stick with RDS-TMC until I decide to get a new unit, then it will most likely be the 740

I haven't seen my refund either. I suppose they might send out a check. I'm still working on getting the Fuel Price Service refunded. For a long time the status of my ticket with TomTom read "research". A couple of days ago I updated the ticket by letting them know that I had exchanged the GO 630 for the 740 and that I had "activated" the 740. After initially refusing to give me a refund for Fuel Prices they now requested proof of refund for the 630 and proof of purchase for the 740, which I sent to them. Their latest response says that they're a getting approval to refund Fuel Prices.

It really is too bad that Plus Traffic still isn't working. It's going on two months and TomTom won't say anything about it except to be patient.

By the way, whatever happened to the other BBB complaints that were mentioned here?

 

[mvl]

For those who haven't received their refund, you should contact BBB and make sure they leave your case status as unresolved.

Unresolved cases are the "worst looking" ones for the BBB, and it may accelerate the check production.

I haven't tried the BBB route yet, I'm going to give them a bit longer until I resort to that approach. I already received a 1-month extension on my PLUS traffic. And I'm living with my RDS-TMC (or PLUS if it gets fixed) until HD traffic is launched.

With this amount of time, I'm sure Tomtom could have fixed this if they cared. They either no longer care since this bug may generate 740 sales, or perhaps they terminated their Inrix contract for PLUS and now have no PLUS traffic supplier.

This mishandling and carelessness for customers killed my Tomtom customer loyalty, which I previously had due to its great innovations. I'll keep buying whatever's the best for my needs (which is still Tomtom for now). But if future products are reasonably similar, any brand loyalty that would have tipped the scale in Tomtom's favor now tips against their favor for me.

 

[dervari]

Well, tonight I filed a complaint with the MA Office Of Consumer Affairs based on false advertising. They are still touting traffic as a feature of the unit. Let's see if that gets some attention.

 

[mvl]

Well, tonight I filed a complaint with the MA Office Of Consumer Affairs based on false advertising. They are still touting traffic as a feature of the unit. Let's see if that gets some attention.

That agency might have the power to pull all 630's and 730's off the shelves in Massachusetts until Tomtom removes "plus traffic" from the packaging. You'll see how quickly the issue resolves itself if that happens.

 

[tt_ttf]

just wait til they pull this sort of stunt with iPhone users....... when I was using TT6 on my phone - before I gave up on new maps or TT7 ever having full maps in the US, it regularly used to drop out traffic or start doing weird double counting.

I don't expect iPhone users experiences to be any better.

But then again they already have with their ridiculously expensive iPhone mount that does not include s/w!!


The real annoying thing is I cannot believe that it would take 6+ weeks to understand the fix and roll it out unless you don't care

but like you MVL, I'll live with my $13 RDS for now

 

[mikealder]

What has the iPhone app got do with this? its never had traffic and to be honest its rather bland when you compare it what the competion have to offer, anyone who uses an iPhone for Navigation needs to research whats available before blindly going for a big name supplier as there is far better available in the market place.
As for a 6 wek fix to a traffic related issue, in the UK we had no reliable RDS traffic for the entire duration of Navcore 7 which was more like 12 months - Mike

 

[tt_ttf]

What has the iPhone app got do with this? its never had traffic and to be honest its rather bland when you compare it what the competion have to offer, anyone who uses an iPhone for Navigation needs to research whats available before blindly going for a big name supplier as there is far better available in the market place.
As for a 6 wek fix to a traffic related issue, in the UK we had no reliable RDS traffic for the entire duration of Navcore 7 which was more like 12 months - Mike

What does iphone have to do with this? Nothing but an observation that TT does not know what will hit them if they screw it up. That's a very closely watched market space and a lot of people at look at that app who would not otherwise be a PR nightmare for TT -

That app is lame, has been miss launched already in terms of the mount and it's 1 start reviews equal the good ones!

Basically venting off steam - Just like they bailed on the US on TT6 for maps then never did anything with TT7 (other than teaser maps) and then seemingly bailed on Plus, I am just waiting to see what happens when they screw up the iPhone app which I seriously believe they will.

Like others have said - any semblance of customer loyalty from the past is done for me!

 

[mikealder]

I am just waiting to see what happens when they screw up the iPhone app which I seriously believe they will.

Sorry to point out the obvious but this has already happened with the release of the iPhone application, if it improves at no cost to current users then every credit, if its going to cost more, or require further purchases for what I see as basic capability such as Text to Speech, full custom POI support and decent iPOD integration via Bluetooth and/ or the line out connector then is a dead duck for me.

The others are getting there much quicker in delivering a very good alternative software package that can rival the top end stand alone PND units which is rather impressive considering the limitations placed upon software developers by Apple. Even the hardware the software has to use is far from high end when compared to what is available these days, I still consider my three year old Holux GPSlim236 receiver a far better GPS device than whats fitted in the iPhone - Any of my HTC phones with integral GPS receivers are better performers in the GPS mode than the iPhone.

If Navigon and Sygic can produce applictions that work very well and Co-Pilot should soon have TTS ( allthough I will believe that when I hear it from the unit based upon what happened with the PDA CP7 app - long promised and never delivered) The TomTom iPhone application has some considerable development needed to catch up let alone become a leader in this field .

Earlier today I let a work mate have a play around with my iPhone as he is considering purchasing a nav app for his 3GS phone, I very much doubt he will be going down the TT route due to whats mentioned above, ?70 is no big deal, but when you can get better products for the same price or less, ask yourself who is being silly - A purchase due to a brand name demonstrates loyalty, or possibly ignorance as to what is possible, sadly there are plenty of people purchasing sub standard navigation applications for their iPhones at great expense - Mike

 

[doctormstein1]

Well, tonight I filed a complaint with the MA Office Of Consumer Affairs based on false advertising. They are still touting traffic as a feature of the unit. Let's see if that gets some attention.

called second level support about plus services. Maybe someone can figure out what they are doing. They said that they are Tracking this problem until the 16th of this month and then??????? What the means, I really don't know

 

[mvl]

It could be a coincidence, but if you believe expansys.com, the GO 950 will be released on the 19th (at least in the UK).

I'm still holding out hope that this "outage" is a deliberate Inrix shutdown, and that Tomtom has an HD traffic launch soon and will be using that as its traffic source. With the coincidence of the date, maybe HD traffic will be announced the 19th (the next business day after the 16th).

Of course all this is just baseless speculation. I really really doubt this will happen.

 

[gatorguy]

What reasonable explanation would there be for an intentional disabling of PLUS traffic now for a future launch of HD? IF they were preparing to roll out HDTraffic, then why not explain it, and why dump PLUS two months ahead of time? I can't imagine it was done on purpose unless they have a contractual problem with Inrix.

 

[mvl]

Tomtom mentioned they were "in discussions" for HD traffic in the last financial call. Possibly they were bidding AT&T vs Verizon/Airsage/Google.

Maybe they may have planned 9/1 as the Verizon/Airsage/Google launch (everything seemed technically ready), and thus didn't renew with Inrix, which may have prompted Mistelle's rant. Maybe the Inrix 740 announcement meant that Tomtom was shifting the contract from PLUS-only to LIVE-only since Tomtom was willing to temporarily invest in its high-end traffic.

Then AT&T, desperate for business with the impending iPhone exclusivity loss, may have underbid with a last minute offer Tomtom couldn't refuse, and caused Tomtom to jump ship. Then maybe now Tomtom technicians are feverishly installing HD traffic and don't want to invest in an Inrix renewal until it's done.

Again, baseless, but a plausible speculation.

Otherwise, you'd have to assume that Tomtom management so stupidly understaffed/laid off so many of their developers/engineers in recovering from Teleatlas debt, that the remaining ones are too overwhelmed (with the iPhone app, the Tomtom Start OS, the 950 OS) that they have no capacity for bug fixes. Given their inability to fix simple issues with the app 8.35 (bluetooth, etc) this understaffed rationale has more believability for me.

 

[dervari]

So why would they turn off PLUD traffic if HD traffic is coming? Maybe I'm not understanding it, but HD traffic is a new offering that would not be compatible with the 730, etc. Why would they leave their entire user base in a lurch.

if they have turned off PLUS traffic without 30 days notice, then they have voilated their TOS and everyonewho owns an affected unit should be elligible for a refund per their TOS IIRC.

 

[dervari]

TomTom is saying ALL the traffic products are being affected now!! Yea, right..and they don't even know the difference between effected and affected.

The Traffic Service has not been discontinued. We are working on resolving the matter. Due to this, the terms of service have not been 'violated'. We apologize for any confusion this has caused. All of our devices have been effected (sic) by the Traffic service. This includes the GO 740 LIVE, PLUS Traffic, and the RDS-TMC Traffic.

 

[Germerican]

TomTom is saying ALL the traffic products are being affected now!! Yea, right..and they don't even know the difference between effected and affected.

Oh, TomTom...

That's just bull! Traffic on my 740 was working just fine this morning.

By the way, I still haven't received my Plus Traffic refund.

 

[InfojunkE]

By the way, I still haven't received my Plus Traffic refund.

I haven't received mine either

 

[doctormstein1]

So why would they turn off PLUD traffic if HD traffic is coming? Maybe I'm not understanding it, but HD traffic is a new offering that would not be compatible with the 730, etc. Why would they leave their entire user base in a lurch.

if they have turned off PLUS traffic without 30 days notice, then they have voilated their TOS and everyonewho owns an affected unit should be elligible for a refund per their TOS IIRC.

Just wanted to give a little hope. Received this nice email:

I wanted to give you some information in regards to the Plus Traffic issues you and others have experienced recently. We are aware of the issue and are working on a fix currently. We do not have a specific time frame as to when a fix will become available, however it should be in the very near future. We do not want to give any false expectations as to when this issue may be resolved, but I do know that they are very close to having the issue fixed. I’m hoping to have more information early next week as to when a resolution may become available.

A glimmer of hope from a nice tomtom person.

 

[momcat1]

TomTom is saying ALL the traffic products are being affected now!! Yea, right..and they don't even know the difference between effected and affected.

My antenna is working flawlessly. I went to NYC over the weekend, and was correctly detoured around all the blockages. And those were not just time of day normal backups. it noted, correctly, disabled vehicles, how many lanes were blocked, etc.