I recently purchased the GPS 66i from REI and the Solar Instinct from garmin.com. I was extremely excited to have these tools to assist me in hiking and fishing in backcountry Montana.
However, the experience of dealing with Garmin customer support has been so infuriating that my excitement has plummeted. I placed the order for my Instinct Solar watch on November 17th. The website stated that it would take 1-3 business days to process the order, then it would ship. It has since been nine days and the order is still processing. I finally found a customer service number to call and learned from an apathetic customer service member that the watch is out of stock and won't ship until the 11th, at best. Since I'm leaving on my backcountry trip on the 12th (almost a month after I placed my order), I found little comfort in knowing this information so late in the game. Why Garmin can't list an item as out of stock on its website or send an email update stating the inventory shortage, is beyond me. I had waited patiently over a week, assuming the lag time was due to COVID, but, in fact, the mysterious delay was due to the lack of concern Garmin has with its customers. If companies from the likes of Etsy knitters to Walmart supercenters can pull it together to list items as out of stock, then why can't Garmin? A company I now suspect is overpriced and unconcerned with quality.
My frustration is also intensified by the consistent bugs I've had to deal with in my 66i. Ultimately, I can't have respect or expectations for a company that charges so much and has yet to deliver anything that deserves the price tag. And should you question this, you'll likely get a disinterested employee who will likely do nothing to improve the experience.
