Effective Thursday 18 April 2019 I (Mark Silver) will no longer entertain helping non-customers with issues on equipment that iGage Mapping Corporation did not sell. In addition, iGage will no longer sell accessories, batteries, cables, equipment outside of the United States.
The Back-Story
Since March I have fielded as many as 50 email / phone questions per day from non-customers asking about WNRO (Week Number Roll Over) issues. Since the beginning of April I have gotten over 20 questions per day requesting help with installing updated firmware on receivers, post-processing 1999 dated files. Yesterday I was up until 11:30 pm responding to these queries. Of the 20+ questions yesterday only one was from an iGage customer who purchased the equipment in question from iGage.
Some of the questions come from customers who purchased equipment elsewhere, but have purchased a battery or cable from iGage in the past. Purchasing a cable for a ProMark 500 does not entitle you to support for that ProMark 500 receiver. And if the cable worked when you received it 5 years ago, our warranty has expired and we bear no responsibility for supporting you if it appears to not work today.
All of these non-customer questions share a common thread: the equipment/software was purchased from another dealer who is out of business or no longer will provide support for the equipment that they previously sold.
iGage Customers
If you purchased equipment from iGage, I am happy to support that equipment as best I can (keep in mind that most of the questions at hand are about 7+ year old equipment.) However, I will ONLY support equipment that iGage sold directly or through one of our sub-dealers. So if you purchased multiple receivers from multiple sources, I am not going to help you with the equipment not purchased here.
What if you are willing to pay for support?
Well, that is great, but I will not support equipment that iGage did not sell. I don’t care if you are willing to pay for support.
An alternative is to return the equipment to the original company and purchase replacement equipment from iGage.
Conclusion
Too harsh of response? Perhaps, but by continuing to spend 8+ hours per day supporting non-customers I am putting the company that I work for at risk of failure. We survive by selling equipment and providing the best support and service that we can. Please consider purchasing equipment from us if you expect us to provide you support and service.
iG GPS 
I support this position 100%. We are not running an auto dealership where you can buy elsewhere and get to choose who supports you. I’ve had calls from customers that have purchased equipment from bootleg sellers, Ebay or online dealers and expect local support. Nope!
Exactly. There has to be consequences to purchasing equipment from dealers who provide no service and support or there will be no reason to purchase equipment from dealers who do.
The BS part of this: as you know our (iGage) prices have typically been the lowest in the USA. Most of the time you can purchase from us for less than the eBay price. How could anyone make the decision to purchase from eBay when the alternative is a knowledgeable dealer? Geeze.
I completely support your decision, as you have to look out for your interest. I purchased my promark 500 from an individual with no expectation of support,, and have questions about the upgrade, and unable to find any help. I just found your site and will be purchasing equipment from you in the near future to replace the promark..
PM500s should still work just fine. But it is close to the end of the line for them. No spare parts, no radios, no radio cables, no chance of fixing them.
Thanks for your support in the past, as a service reseller i understand and if there is other issues we can exchange in the future, like providing you results for tests we do on old Ashtech mobile mapper 100-120 i will be happy to do so.
Remember that iGage continues to support customers who purchased equipment from us (or our sub-dealers) with no change in service quality.
The difference is supporting customers from other re-sellers. No more supporting equipment/software that we did not sell. Customers made a decision to support other dealers, now we make the decision to support other customers.
Missing from this discussion is the inability of a customer to contact the manufacturer for parts, support and assistance.
As an exemple of mutual support, we have experience the update for rollover week on mobile mapper 100 and 120, everything is fine, except the raw data still 1999 opening in older MMoffice like 4.xx. Upgrade mobile mapper office 5.1 fix the date for Raw data and this Happy user GPS will continue to run for another 19 years…
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