April 20: Satellite locator problems

My Garmin personal locator had stopped working on Sunday which was a big problem, since I'm relying on it for SOS. I've got two cellphones but the coverage is not reliable for the whole trip; the whole point of the Garmin was that it'd work anywhere. So this was causing some stress.

Googling and checking their support pages didn't help, so Monday evening I got in contact with their tech support over chat - the timezone meant it was probably someone in the US. It wasn't good, he didn't have suggestions about how to fix it. At one point I asked if there was a way to narrow down the issue and he responded "like what?". It didn't go well. I ended up doing a full factory reset, and putting it outside with a clear sky view for half an hour. I steered the conversation around to "so if that doesn't work, the next step is replacing it, is that right?" and he agreed, possibly to get rid of me.

It did not actually work, so early on Tuesday I called Europe tech support, who were a lot more helpful. Apparently the unhelpful person I was talking to had added a note to my file explaining things, so we could get straight to arranging a replacement.

The expected time to get a replacement was 5-7 business days - which meant it could well arrive after I left; which was a problem! (The replacement was coming from the UK and thanks to Brexit it would spend three days waiting in customs.)

The tech person suggested I could deliver the old unit in person, rather than by courier, and that might save a day. So that afternoon I took a train and bus to Eemnes, found the NL Garmin office, and explained things. I specifically asked if I could pick up a replacement (with all the charm I could muster), but apparently they didn't have any product in the office! But they did seem proactive and competent and promised to do what they could.

I got a tracking link, and later that day it updated with the news that shipping label had been printed. Great! Wednesday: no change. Thursday: no change, except for those stress levels.

On Friday I planned to call as soon as they came online at 10am, but that very morning the status changed to "Out for delivery". It didn't actually get delivered that day, but it did show up on Monday so it arrived with two days to spare.

It was a bit more stressful than it sounds but it got sorted in the end. :)