CaddyAid or CaddyCon?

[Twire]

A few of you will know that Mrs twire treated me to a GPS system this christmas. This is the first few paragraphs of an email I sent to CaddyAid last week. The reason I am now posting it on here, is that I have had no responce, and I'm open for ideas of what to do next, or where to take it further.

Dear CaddyAid

After a great deal of research between golf GPS systems, I chose CaddyAid. The reasons behind this were mainly the aerial photograph of each hole. This I thought would be a great asset especially when playing new courses. With the aerial photograph being of such quality, and I quote.

“CaddyAid gets ALL of its data from aerial photographs, using a wing mounted £1 million camera, guaranteed to 1 metre accuracy. When we fly the Open Championship, that one image alone will cost around £3,000, so hopefully that shows how accurate our core data is. Other companies use less sophisticated methods like Google Earth to get its data, which is widely known to be highly inaccurate”

Imagine my disappointment when looking at the very poor quality photography for my home course (East Devon). I then decided to cross reference these photographs against Google Earth, and to my surprise, I do believe you have used Google Earth for my course. There are many reference points, people on the green, fairway etc. The same thing happened when I cross referenced Woodbury Park against your so called wing mounted £1 million camera.



I will review the product properly on it's functionality etc when GM have the dedicated review section. (This won't be pretty reading for CaddyAid) But in the meantime advice on how I should progress this complaint would be apreciated.

 

[SammmeBee]

You are correct in your assumption I believe.....

How and if you will get anything back is really up to them -you've bought something that does what it is it does (albeit not very well) and now you don't like it (because it is rubbish)....in my book that's a lesson learned and move on...

I would say best thing is stick it on ebay, get some money back and buy a Sky Caddie.....

 

[dandpl]

twiregolf

Take them to court or at least threaten to do so,"trades desciption act" "sale of goods act" No doubt if you can prove what you say they will settle out of court!

Than choose another.

best of luck
dandpl

 

[Twire]

Yes you are right Sammie the system is rubish (although I still think the concept is good) and I do agree it was my decision to purchace CaddyAid, so as regards the functionality I have to live with that. Its being conned that upsets me.

I will be reviewing this as soon as GM have a review section, as I don't won't anyone else to get sucked in like I did.

 

[Robobum]

Twire, if you can, get on the phone to them. You may be given the runaround but if you have the time stick to your guns.
A quick check of the small print to make sure there isn't a disclaimer that they may use exisitng methods whilst they update their own course database. If they don't have this then, in my view, they have sold you something that isn't doing what it was advertised to do.
I looked at the Caddyaid and liked the hole photography, as you did, I ended up getting a sky caddy for ease of use.

Good luck with your complaint.

 

[Beaker]

Twire,

Stick to your guns and don't let them get away with selling you something which doesn't really do what it "says on the tin."

I would give them a call, its much easier for people to ignore or hide from emails, whereas they can't keep brushing you off if you keep ringing and pestering them!

Hopefully you get your money back and can then buy something of a better quality!

 

[haplesshacker]

Twiregolf.

Sorry to hear that. I was looking at Caddyaid as the preffered system due to all of it's features, especially as it's reduced to £50 for the software as I have a GPS enabled phone.

The only reason I didn't / haven't bought it yet is because the home club is having a major redevelopement of it's 2 courses, and is due to be playable this spring.

Thanks for your info though, it's made me more cautious of their claims.

If you have a Windows GPS ghone PDA,try freecaddie,it only gives front, middle and back of green, and the figures are derived from users setting up the markers themselves on Google earth. That said, it's accurate enough for me!!

Good luck in dealing with Caddyaid. I think they might have lost potential customers after this!!

 

[kingshankly]

tiregolf

you are right to pursue this matter if this happened to me i would hound them.ring them up tell them your going to give the product horrendous reviews.

 

[Leftie]

“CaddyAid gets ALL of its data from aerial photographs, using a wing mounted £1 million camera, guaranteed to 1 metre accuracy............ Other companies use less sophisticated methods like Google Earth to get its data, which is widely known to be highly inaccurate”

Twire. I might be wrong but I heard that Google Earth use a mixture of satelite and aerial photography - in populated areas more aerial. I would guess that Caddyaid are playing with semantics.

If the image on your gizmo was taken by a wing mounted camera, it was probably the same one that is used by Google Earth.

Some companies may well use the G E images in conjunction with OS maps to measure and plot their maps as it saves sending people out in the field, so to speak.

As for saying G E images are "widely known to be inaccurate", this is one person who 100 % disagrees with this statement from experience. In the course of my work I have used G E to view and measure objects not easily accessable on buildings. Using known measurements as a control I have been able to distinguish the different sizes of objects 600 and 900mm wide. The only inaccuracy I found was "user error" i.e. the difficulty in placing the measuring tool curser accurately enough.

If Caddy Aid are using G E photographs and slagging off G E accuracy in the same promotional material then they are not very smart cookies.

Best of luck.

 

[haplesshacker]

Is that why you can get more detail of the populated areas on GE? Because they incorporate aerial photos.

 

[Cernunnos]

I asked for the free caddyaid-mobile download which I've yet to recieve... Now that I'm very disapointed at

I too had looked at caddy aid which in theory has to be a fantastic system, but if it is like you say "Twiregolf" I certainly wouldn't consider it now, even though I was blown away by what it can do at the belfry at the "Quinn Masters" by the chap promo'ing it there

I've actually been made a great January offer from Shotmeiser, which I am considering... Though at the end of the day I'm likely to go the SkyCaddie route like most others... Though I've heard good things about Sonnocaddie too.

 

[haplesshacker]

Caddyaid look like they have an exceptional product, but unlike GoKart cannot do customer service.

How many times do we see a good product and see it fail because of mismanagement?.

I did register for the Caddyaid Mobile, and guess what it won't work on Windows Mobile phones. Now what is the point of that. There main programme does, so why not CA Mobile? Talk about alienating customers.

Bit of advice to Caddyaid. Sort out your marketing, deceide who your customers are, make sure they are aware of what works with what, and don't take so long to answer e-mails with ambiguious replies. I've had them as well!!

No-one tries to do things badly, sometimes they just come across that way!

 

[Twire]

I to quite like the look of sonocaddy, but I thinks it's a case of "once bitten twice shy" for me, so I'll prolly go for the skycaddy.

There is another option for me, and thats the Mscorecard which is only about $20 and can be run on the PDA I bought for the CA software. You can also run GPS on it, if you map your own coarse (F,M,B of greens)

 

[Beaker]

Cernunnos - If your thinking about Shotmiser i've got one and haven't had any problems with it? Its good and you can put sat nav on it, thats why i got it!

 

[Cernunnos]

Cheers Beaker. May well look further into that, as the e-mail offer is heading down to what I think it should be, though doubt it'll come down any further.

For simplicity & ease of use Skycaddy still wins out.

I've just re-registered for the Mobile version of caddyaid & the free download has just landed on the phone got the free downloaded first 3 holes of a local course. No map but even from where I am now its giving me a yardage to loads of stuff...lol

 

[Leftie]

Is that why you can get more detail of the populated areas on GE? Because they incorporate aerial photos.

Yes. It does look that most of the country is now fairly high resolution.

Thought I would look further into this.

Go into Google Earth on an area that interests you and notice the copyright credits at the bottom when you have fully zoomed out. Image NASA tops the list. As you zoom in the credits change and, dependant on where you are, you end up with credits to Infoterra and/or Bluesky - both of whom take and supply aerial photos to whoever wants them.

 

[viscount17]

twiregolf,

Get on to Trading Standards but tell CaddyAid you will do so if you don't get a satisfactory resolution. Without seeing their advertising, if you have quoted accurately (and completely, ie disclaimers - though they are dubious if inside the box!), they are at the very least using misleading advertising.

As for GE, the biggest problem is that their images are frequently well out of date. If they used GE for my course you would get lost!

 

[Parmo]

Cheers Beaker. May well look further into that, as the e-mail offer is heading down to what I think it should be, though doubt it'll come down any further.

For simplicity & ease of use Skycaddy still wins out.

I've just re-registered for the Mobile version of caddyaid & the free download has just landed on the phone got the free downloaded first 3 holes of a local course. No map but even from where I am now its giving me a yardage to loads of stuff...lol

The G300 shotmiser is good, you can get stats and sat nav aswell as watch movies if the course is slow or listen to music.

 

[Twire]

twiregolf,

Get on to Trading Standards but tell CaddyAid you will do so if you don't get a satisfactory resolution. Without seeing their advertising, if you have quoted accurately

The trading standards bit was was also in the email.

The advertising quote was cut and pasted from there site, so the quote is accurate.

 

[vig]

I have sonnocaddie and really rate it.
Also a total numpty could use one.

It IS a genuine contender for SC