Well I never thought it would happen to me. I had an HDS5 that was out of warranty that quit working back in March because it got wet. I called Lowrance and was told that if it could be fixed it would be $49.95 or replaced for $399. I sent it in and it was determined that it could'nt be fixed. I opted for the $399 unit. It was on backorder but would be shipped soon. Meanwhile Academy ran theirs on sale for $499 plus a $100 rebate with a full warranty instead of 6 months like the one that was on backorder. I called lowrance and pled my case. They told me that they would cancel my order. I purchased the one at Academy. A few days later I recieved an e-mail saying my backorder had been shipped. I got on the phone again and was told they were sorry and sent me a UPS shipper to send it back for free. No problem except they had'nt removed the charge from my credit card. Time rolled on and still no removal. Yesterday I called again and they told me it would be removed by the end of the day. Guess what,I recieved an e-mail saying "MY UNIT HAD BEEN SHIPPED" and will be here Wednesday. Still not taken off my credit card. Now I'm sitting by the phone waiting for a call from Lowrance. They have my money and the wheels are turning backwards. Unbelievable to say the least!!!

Call your credit card company and have them do a chargeback.

Been on the phone for hours with Mastercard say there is nothing they can do

can you send pm your RMA # or email

thanks

Im sure that will get resolved.

keep it and sell it on ebay try to make a little money

Man, hate to hear that. I had a great experience with Navico on my unit going out. Returned a new one in 6 days.

Sent Jason a PM, hope he can help.

Lowrance has had awesome customer service with me lately. That wasnt the case 2 years ago but that has changed. Sorry for your frustration but that sounds like a whole mess of circumstances and you threw a wrench in there buying one somewhere else. They arent totally to blame for that at all.

They replaced a hds 5 for me that had water intrusion, it's was out of warranty, shipped it to them got another, not new but remanned from they it 10 days. I was pretty tickled with the service. Made the price I paid for my new hds 8 not seem so bad

I waited 3 months and heard so many b.s. stories waiting on a simple transducer with cable from navico that i gave up.It was obvious, a lot of people in that company needed to be fired.Ordered the part from an online warehouse and had it in two days.Of course then we had to keep dealing with the lying doofuses at navico for a month to make sure they really had cancelled the order.Hate to rant,but they really are the worst i"ve seen.This was 3 months ago.

I just had an experience this weekend with my Humminbird making me wonder if Lowrance had the same qualities, your post answers my question. To elaborate, I was on Ray Roberts this weekend and it was pretty rough out there. I have a Humminbird 788 mounted on my bow, where the 788 has a quick connect master connector that snaps to the base mount on my ram mount. My ram mount obviously wasn't tight enough and the ram mount tilted back against my gunnel on the boat, and the gunnel was pressing on the master connector's release. I glanced at it while navigating large waves and freaked, got off plane, took off my kill switch, stood up and looked up, the 788 was gone.... fell in the lake. I few expletives came out of my mouth, then I recalled Dough Vahrenberg demoing the Humminbirds were waterproof and they float. So I put the trolling motor down and saying to myself, "you're screwed, even if it floats, you're in the middle of the lake, who knows where it is". Believe it or not, not 2 minutes into it, there it was floating face up. I pulled it out, dried it off and not one drop of water got into the LCD nor in the memory card holder! This thing got slammed into the water and likely hit the boat on the way into the water! I went to Roberts the next day and it worked flawlessly. I was skeptical when going from Lowrance to Humminbird, but the customer service, software updates offering new features, and the ruggedness of these makes me question my decision no more..

Sorry for the long-winded story

I have been assured that this matter has been rectified.

Marine Dept at Bass Pro says they have alot more problems with Lowrance than Humminbird.

You should have every right to buy anywhere you choose. Too bad Lowrance-Navico (not an American owned company) is uwilling to offer an honest U.S. customer burdened with a known factory defect (water seal) as good of a price/warrenty on a replacement unit as he can find at retail at any Academy store.