Garmin Nederland Reviews 3,012

Angry at the lack of action/updates

When placing my order is stated delivery within 7 days. Now past this point and told awaiting stock Sept.

At no point has Garmin informed me of this and even today when adding the watch I am told dispatched in 4-7 days.

Stop selling items if you don’t have them in stock!!

I contacted Garmin over 2yrs ago about my Venu 2 plus. The watch itself was at least 10-15% out on my walking distances and wasn’t counting my steps. It only that the Strength workout on watch wasn’t counting my reps or recognising what exercise was doing (i.e seated chest press) in which garmin specifies that the watch is capable of doing.

I reported this to Garmin several 5-6times and they tried and tried to avoid refunding me for my faulty watch by saying try the trouble shooting tools on the Garmin website using these links. After following some of the links they sent I noticed they were not links even compatablw with my watch but for Gamin watches.

Eventually they sent me another watch (reconditioned). This watch has actually been worse and has the same issues. I reported this again to Garmin several times and they have just as bad in their response. I’m going to try consumers rights uk to seee if they can help me with this item as Garmin have been awful and also dismissive. My wife has also just bought a Forerunner 265 she’s had it 8weeks, it’s also playing up and not holding its charge.

I would avoid Garmin smart watches, I always had Apple and they are definitely more reliable.

I cannot use the Sleep HR monitor for exercise. For no reason. It is capable. They have disabled it to be stingy

50 euro registration fee with no suspension possible. So if you use one month a year you need to pay the 50 euro yearly or keep paying every month
.

my watch stopped connecting to WiFi. Support didn't even try to help, just said I can pay £140 and exchange the watch. I honestly think they're purposely stopping some watches from working so that they can get more money out of people. have read online that many people are facing these issues. I will not be buying anything from this brand again, and I advise against it.

AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!
Customer service is non existent!
I have reached out 3 times with all the problems im experiencing with my £880 watch... I heard nothing back and of course issues have not been fixed.
If you have any sense you will NEVER purchase anything from this tragic company.

Over the years my wife and I have had 8 different Garmin devices, 4 watches and 4 gps bicycle computers.
All these devices and, as far as I know, all Garmin devices have an extremely annoying and unnecessary feature.
Upon connection with a charging cable the Garmin switches on, anasked for and unwanted.
Then you have to wait until boot is completed so that you can switch it off manually.
It even gets more stupid...sometimes (not always) the Garmin device switches on when you disconnect the charging cable so you have to check that your device is not on unwanted, starting to drain your freshly charged battery. Why o Garmin, why ?
Mostly, connecting a device to a charger means that you want to charge it, not drain the battery further by unnecessarily switching on the device.
Imagine any other electric or electronic device switching on when you connect it to a charging cable. Tooth-brush. power drill, vacuum cleaner, electric car, it would be ridiculous but with Garmin it is normal practice.
Garmin should know about this because it is often discussed in forums on the internet. People really hate it.
Over the years I have tried to explain this problem to Garmin, by phone, by mail, I even mailed with someone high up in Garmin tree in the USA, but they do not care or do not understand. Sometimes they answer that it is technically inevitable that your watch or gps computer starts up upon connecting a charging cable but this is nonsense.
An electronics engineer myself, I know there is no reason whatsoever why this should happen.
This is a classic example of non user-centric engineering.
Garmin counterparts like Wahoo and Hammerhead do not have this annoying feature / problem nor does any smartphone in the world.
So, next time...probably Wahoo

I am extremely disappointed with Garmin India's response to my service request regarding my Venu 2S smartwatch. Despite being a premium product, Garmin has refused to offer any repair options in India—even for hardware issues—and is instead forcing a paid replacement of INR 34,200 for just the dial. This is not a solution; it’s a clear case of exploitation.

No attempt was made to assess or repair the issue. I was bluntly told that Garmin doesn’t repair its devices due to "waterproofing limitations." If Garmin cannot maintain water resistance or product functionality after repair, then that reflects a serious design flaw—not a customer issue.

A product that fails shortly after the warranty ends and can’t even be repaired is unacceptable. Now you’re offering a 90-day warranty on a replacement that costs nearly the same as a new watch? That’s unethical.

Garmin’s post-sales support and service policy in India are deeply flawed. This is a clear violation of consumer trust and product responsibility.

I am escalating this to:

✅ Consumer Forum (Jago Grahak Jago / National Consumer Helpline)
✅ Social Media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram)
✅ Garmin Global Leadership, to expose how Indian customers are being treated.

Garmin must be held accountable for selling expensive devices with no long-term support and no repair ecosystem in India. I demand a reasonable and customer-friendly resolution. I will not accept silence or scripted replies. They don't even allow grievances to be displayed on their forum

I bought fenix 7 pro during holidays in US in September 2023 and from this time because of malfunction Garmin in Poland replaced me the watch 2x with the second hand! The first new watch was broken and the two others were too. E.g. the present watch when I hike doesn’t measure and record properly distance, total rise e.t.c. The one of my planned routes was about 25 km and the watch recorded 13 km and summary rise was measured 400 m instead of over 800 m. Garmin claims arrogantly that the watch is ok without any explanations. I made all their recommendations without any results. I spent almost 2 years discussing with their service. I tried to seek help from Garmin service on the American website, but they redirected me back to the Polish service. So I have no one to turn to. I have had constant problems with Garmin from the beginning and using their watch caused me great dissatisfaction. They neither want to solve the problem nor do they want to return the money for the watch. Looking for help was very frustrating experience and the final their answer for my complaint caused that I will NEVER buy any Garmin product.

I bought the Vivomove Sport watch. It only worked for a few months. I contacted customer support, sent all the documentation, photos, but I didn't get the watch fixed or a solution for the problem. It was a bad investment.

A few years ago, my grandad unfortunately passed away, and left me a little money. I decided to invest in an expensive Garmin Fenix 6S as it was the first time I would have been able to buy a top of the range model. I researched several different watches and eventually decided to go with Garmin after having some bad experiences with a lesser known competitor.

This was a massive mistake. The watch is without doubt the worst thing I’ve ever bought. I’m stuck with it because I can’t afford to change to another brand now, and at a cost of around £500 I have to say I’m extremely disappointed. Points below explain why:

1. It is the most demotivating training tool ever. Constantly tells you that you are in poor condition (even when fit!) because it doesn’t take into account elevation or climbing over stiles/gates etc. when off road
2. The wrist based HR monitor is absolutely terrible. It constantly records implausible readings of 180bpm on even easy runs, and is so inaccurate I ended up having to buy another chest strap (£140) because these no longer come with the watch anymore.
3. If you don’t use it for absolutely everything you do, the algorithm makes insane assumptions and your training status (which is integral to the watch and cannot be switched off) will constantly switch wildly between strained, productive, unproductive, maintaining, detraining.
4. Garmin technical support are not particularly helpful and will only tell you to turn it on and off, or reset it, or use the latest software. Many of the features on the watch either cannot be turned off or bypassed, or if you do manage to turn them off, render the expensive watch no better than a cheaper simple watch.
5. The solar charging function does absolutely nothing at all, and is not worth the extra cost. I have left the watch in bright sunlight for hours at a time and the battery life has not changed at all. Just a gimmick.
6. Suggested workouts are nonsense, you will often be told to rest or do recovery runs, then your training status will change to detraining/unproductive again. Or it will tell you to do 15 second sprints all the time, which (since the recovery is a walk) will lead to you being told your performance condition is poor or your VO2 max has dropped.
7. Speaking of VO2 max. This is also nonsense. If you do a short fast run every day (15 mins flat out) it will continue increasing your VO2 max right up to silly numbers, and tell you your training and performance condition is great, right up until you injure yourself from foolish training. If you run at a low heart rate (and lower pace) you will see a steady decline in VO2 max, and this will continue despite you getting faster at races and being much fitter. The algorithm doesn’t work.
8. Finally, the pulse oximetry. Sleep and HRV functions are also pointless. I’ve had awful nights where I’ve been awake constantly, only to have an excellent sleep score and high HRV, and equally, had great relaxing sleep but been told by the watch my training status is strained because my HRV is low. It’s not accurate enough using the wrist monitor to mean anything.

In summary. Worst product and support I’ve bought. Thoroughly wish I had gone for a competitors watch, or just bought a cheap one instead.

Awful service. Garmin forerunner 255 not working properly in Open Water, when this is purposely what I bought it for. Tried to contact Garmin multiple times with no avail. More than half an hour multiple times in waiting queue for phone contact. Terrible CS and they just send you in circles.

Really a pity considering I like their products generally, and have 3 different devices. Very disappointed they do not reach out to me or help me at all.

Garmin Express doesn't run on Linux :-(
I hope this will be changed, as we in Europe should not be pushed on Windows or Mac. Please have it run on Linux!

Had a problem with the strap on my 3 year old Vivoactive 4 so contacted customer service chat for advice. 5 days later I've got a brand new strap completely free of charge.

This is the worst customer service ever. No replies at all. No interest in solving the issue. Comparing Garmin customer services, I have been using Polish support before and that one was amazing. Support in NL is below even depression level.

Worst customer service and online purchase experience I ever had. I ordered a red strap and Garmin sent me Flame Red instead and it happened twice , I gave up thought there should be a problem for them to tell apart Red and Flame Red are different in colour, them ordered an Amp Yellow strap, this time they send me a second hand! strap and then apologized for the mistake that they have sent a returned product to me! I had to print three times three return labels on my own expenses and send it back to them. Extremely unhappy for this Garmin service will NEVER buy from Garmin.

Their cameras are ok, but charging £14 for a replacement mount which is just a small piece of plastic is outright disgusting.
Don't buy a camera from them and get locked in, get something else

Product broke after a few months, support is non existent. Just passed from one person to another, no-one able to help. Forcing me to do a chargeback

Absolutely appalling customer service. I bought a brand new Vivofit 4 (direct from Garmin) on 14th Feb 2025. Periodically it fails to automatically sync with the App and I have to manually sync it. I see the app sync, it shows the same data as the device itself, and then it 'forgets' this data when I look at the app later. My device is linked to my Vitality Health insurance so it's losing me actual real money by doing this. Yesterday (15/04/25) I did ~12600 steps, and despite manually syncing 3 times and confirming that the app got the data, the app now thinks I only did ~8500. I contacted Garmin customer service via chat, who asked me to do things I'd already done, and when I asked why they needed me to repeat things I'd already done myself and how they were going to know if it fixed anything as it was an intermittent fault, they cut me off. 'George' was very rude.
If they can't fix this, then the device is unusable to me. And I would suggest anyone else thinking of using it for any purpose other than just interest should AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

UPDATE: I 'chatted' to another person at customer services, and Garmin admitted that they think there is something wrong with my device, and offered me a swap FOR A RECONDITIONED unit. This is AGAINST UK CONSUMER LAW. So not only are they rude, but they are trying to fob me off by breaking the law.

Awful customer services Garmin forerunner 255 broke within 8 months. Returned to to them only for them to send me a broken reconditioned replacement.

Contacted them again, they are again sending another reconditioned watch out to me rather than new. Used to be decent watches my 235 is still going strong after 8 years (passed it down to my son).

Probably better look elsewhere nowadays for fitness tracker.