Can I get my money back?

[OliverSoi]

After less then two hours I am convinced that the subscription level will not provide any benefits (I expected) to me.
How can I get my money back - this was a wrong buy!

Thanks.
Oliver.

 

[El-Dracho]

Hi Oliver,

Too bad to hear.

What are your expectations of the OB community, the technical platform, the forum and the OB1 app, which can not (yet) be met?

You have probably seen that the OB 1 app in particular (I guess that's what you're talking about, since you wrote this in the OB 1 app section of the forum) is being continuously developed at a very high speed. This also with the involvement and help of OB members and users of the app bringing in their ideas. In this way, the needs of the members can be met better and better.

So it would be great to hear from you what your requirements are. Thank you in advance.

Maybe you would like to participate in a meetup of members in Europe? There you can meet members in person. You can find the scheduled meetings in the Rally Points. There you can filter by region. Germany for example belongs to the region MidEurope.

Cheers,
Bjoern

 

[OliverSoi]

I expected some tracks/trails that I can only see when subscribed but there are none. Zero.
Apparently this app is mainly used in the US and not anywhere else. I could not find any tracks in the Eastern part of Canada.

As a side note, How can I switch to Kilometer?

 

[Kent R]

After less then two hours I am convinced that the subscription level will not provide any benefits (I expected) to me.
How can I get my money back - this was a wrong buy!

Thanks.
Oliver.

Email Support@OverlandBound.com

 

[M Rose]

I expected some tracks/trails that I can only see when subscribed but there are none. Zero.
Apparently this app is mainly used in the US and not anywhere else. I could not find any tracks in the Eastern part of Canada.

As a side note, How can I switch to Kilometer?

Tracks are generated by members… the largest population of members is inside the United States. We have been asking for more track and POIs to be imported by our members outside of the United States without very many people participating. I don’t think people understand how the app works… People spend a lot of time building their tracks and don’t want to share their information publicly.

Also mapping doesn’t really become valuable in the app until you are an expedition tier member. I am unsure what your level of membership was before.

Lastly, trip planning resources are rolling out of development shortly which will help with the lack of tracks.

 

[El-Dracho]

@M Rose You have described that very well. Thank you.

Such a project lives from participation within the community and I can only encourage everyone to contribute to it. And also in Europe several members do this. So, we have already collected a number of POIs for overlanders in Europe, which a look at the map reveals. And a few tracks, for example in France, Scandinavia, UK, are also available. And I am confident that there will be more in the future

And since @OliverSoi explicitly asked for tracks in Eastern Canada, I took a look and can see tracks on the map there as well. Oliver, you can recognize the tracks by the small off-road vehicle symbol. Have a look at it. And as it has already been said, maybe it's due to your membership level that you cannot see them? The functions and the tiers and functions are explained here in this video tutorials. Or take a look at this link here, it explains the differences between Basic, Adventure and Expedition tier.

 

[kunstmilch]

Expecting members to pay the same amount as Gaia or onx off-road (which pays people to do this work) but then work for OB1 is a bit awkward. I love the idea of community but paying to play then on top of that putting in work is a little frustrating. Dont get me wrong, Im paying for the adventure tier, though it doesn't seem to do much in terms of maps.

 

[M Rose]

@kunstmilch youbare correct, the Adventure Tier doesn’t get into mapping very much… it’s a teaser to allow a member a preview of what to expect from the Expedition Tier.

 

[M Rose]

For those of you complaining about paying for the Expedition Tier to gain access to offline maps and GPX data, think about this one for a minute… other sites charge a premium for one track or route… For instance to get section 1 of the TAT is $9.00 for the whole route you’re looking at almost $200.00 so the TAT doesn’t interest you, how about the LCT (Lewis and Clark Trail), or the Great Divide Trail… all of these well known trails can cost up to $400-500 a piece… I think the $60/year is well worth the investment just to have access to these trail system GPX files without having to purchase each and every single one individually.

 

[OTH Overland]

For those of you complaining about paying for the Expedition Tier to gain access to offline maps and GPX data, think about this one for a minute… other sites charge a premium for one track or route… For instance to get section 1 of the TAT is $9.00 for the whole route you’re looking at almost $200.00 so the TAT doesn’t interest you, how about the LCT (Lewis and Clark Trail), or the Great Divide Trail… all of these well known trails can cost up to $400-500 a piece… I think the $60/year is well worth the investment just to have access to these trail system GPX files without having to purchase each and every single one individually.

Personally, I feel the $60 is a good deal just to support the add free forum community, without factoring in all the benifits of the mapping and other goodies that keep growing on OB-1. I have had Gaia for years, works great(ish) as a map platform, but does not come with the community of like minded people. you can get answers to pretty much any overlanding issue that you might have without getting flamed, you can travel most anywhere and if you have an issue, put in a help request and likely a member will be there to help out. Definatly a group that you get back at least as much as you put into it.

 

[kunstmilch]

M Rose, please dont be offended. I get what youre saying, and though I am on disability retirement limited income I upgraded to expedition tier (since this seems to be the only tier that is useful to me). The point isn't necessarily that 60 a year is a high price, which it isn't (like at all). Its more like how (bare with me here as this is not a perfect metaphor by far) Netflix, Hulu, youtube, etc all charge and that adds up quick...and because capitalism is a POS more is never enough so what was once free becomes paid, but now we have paid tv AND commercials. So now imagine (and yes I know this isn't a fair example) yelp wanted to charge for access to their reviews, so you decide to buy in for some reason and then your area is dead with no reviews...or the reviews are very limited...then yelp says hey man you need to get on that and fill out those reviews so everyone on yelp can have a better experience!

Well really bad metaphor (or example or whatever) aside...Im not a Yelp employee, and Im certainly not going to pay to work for yelp...same for amazon right...why should I put effort into reviews...I do on occasion but I am weary of normalizing this free labor as "community." That isn't to say I'm against OB1 AT ALL. In fact my scholarly work is in this type of community building and how this functions in our society both practically and semiotically.

However, please realize most people are used to a "banking" model, where one puts in a dollar and gets something in return for that dollar. OB1 I hope, will never succumb to being simply that model, but it is what your average person has been conditioned to approach everything with, hence the bad examples above. Using the dollar value argument is ultimately defeating as it allows the container for agency (OB1) to be reduced to a simple money making ploy. Though it does need to also provide that value for dollar, that value must be (in my opinion) placed in bringing agency to those individuals who are both trepidatious and new to adventure and to those who have gone out their whole lives but now see a community. I hope this makes sense. And Michael can correct me if Im way off base here as I am not trying to say this is Michaels intent, but rather this is the effect I see, and why I am happy to pay the 60 bucks for the year. That said, Im a royal PITA and critique everything as an artist scholar and semiotician.

 

[M Rose]

M Rose, please dont be offended. I get what youre saying, and though I am on disability retirement limited income I upgraded to expedition tier (since this seems to be the only tier that is useful to me). The point isn't necessarily that 60 a year is a high price, which it isn't (like at all). Its more like how (bare with me here as this is not a perfect metaphor by far) Netflix, Hulu, youtube, etc all charge and that adds up quick...and because capitalism is a POS more is never enough so what was once free becomes paid, but now we have paid tv AND commercials. So now imagine (and yes I know this isn't a fair example) yelp wanted to charge for access to their reviews, so you decide to buy in for some reason and then your area is dead with no reviews...or the reviews are very limited...then yelp says hey man you need to get on that and fill out those reviews so everyone on yelp can have a better experience!

Well really bad metaphor (or example or whatever) aside...Im not a Yelp employee, and Im certainly not going to pay to work for yelp...same for amazon right...why should I put effort into reviews...I do on occasion but I am weary of normalizing this free labor as "community." That isn't to say I'm against OB1 AT ALL. In fact my scholarly work is in this type of community building and how this functions in our society both practically and semiotically.

However, please realize most people are used to a "banking" model, where one puts in a dollar and gets something in return for that dollar. OB1 I hope, will never succumb to being simply that model, but it is what your average person has been conditioned to approach everything with, hence the bad examples above. Using the dollar value argument is ultimately defeating as it allows the container for agency (OB1) to be reduced to a simple money making ploy. Though it does need to also provide that value for dollar, that value must be (in my opinion) placed in bringing agency to those individuals who are both trepidatious and new to adventure and to those who have gone out their whole lives but now see a community. I hope this makes sense. And Michael can correct me if Im way off base here as I am not trying to say this is Michaels intent, but rather this is the effect I see, and why I am happy to pay the 60 bucks for the year. That said, Im a royal PITA and critique everything as an artist scholar and semiotician.

No offense taken. My reply came from me trying to research a very interesting route and having to purchase a 518 mile GPX track for
$250.00 just to modify it for overland use. Unfortunately without paying the $250.00 I cant even start the planning process.

I hear ya loud and clear on the limited income thing. I too play with a very small amount of cash. And I just want to make myself clear. I don’t just use OB1 for navigation, although I have cancels all of my other navigation app premium services. I still run OnX, GAIA, and CalTopo to name my big three… although with the roll out of the new web page, and the upcoming release of in app route planning I will be using these other services less and less.

 

[M Rose]

... Definitely a group that you get back at least as much as you put into it.

Dave, this pretty much sums up OB in a nutshell. Those that are coming here (Overland Bound) just to glean a navigation recourse are really missing out on the actual benefits of their membership. It really is about the community sand fellowship the membership provides. As @kunstmilch points out dollar in and dollar out value is way more than just a file.

 

[Michael]

Expecting members to pay the same amount as Gaia or onx off-road (which pays people to do this work) but then work for OB1 is a bit awkward. I love the idea of community but paying to play then on top of that putting in work is a little frustrating. Dont get me wrong, Im paying for the adventure tier, though it doesn't seem to do much in terms of maps.

Thank you so much for the feedback! We want people to understand the OB1 product and say, "Well holy hell - that thar is a GREAT deal!It sounds like we are not doing that for you. I want to charge for the right thing. I want the value prop to be very clear.

Is it clear all map data is free? We are not expecting the community to work, and we do not charge for routes and POI added by the community, or otherwise. A registered user (free) has access.

Is there a way we could REALLY SIMPLY present the value proposition in a better way? Maybe we are charging for the wrong thing! We can license a ton of map data, put it in our app and charge for it. Trails Offroad is a straight licensing deal. Data like that is available. We have focused instead on R&D and building features our community needs that are lacking elsewhere. We could easily sell Trail Packs, and our app has a TON of features in addition to that, making it valuable combination.

I'm very interested and appreciative in any feedback you have time to give! OLB is fairly early in this, and feedback like this at this time is important. We will respond.

As well, any feedback on this? https://www.overlandbound.com/pricing/

 

[kunstmilch]

Thank you so much for the feedback! We want people to understand the OB1 product and say, "Well holy hell - that thar is a GREAT deal!It sounds like we are not doing that for you. I want to charge for the right thing. I want the value prop to be very clear.

Is it clear all map data is free? We are not expecting the community to work, and we do not charge for routes and POI added by the community, or otherwise. A registered user (free) has access.

Is there a way we could REALLY SIMPLY present the value proposition in a better way? Maybe we are charging for the wrong thing! We can license a ton of map data, put it in our app and charge for it. Trails Offroad is a straight licensing deal. Data like that is available. We have focused instead on R&D and building features our community needs that are lacking elsewhere. We could easily sell Trail Packs, and our app has a TON of features in addition to that, making it valuable combination.

I'm very interested and appreciative in any feedback you have time to give! OLB is fairly early in this, and feedback like this at this time is important. We will respond.

As well, any feedback on this? https://www.overlandbound.com/pricing/

Michael,

I dont want OB1 to be Onxoffroad or any of that, to be clear. I think its more that the expedition tier is clear and the free is clear, the adventure isn't so much, at least not right now...so I upgraded to expedition tier as it just makes more sense and the cost is really minimal compared to what is gotten, and again, I dont like the banking model and prefer the service or co-op model. My response was specific to the comment previous and unfortunately would be something that would make more sense in a conversation rather than a forum post, but theres only so much time and energy. You are already improving and doing a lot and that needs to keep moving forward. Perhaps sometime if I see you out on the trail and you want to talk shop (likely tired of talking shop though and I can respect that) we can spitball.

 

[Michael]

Michael,

I dont want OB1 to be Onxoffroad or any of that, to be clear. I think its more that the expedition tier is clear and the free is clear, the adventure isn't so much, at least not right now...so I upgraded to expedition tier as it just makes more sense and the cost is really minimal compared to what is gotten, and again, I dont like the banking model and prefer the service or co-op model. My response was specific to the comment previous and unfortunately would be something that would make more sense in a conversation rather than a forum post, but theres only so much time and energy. You are already improving and doing a lot and that needs to keep moving forward. Perhaps sometime if I see you out on the trail and you want to talk shop (likely tired of talking shop though and I can respect that) we can spitball.

Around a campfire sometime indeed. Well, you have already helped immensely with ongoing conversations we are having internally - this provides valuable feedback. Thank you!

 

[Lief_WJ]

After less then two hours I am convinced that the subscription level will not provide any benefits (I expected) to me.
How can I get my money back - this was a wrong buy!

Thanks.
Oliver.

Mr. Oliver. Two hours is not long enough to catch a buzz off a six pack 18% alcohol beer much less see if this community is worth the price of admission.
"Come on man"

 

[Michael]

Mr. Oliver. Two hours is not long enough to catch a buzz off a six pack 18% alcohol beer much less see if this community is worth the price of admission.
"Come on man"

I think Mr. Oliver has long since been refunded :)

 

[Lief_WJ]

Yha

I think Mr. Oliver has long since been refunded :)

That's good. I pitty the fool that has to wheel with that fool!