Tuesday 5th December 2006

Scamera spotter offers cashback

'Get a ticket and we'll refund it', says supplier

---

If you buy a Rossini satellite navigation system and get a speeding ticket, you'll get a £60 cashback refund.

That's the promise from Car Parts Direct (CPD), which said that the device "guarantees that drivers will not pick up any speeding ticket from any speed camera in the UK". As it used to do for a soon-to-be-outlawed radar detector, CPD said that the Rossini Navigator & Camera Spotter includes a guarantee to pay £60 if you pick up a speeding ticket where no advance warning of the camera is given.

According to the supplier, the Rossini Navigator covers over 24,000 potential speed traps on 270,000 miles of roads in the UK and Ireland. Unlike many camera locators, the Rossini Navigator has been programmed to warn of mobile speed camera sites and traffic light red light cameras as well as every known SPECS, Gatso and Truvelo speed camera in the country, according to CPD.

Rossini Navigator & Speed Camera Spotter

The driver is alerted with the words ‘Beware – watch your speed’. A warning appears on a touch operated screen 500 metres before any camera. A reminder of the speed limit appears on the screen too. Motorists also have an option to be warned if they are exceeding the speed limit even where there are no cameras. The new device is legal to use in the UK.

The Rossini Navigator and Speed Camera Spotter is powered from the cigar lighter socket, is transferable between vehicles and all speed camera information is pre-loaded into the unit.

CPD said it promised to supply free camera updates with the new Rossini Navigator until January 2009 for motorists ordering before 1 January 2007.

Government stats show that nearly two million motorists received speeding prosecutions last year. A further 124,000 were prosecuted for jumping a red light after being caught by a camera. A speeding ticket can increase a driver’s insurance premium by 17 per cent, and a second one can add up to 60 per cent to a motorist’s insurance bill, according to AA Insurance.

CPD's Mark Cornwall said: "In order to appeal to our customers we had to provide value that TomTom, Garmin and the other players couldn’t offer. What was needed was a first class satnav package with postcode search, turn-by-turn, door-to-door journey instructions and first class speed camera spotter – because we offer a guaranteed £60 cashback the Rossini had to be 100 per cent reliable. We tested it – it really does work. And above all it had to be easy to use."

The Rossini Navigator costs £399 delivered anywhere in the UK.

• www.carparts-direct.co.uk

[cy88]

CPD said:

the Rossini Navigator & Camera Spotter includes a guarantee to pay £60 if you pick up a speeding ticket where no advance warning of the camera is given

What happens then if the driver gets the warning but does not slow down. Do CPD still pay out?

[chrisbr68]

cy88 said:

CPD said:

the Rossini Navigator & Camera Spotter includes a guarantee to pay £60 if you pick up a speeding ticket where no advance warning of the camera is given

What happens then if the driver gets the warning but does not slow down. Do CPD still pay out?

I doubt it! Can you imagine how often that thing will be going off so that that situation could never arise? And with the price of that thing, you could loose your license with them paying the fees and I bet they would still be making a profit...

[speeding]

Chances are they will pay out as they did with an other unit they used to sell. They even paid out when people had it switched off, and got caught.Suspect it's an ok unit but if it needs this kind of marketing, you wonder why and what does the unit actually cost them?

[puggit]

500m? It'll be too late!

[Adam B]

"Rossini Navigator & Camera Spotter includes a guarantee to pay £60 if you pick up a speeding ticket where no advance warning of the camera is given."

so if it is on their database and you don't slow down they won't pay

hardly surprising!

[robwales]

500m is way too late for mobile laser camera vans. Also they can never know of all potential mobile camera sites. The £60 fine isn't the biggest problem though - it's the points and resulting high insurance premiums and possible disqualification.

[jamesc68]

Exactly, this scheme would need to be independantly audited for anyone to have any confidence in it.

If i was the cynical type i would say whats to stop them simply adding the location to their database when you make the initial claim and then not paying out claiming you simply failed to slow down.

Expensive unit too!

[tony*t3]

I thought the law was that advanced warning had to be given within a certain distance of a speed trap, and if it hasn't then there is grounds for appeal anyway....?

[mybrainhurts]

How are they going to snuff out the points...?

[nixfix]

I was foolish enough to fork out for CPD's last offering, the Quintezz - found to be hugely over-sensitive, even in City mode, and sent them several emails asking if this was normal - no reply to any of them.

The final bit of naff customer service was CPD sending me a mail offering to buy the unit back as a goodwill gesture, due to detectors becoming illegal soon. They also stated that I'd had the unit over a year (I'd had it 2 months!!)
No response when I replied to that mail either.

I would say avoid this company - products overpriced, and very poor customer service - doubt you'd get your £60 back, as they never respond to their emails!!!

[droopsnoot]

I read an article in a magazine that suggested they'd paid out over £65k on the last unit under that offer.

[greybeard]

Rather sad, is it not, that we've got to resort to expensive gadgets to simply drive in peace. Even sadder is that gov't has become, in so many ways, our adversary.