Wifi will not work

[skinn30]

Dear Fitbit,

I am not sure if you read our community forum posts, but I am addressing it to you, anyway. I recently had my replacement Charge 3’s strap break (first one stopped working under a protection plan). Upon seeing the price for a new band, I thought I would just upgrade to a Versa 2 and bought a protection plan. I especially liked the idea of downloading my Pandora music. I received the watch on Thursday, April 16, and promptly realized that the wifi would not work, which also impacted my ability to download music.  I read all of your community articles and troubleshooting topics.  I have done this before…my first Charge 3 broke after all. Nothing worked. I decided to do a Chat with a support technician. After about 30 minutes of chatting with the person (I think there was a live person…felt like a bot at times), the recommendation was to call your support line because customer support could not identify a fix.  The employee even provided the phone number. I tried calling the support line and promptly got an automated message that you are not doing live support right now.  So, I decided to message Twitter. My first tweet was on Saturday, April 18, and since then I have managed to get one standard tweet back every day that clearly demonstrates that someone is not reading my previous tweets and also has no answer to my wifi issue (The watch/app identifies and connects to the network for about 10 seconds and then will not maintain the connection even though it still recognizes the network. This happens even if I try other networks, all of which work fine with any other device. Oh, and I have already updated the latest Firmware release, which I could only do over Bluetooth).  So, I am now on day 6 of having a brand new, yet broken Versa 2 with absolutely no end in sight for when I might get a solution or an actual person to help me. I am 99% certain that the wifi will never work and that I need a replacement. I am trying to be a good citizen, so I am not wearing my watch so that it can be refurbished and reissued.  And during this insane process of constantly trying to get customer support, I decided to go ahead and buy a replacement strap for my Charge 3 after all so that I could at least have a working watch to use. And, I continued to wear my Charge 3 knowing that the band was loose and could fall off. But hey – I work from home now.  But guess what, it finally fell off when I left my house, and I lost it. And, the replacement band for a watch I don’t have anymore has already shipped.  Basically, this has been a super great week with Fitbit.  My main question is how can you ethically decide to continue to ship product without servicing it? And, based on my understanding of how customer support works, it should be relatively easy to get customer service employees to work remotely from their homes to help customers. Google is your parent company after all. I mean…really? What is actually more dangerous during COVID-19 is to continue to manufacture and ship products.  I don’t think I have ever had such a bad customer experience and lost so much trust in a brand this quickly.  I would gladly just return my Versa 2, but you won’t let me also return my protection plan. I’m already out $30 for a replacement band for a watch I don’t have…how much time and money do I get to lose with you and still not have a working watch?  Inquiring minds would like to know. 

[Odyssey13 · Accepted solution]

Hi @skinn30  sorry all this has happened to you. Google hasn't yet purchased Fitbit, but they did tender an offer. There's a lot of red tape to cut through before owning a company. Have you tried calling support today? At one point support was weekdays only, but you ought to try it again.  Their phone number is (877)623-4997, if you're in the USA. The phone number to call from the UK is: 0800 069 8505. 

[skinn30]

Thank you for such a quick response. I went ahead and gave the customer service line another try, and I actually got through!  After quite a thorough troubleshooting process, which did include a couple of new steps (factory reset) and an attempt to let me know everything was solved and to call back if I had any issues (which I refused to let the customer service employee do) we finally confirmed that I was correct. My Fitbit was never going to connect to my wifi...so I felt a bit vindicated. However, the reason was super disappointing.  As the employee pointed out rather indignantly, the Versa 2 never works with a 5 GHz network. The solution was simply for me to call my network provider and have them change the connection to 2.4 GHz each time I needed to upload music, etc. That is an awesome suggestion!  So, the Versa 2 that uses Alexa and costs $200 only works with dated wifi networks. Awesome. Also, he said this really important feature was clearly stated when I bought the product. So, while I was on hold when he was requesting a complete refund for me, including the protection plan and a fully paid shipping label, which I demanded, I decided to scan the website for those very important details. Guess what - not there.  "But it is in the operating manual that comes with the watch."  Good to know. Wow. Wow. Wow. So, I am no longer a Fitbit user. I am still getting a new band in the mail for a Charge 3 that is now lost, and I will have to pay shipping fees for that twice - once to get it, and once to return.  And maybe one day, Google will fix this craziness. I am a Pixel 2 user after all...Peace out Fitbit, I guess. 

[Jtevin88]

I’m getting the same error with a 2.4ghz connection. The connection lasts only long enough to change the screen on my watch to “Updating Stations“ when I retired to download my Pandora stations. 5 seconds later, connection drops and no music is on the watch. Quite frustrating, once I have time to waste hours with Customer Service I imagine it will result in a refund. Terrible product so far compared to advertisements.