Fitbit Premium Activation Fail

[BTLy]

Putting this out there as a cautionary tale for others who might end up in the same situation.

I've used various Fitbit devices since ~2014.

Several months ago, I purchased a new Fitbit Inspire 2 because it was advertised as providing a free year of Fitbit Premium.

Rather than initially posting to the forums, I contacted support -- because I thought that they could actually help. Despite multiple interactions and sending screenshots to support my experience, no joy.

At one point, I thought I had achieved success by installing the Fitbit app on a different IOS device and then accessing the Premium option on that device...where it said that the trial was available for $0.00, but when I clicked through that option, I ended up getting charged $9.99.

Since I provided that information to Fitbit support, they have gone radio silent and I no longer expect to get anything useful or helpful back from them.

In short, be aware that if you have an existing Fitbit Premium subscription, the purchase of a new Fitbit device that is advertised as including a year of Premium may not result in a smooth transition that includes the additional year.

[BTLy]

I got a reply from Fitbit support within 7 hours of my previous post to this forum so either someone at Fitbit still cares about their customers or it was purely coincidental. 

The response stated that I still had an active Premium subscription and I should wait until 3 days after the subscription expired and then I would be able to activate the free trial. (That active Premium subscription was the $9.99/month that I risked paying to see if theoretical promises of happy backend elves making things work would magically occur.)

I waited. As of this morning, both the Fitbit app and the Apple Store know that I do not have an active Premium subscription at this point. And, yeah, my activation for Premium is still limited to the paid $80/year or $10/month options. 

Reached back out to support and was asked to provide screenshot. Which I did.

I'm really not sure why something that should be so easy/simple (from a consumer standpoint) is so difficult. 

If Fitbit does not want to honor the 1-year Premium trial included with the purchase of a new device, then Fitbit should just say so -- and by doing so maybe at least achieve some respect from the affected consumers by NOT wasting hours of their time attempting to work with support, doing the same things repeatedly and resulting in the same failed outcomes.

[BTLy · Accepted solution]

Months later, I have still not received the 1-year Premium trial that was supposedly included with the purchase of my new device. In the interim, Fitbit got $9.99/month from me on 2 different occasions as I attempted to troubleshoot the problem.

I purchased a new Fitbit device in June 2022 due to the statement that 1 year of Premium was included.  Despite multiple interactions with Fitbit Support via chat and email, I have yet to be able to access the included 1 year of Premium.

Today, when I replied to my support ticket -- which was on hold because Fitbit Support stated that they couldn't assist while there was an active Premium subscription -- even if that subscription was purchased in error (admittedly my fault on that purchase), I got the following response:

Thanks for contacting Fitbit Support. It’s been a little while since we heard from you, so we closed your case. For the fastest answers, visit our help site.

I received no notification that the case had been closed until I attempted to provide additional information.

I like my Fitbit device -- for multiple reasons -- and don't want to chuck it or switch to a different device, but Fitbit seems determined to make that happen.

At this point, I'm relatively certain that the cost to Fitbit in terms of payment to their employees for the "support" activities associated with my specific issue exceeds the cost of an $80 annual subscription. This seems like a poor business model.