Voluntary Safety Recall of Fitbit Ionic Smartwatches

[FitbitCommunity]

Fitbit, in conjunction with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), announced a voluntary recall of Fitbit Ionic smartwatches, which the company introduced in 2017 and stopped producing in 2020. The battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard.

The health and safety of Fitbit users is our highest priority. We are taking this action out of an abundance of caution for our users. We will offer a refund to Fitbit Ionic customers.

This voluntary recall is specific to Fitbit Ionic devices. It does not impact any other Fitbit smartwatches or trackers.

If you have an impacted Fitbit Ionic device, please stop using it and visit our webpage where you’ll find:

• Answers to common questions
• Information on how to receive a refund 
• Access to a special discount on select Fitbit devices, bands, and services, if available in your region, for a limited time.

[Red5ive]

Just an update on my previous post...
Looks like they have fixed the issues with the discount store as of today (The UK one at least) the sense, wristbands and subscription were showing the correct discount and I was able to go through and complete my purchase, although the expedited shipping was still showing as £8 as my code seemed to do nothing. Stuck with the free 3 business days instead.
Total cost £132, which means I still have £92.12 in my virtual credit card!

[Hammeroo]

@ShaunOR  Thanks for sharing all your very helpful advice and experience.

Being in Australia, as is @fairmaiden64 , my card is not a Mastercard but a Visa Virtual Account. It is issued in Brisbane, Australia. So there is no need to have the country code and the 0 stays. Now, I did keep screenshots of most seemingly important steps I made before closing them. I used the short version of my full first name, the same as is registered with my Fitbit account. And that is what I filled in for the Shopping Online account. 

My PayPal account, which lay dormant for so many years until now, has my full first and middle name, and of course my surname. So there could possibly be an issue with that. But I believe PayPal says to make sure that, when adding a card to their account, you use the exact name that you used for the new card, in my case the Visa Virtual Account. And I'm sure that's what I had on there, it didn't seem to work, I tried changing it to my full name but that didn't help.

I think that here in Australia PayPal don't have permission from Visa Virtual Gift Card to allow funds to be transferred or paid to another account or a friend or family member. It appears that we can only use it to purchase online, and then only through a few merchants who will accept it, like Amazon etc. Don't forget, Australia always seems to be behind the rest of the world in things like this! 😰 But anyway, I appreciate any help and advice I can get.  😡 

Moderator Edit: Word choice

[ShaunOR]

@Red5ive 

Great to hear that the UK store is back up and working with the discounts applied now. Phew!

When I ordered my Sense, band and premium membership, the Sense was sent from the Netherlands and arrived with me in the UK in around 5-days with standard free shipping. The band was sent separately and arrived in a couple of weeks. The premium membership was automatically added to the Fitbit account used for the purchase. 

Good luck!

[ShaunOR]

@Hammeroo 

No worries!

Thanks for more detail on how the Australian version of the virtual card works with regards to entering a mobile number. 

Another option could be to edit your name in PayPal to match the name on the virtual Mastercard, i.e. remove your middle name in your PayPal account. I had to do this and remove the apostrophe from my surname in PayPal so it matched the virtual Mastercard. 

I thought that you Aussies were usually ahead of the curve as you're one of the first to celebrate New Years 😂

Take care. 

[dane80]

Hey everybody,

Did somebody dicuss with Fitibit refund of extra Ionic accessories?

I just bought some months before the recall several extra bands (I still have three orginials) as they were getting damaged quite quickly plus I have three spare charging cables. I assume both are not working with other models or is there a model using the same band and/or charger?

Would be good to know I somebody has discussed this already with Fitbit? If not I will adress it to the Fitbit support.

Cheers!

[TomDuke]

@dane80 - Having read every post here since the recall began I don't believe anyone has raised this question before.

However, I seriously doubt that you will get much satisfaction from Fitbit. Keep in mind the purpose of this voluntary safety recall is because of the risk of the Ionic battery overheating and possibly causing a burn to the wearer. Their goal is to get people to stop wearing the Ionic.

Since accessories and extra straps pose no risk to the individual, I don't see why they would compensate you for any of those items.

In my opinion, they're being fairly generous offering $299 USD, and the various discounts on new devices, free bands and a free year of the premium app (if you can get them).  I'm not a lawyer and I don't work for Fitbit so who knows?  I'm sure everyone here would be interested to find out if you have any success. Good luck.

[prost22]

I appear to be an outlier. When they sent me the email about the recall in early March, took advantage of the 40% discount, bought a very nice Sense which came with one band. I couldn't figure out how to get the 5 free bands, but since I got the Sense for only $180, when my Ionic was already 5 years old (no problem with it in those 5 years), figured that was a good deal. One key here: I kept using the Ionic though they told me not to. When the Sense came, removed the Ionic from my account, synched the new Sense easily, didn't lose a step in my history (I may have had to do it twice; my cell phone wasn't finding the Sense the first time). Didn't know about mailing the Ionic back until I got the mailer. Promptly sent the Ionic back. 2 weeks later, I got an email about the $299 virtual card. Didn't trust the email was legitimate (it was from hawkmarketplace.com), so I called. First time, the customer support said it was a scam. Back and forth emails, I think customer service was confused. No matter. Went to this Community forum, posted the question about the email legitimacy. A couple of back and forth posts and emails with Customer support, the email was identified as legitimate. 3 days ago I went to get the Virtual master card, which I now have, $299 balance (you have to register and sign up for an account to get the card). The only unknown here is does the card work? I'll try it out soon and let you know how everything goes. 

I agree, the Fitbit offer of 40% off for a new device when my Ionic was 5 years old was generous. The $299 was really just icing on the cake, and unexpected. I just wish others would have had as great an experience as I have had with the entire process.

[DeanP477]

It was similar for me but I randomly checked my spam mail after 6 weeks and
the details for refund was in there and had been for a couple of weeks.
Perhaps have a look. Best of luck

[Alikolbe]

So got my refund, bought replacements , said up to 5 at discounted price, also a year free of service and up to 5 bands, got 3, one band , wouldn't let me get anymore free or a free year of service? Is everyone experiencing this ? Do I have to call, already ordered and got our replacements.

Thanks 

[Peter2447]

I have the same.... What to do? 

[Infinita]

Hi, I just got my mastercard refund and trying to buy through the ionic store and it does not work, says payment method did not go through. Did you try and is yours doing the same? 

-----------

Hi I also am having the same problem. I got my refund through the card but its saying payment method won't work. Did you get the replacements with the refund and it worked for you? For the band I contacted customer support they said to place a separate order and they will somehow reimburse you for the payment for the extra bands.

[Peter2447]

I want to log in on the b4b account. And it even doesn't know my login
details. And i got no mail with the password reset. Verry annoying.

[Infinita]

Has anyone successfully used the mastercard refund in the fitbit ionic store? I am trying to complete the order but it says "Your payment did not go through". Am I supposed to activate the virtual card? 

[Infinita]

Ok update for those who are experiencing the same issue. I called mastercard with the number on the virtual card, they said it was block due to "suspicious activity" so they are sending a new virtual card. Hopefully this works.

[Alikolbe]

Mine worked, but did not give the year membership discount or more than one band free.

[ShaunOR]

@Peter2447 

In the UK, the B4BPayments site asks you to enter the code from the email they sent you. On the following page, it is asking you to CREATE a username and password.  You should then be able to use the username and password you created to login to their site and access the details of your virtual Mastercard with them. 

[Peter2447]

I Understand. But my account isn't working anymore. And when I want to
reset my account with 'forget password' they tell me I will get an email.
But I don't receive it. Yesterday I made the account and everything was
fine, totdat it isn't possible to get into my account. Verry strange.

[ShaunOR]

@Peter2447 

I see - sorry to hear that.

I assume that you originally input your valid email address and there's an issue with their system. Is it the same email that B4BPayments sent the code to?

[Peter2447]

Yes it is.

[ShaunOR]

@Peter2447 

I'm not sure what else to suggest apart from physically typing in each letter of your email address very carefully but I guess you've already tried that.