Experience with Support team

[MJC77]

My elderly, but active mother, hurt her foot and decided to walk in the pool to avoid putting too much weight on it. It was her first time getting her Versa wet (she hates swimming). It has a workout option to track swimming, and says it is water resistant up to 50 M, so she thought it would be safe. Well, hers was not water resistant up to 5 inches. It immediately started to react when she put her arm under the water. It reset and then went black. I put it in rice for many hours, but there was condensation on the inside of the watch on the sensors. 

Unfortunately, her warranty had past. Even though this watch was clearly DEFECTIVE, fitbit would not replace it. They offered us a low value coupon. And that was it. 

You sold my mom a defective watch. You should do the right thing and replace it. She is retired and on a fixed income; she cannot be buying $200 watches every year because your watches don't do what you profess they do.

In fact, I also had to replace my Versa due to the same issue. Fortunately for me, mine was within warranty.

If your product cannot go in the water, don't tell us it can. And do put a swim function on it. It's dishonest, and in this case, put an elderly woman on a fixed income in a bad position.

Do the right thing and replace it.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and word choice

[Odyssey13]

Hi @MJC77  I've asked a moderator to stop by to address your post. They will have Fitbit as the second part of their forum name and moderator will be under that.

Google tendered an offer to purchase Fitbit, but they are not yet the owner of it. There are certain legal aspects which must be met before the purchase can be completed. It might not even be done this year.

[NeilFinny]

Here is a tip for the future. When you are first trying to get support for something out of warranty and hopefully a replacement it is best to first go in nicely instead of barging in feet first. Getting aggressive doesn’t get you anything.

my scales version 1 stopped working due to a software bug, they gave me a free scale version 2 as a replacement. I just posted the issue to support as nicely as possible, job done, no fuss.

[Ace11176]

She did go about it nicely...they refused to do anything about it. I had a problem with my Fitbit, it completely melted, my watch got really hot and melted, out of warranty. What kind of watch just melts? I was told too bad so sad. I went on to tell them I was done buying their products, after 3 watches and 6 years I wasn’t going to purchase another over $200 watch to have some weird malfunction happen, when they’re not willing to admit it was a faulty product. I started shopping for Garmins. I then was contacted by a supervisor, and they offered to replace my watch. So, this was not her first contact with customer service, if you had actually read her complaint, she was told that it was too bad it was out if warranty. Sometimes people try to low ball you or take advantage of you if you don’t push back a little. You buy a product that claims to be water resistant, first time you use it in water and it breaks, they say they can’t do anything... that is very dishonest. 

[MJC77]

I did, as noted by the verbiage in my post that they offered a low value coupon.

[MJC77]

Amen! So true. I tried to do it their way, and they offered me some random coupon for my mom, which would have had her still shelling out a ton of money.

[jess5485]

I agree with not getting anywhere trying to do it nicely with Fitbit. My first Versa Lite started malfunctioning 2 days after I got it. It paused continually while I was running, as if I had stopped moving. I called Fitbit for help and they told me to turn off the pause option, so basically if I stop running it will just keep tracking time. I said that doesn’t fix the problem it just goes around it so I would like a new one. They told me no. I called Amazon and they replaced it immediately. 

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi everyone. It's good to see you here in the Community Forums. @Odyssey13, thanks for the heads up!

@MJC77, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts about your mom's Versa and the steps tried to get it working again. I see where you're coming from since her watch is water resistant and shouldn't have had this situation. Currently our warranty covers our devices for any manufacturer defect as long as it's within the warranty period. I'm sorry for this experience and while I don't have access to your case, my best advice is to reply back to the last email set by our team so you can receive more details about their resolution.

@NeilFinny, @Ace11176 and @jess5485, thanks for stopping by and sharing your feedback. I'm sorry for any inconvenience you've experienced. The forums are always reviewed by our team to gather the comments shared by our members and improve our watches to make sure that we are delivering what our users want and need. Your comments won't be the exception.

[MJC77]

This is unacceptable. There is obviously an issue with Versa actually being water resistant, as I had the very same issue with mine. That's fine. My mom has 6 kids, tons of older grand kids and will soon have great grand children. They will all be told to steer clear of fitbit. 

Way to take advantage of the elderly instead of doing the right thing. I hope you feel good about yourself.