My Fitbit was replaced as warranty replacement was issued

[Graham_J_S]

Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago my Versa 4 went completely unresponsive after I had let the battery run down. It would not charge, it would not turn on there was nothing I could do to make it do anything. I contacted Fitbit live chat, and I spoke to a very helpful agent who ran through some troubleshooting steps with me. 

After trying everything and nothing working, the agent asked me a couple of questions about my warranty and told me I qualified for a replacement and forwarded me links to order it. This was such a great example of customer support, I had the replacement watch (just watch, no box, charger or straps) within a couple of days and I was delighted.

However, when I attempted to charge the watch nothing was happening, so I presumed there was an issue with the charger and bought a replacement. Now, fast forward a couple of weeks and I've got my new charger, the new Fitbit is working totally fine and also the old Fitbit is also working, after getting some power from a charger that works, so I effectively have a second Fitbit, but the original Fitbit is locked since I synced my new one with my Fitbit app.

I contacted the live chat again and spoke to another agent, I'd love to gift the Fitbit to a young family member, but would have also been happy to return it as there is literally nothing wrong with it, but | was told it had been locked and there was nothing to do with it, it wouldn't work if I tried to gift it and there was no return policy. The advice I was given was to recycle it.

Now, to me, this just seems totally wasteful. I get that this happens to stop people fraudulently reporting broken watches and selling them, but in this case where Troubleshooting failed to identify the problem was with the charger and not the watch, which I reported, they could make an exception, or at least take it back and sell it as a refurbed product. The waste is what really bugs me. 

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else ever faced a similar situation or has had one of these product locks lifted?

Thanks! 

[AT123456]

Have you tried syncing it to another account despite customer service saying it was locked?

[Graham_J_S]

Hi @AT123456,

Thanks for your comment. Yes, so after I received my replacement, I reset factory setting on the original device and removed it from my app. Then, I put the app on my partner's phone to see if it would still work. It actually comes on and allows you to select language and tells you how to set up, but once you try to sync it with the app by entering the code you get an error message on the app explaining that the serial number has been identified and the device has been blocked. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done from here, it just seems really unnecessarily wasteful.

[AT123456]

Oh okay. Agree - definitely wasteful but it makes sense to keep people from selling it too (cause people would do that unfortunately). 

[Rich_Laue]

Interesting, a few years ago, fitbit had no way to lock a device. Users have been asking for this option when their device has been stolen. 

[Graham_J_S]

Hey @AT123456, yeah I totally get that there are people out there who would look to profit from this and I would have happily returned the Fitbit, but to be honest, the watch still looks perfect, starts up fine and lets you set up to a certain point, so could still be sold pretty easy if the wrong person got their hands on it. Either way it doesn't look like there's anything that can be done so I'll just have to bring it to a recycling centre!

[Graham_J_S]

Hi @Rich_Laue, it seems that they have now, not sure if this happens when you report one stolen, but definitely does when they issue a replacement.