Customer service lies, per usual.


  • Garbage Person

    So my Fitbit is kinda falling apart a bit.

    Warranty claim time!

    Hi Weng,

    Thanks for providing us the information we needed for your replacement.

    We would like to confirm to you that as of now Fibti Charge HR extra large is not available on our store. Fitbit Charge HR plum extra large is the only available on our store.

    Looking forward to your response.

    Sincerely,

    Some Mook. and the Fitbit Team

    My response is the following image:

    TRWTF is that email support has a 2 day turnaround per message. They actually recommend Twitter for rapid response.

    In what fucking way is doing business over Twitter faster than via email?

    ... And I just noticed that when I first read that email, I mentally inserted "black" into the name of the product they're specifying, because they then proceed to try to redirect me to the worst color imaginable by humankind instead of like for like replacement. Instead it just doesn't make any fucking sense.

    Further, even if it were out of stock, mine still works, its just ugly. Put me in for a fucking backorder.

    Further, Jesus Fuck did they typo their own company name?

    If this continues I'll have to switch to Twitter. Presumably that's where they put the ones that actually know English.


  • Java Dev

    @Weng said:

    In what fucking way is doing business over Twitter faster than via email?

    In a world where telling just the vendor they're failing is universally far less effective than telling the world as well.


  • Garbage Person

    Yeah, but why would the vendor RECOMMEND that?



  • Because so few people actually will ever see the tweet as its not about a Kardashian or from Donald Trump.


  • Garbage Person

    But email provides a completely private (within reaaon) mechanism is even more universally available, less restrictive and no more expensive in time or money to use.



  • Maybe because the short messages prevent actually explaining a problem or having to explain an actual solution.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Maybe because the short messages prevent actually explaining a problem or having to explain an actual solution.

    Even more fucked up: the first thing the company rep will say is

    "Follow so we can DM in private?"

    😣


  • Garbage Person

    ... Oh, right. So they get a free Twitter follower which turns a complaint into an advertising victim. THERE'S the benefit.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Weng said:

    ... Oh, right. So they get a free Twitter follower which turns a complaint into an advertising victim. THERE'S the benefit.

    You can always unfollow, so it's a lot of work for no benefit for them.

    The idiocy is:

    I have complaint. Will email.
    👳 Please to be
    Why? We can have a long, private conversation here to solve the problem rather than a short, public one where hundreds of thousands of people will hear me complain.
    👳 Please to be
    FINE! @Initech I have a complaint TO SHOUT IN PUBLIC FOR EVERYONE TO HEAR THE BAD PR!
    👲 @Weng Follow plz to DM
    @Initech Why? You told me to Tweet you.
    👲 @Weng Follow plz to DM
    {follow} {DM} @Initech I have a complaint
    👲 @Weng Email address plz to resolve? not enough words.
    FUUUUUUUUUUUU



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    👳

    Twitter has call centres in India too ?!


  • Java Dev

    You thought they employed Americans for that?



  • Sorry I meant Fitbit, I thought it was a decent company, why have call centres in India?


  • Java Dev

    You thought they employed Americans for that?



  • @PleegWat said:

    You thought they employed Americans for that?

    What is the point of having a good company and then employ Indians who do shitty support?

    Inb4 Racism something something.


  • Java Dev

    Employing Indians for shitty support is cheaper?



  • @PleegWat said:

    Employing Indians for shitty support is cheaper?

    So no one gives a fuck about providing quality support. Good to know.


  • Java Dev

    I guess quality support doesn't pay for itself.


  • FoxDev

    @stillwater said:

    @PleegWat said:
    Employing Indians for shitty support is cheaper?

    So no one gives a fuck about providing quality support. Good to know.

    Welcome to the past 15 years ;)



  • @stillwater said:

    What is the point of having a good company and then employ [s]Indians[/s]Americans who do shitty support?

    FTFY.


  • Garbage Person

    In case anyone actually cares about my consumer justice, this morning there was a new email, on the same form letter as the previous, giving me an order confirmation for the correct replacement item. Sadly there was no acknolwedgement of my wit or correctness.


  • Garbage Person

    Another interesting thing about this particular warranty process is that they don't want it back.

    Generally, if you're going to have to burn the inventory to do a warranty replacement, it'd be handy to have the original back so you can be sure what went wrong, do some post-failure analysis (or even just triage) and add it to your statistics and knowledge base for product improvements.

    For most consumer electronics, this process is a prepaid return label and an intern with an Excel Spreadsheet who opens the returns, plugs them in, gathers some statistics, looks at the failure mode and chucks it in a bin for recycling.

    In this case it is apparently less expensive in the long run to forego this product improvement process and continue chucking replacements out at need.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    My Flex kept refusing to charge because their charger design is fucked up and broken. At the second replacement, I suggested, can I get store credit and I'll pay the difference to upgrade to a Charge HR instead, because it uses a sane charger? No. They sent me another broken Flex and I had to pay full price for a Charge HR. Fuckers.

    I like their products but fuck their customer service.


  • FoxDev

    @Yamikuronue said:

    My Flex kept refusing to charge because their charger design is fucked up and broken. At the second replacement, I suggested, can I get store credit and I'll pay the difference to upgrade to a Charge HR instead, because it uses a sane charger? No. They sent me another broken Flex and I had to pay full price for a Charge HR. Fuckers.

    i had the same problem with the flex. after three replacements i said fuck it, bought a misfit Shine (in pink) and havent had any troubles with it since.

    and best of all i don't have to remember to charge it because the misfit runs on a CR2032 that lasts about 4 months


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    Ooh, that's awesome. I use the heart rate monitor too much to switch now that I've got it, though.


  • FoxDev

    @Yamikuronue said:

    Ooh, that's awesome

    it is. i wear it as a necklace. looks pretty.

    @Yamikuronue said:

    I use the heart rate monitor too much to switch now that I've got it, though.
    that is a failing of the misfit. no heart rate monitor


  • Garbage Person

    In what universe do you live where a Charge HR has a sane charging cable?


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    Have you seen the Flex?

    You set the device in that little cradle, loosely, and pray it makes enough contact to charge. Vs the charge

    :

    It's a bullshit proprietary connector, but it connects firmly and doesn't have trouble making contact to charge.


  • Garbage Person

    E_CONNECTS_FIRMLY_NOT_FOUND

    Put it down too vigorously or let it dangle and it ain't gonna charge.

    The only official cable length being 6 inches greatly exacerbates the dangling problem. Almost all of my USB ports are more than 6 inches from a resting surface.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Weng said:

    The only official cable length being 6 inches greatly exacerbates the dangling problem. Almost all of my USB ports are more than 6 inches from a resting surface.

    USB extension cable?



  • @Weng said:

    being 6 inches greatly exacerbates the dangling problem.

    Inb4 :giggity: ?



  • @Weng said:

    If this continues I'll have to switch to Twitter. Presumably that's where they put the ones that actually know English.

    Yeah, this is a new disturbing trend with companies. I am running into more and more companies that have "live hours" for their twitter accounts that they try to run like a god damn chat room. No phone number, and you're lucky if they provide an e-mail address.

    God I hate "social media" and the quivering gibbons who keep trying to prop it up as the solution to all of humanity's problems. =_=



  • I had the Fitbit Force that was recalled. I wasn't going to send it back but since it did bother my skin and then a piece on the cover on the battery broke off. At that time they made it very easy to return for a refund regardless of where you bought it (I had gotten mine on Amazon).

    Since if had a MisFit Shine (lost it somewhere because it popped out of the wrist band) and a Garmin VivoFit.

    Shine was prettier than VivoFit both are water resistant to something like 30 meters and uses watch batteries (no charging--I've had my VivoFit for almost a year and have not needed to changed the battery).

    Shine's android app left a bit to be desired.


  • Garbage Person

    I'm more or less locked into the Fitbit ecosystem as WtfCorp gives you an insurance discount if you participate in an annual wellness program based on the Fitbit API



  • I never tried it and the website is apparently down but http://www.fitdatasync.com/ would allow to sync the Fitbit website with Garmin's.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Weng said:

    I'm more or less locked into the Fitbit ecosystem as WtfCorp gives you an insurance discount if you participate in an annual wellness program based on the Fitbit API

    Please don't encourage them to do this.



  • I got mine (Fitbit One) thru our wellness program too. No participation discounts though. But the Fitbat was free, so no complaints here! (You could also pay the difference and upgrade to a different model. I'm cheap.)


  • Garbage Person

    I cannot discourage them, so heh.


  • :belt_onion:

    That's weird. When I had a problem with my Charge HR, I contacted the e-mail support, they replied almost immediately, I sent a PDF with the invoice from Amazon, and shortly thereafter I got a notification that the replacement product had been shipped. And over a holiday weekend too; it was pretty incredible.

    Maybe they're one of those companies where you may encounter the magical support fairy, who works one Wednesday every month and wants to make your dreams come true. Like that ONE TIME I opened a service request with Oracle Support and within two hours got an engineer who seemed to be quite knowledgeable on the topic at hand and was able to point me at a KB article I missed in my three hours of searching.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    My company's plan is similar. They asked for feedback and I wrote in that I'm rather disturbed by the emphasis on weight loss as a path to health and the lack of HAES alternatives. They fucking sponsor Weight Watchers meetings and hold them in the building for fuck's sake.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    That isn't quite what I meant. When useful devices come onto the market-- but they're tightly coupled with privacy-invading features-- privacy-rights groups will advise people to avoid them to prevent private data from falling into third-party hands and being abused.

    Fitness trackers hook up to cloud-services, putting your health data into third-party hands. It'll for sure be used for marketing, but it could also be bought by insurance companies looking to raise your premiums, or deny your insurance claims.

    The counter-argument is that "could" doesn't mean it "is". It seems unlikely that the data will be shared at all. Fair enough counterpoint until...

    • An insurance company starts to "benevolently" offering discounts based on that data, if voluntarily given
    • They total swear, we promise, for sure-- this is all about giving YOU lower premiums. We'll never RAISE your rates or DENY you coverage because of the data. Our entire business model, after all, is entirely focused on getting less money from you. That's how we stay in the black. For sure.
    • The "discount" ends up being a pittance anyways
    • Optional becomes mandatory, becomes punishing

    I don't want my insurance company to be following me 24/7 just looking for an excuse to deny coverage. They don't need their finger on my pulse, eyes in my gym, GSP in my car, livestreem to my dashcam. They'd fucking LOVE to, though.

    And that's what I mean by "don't encourage them". If the Insurance-company sponsored privacy-invading devices never take traction, they can never make them mandatory for everyone. They do not deserve this data. Don't encourage them by selling out everyone's privacy for a few pieces of silver.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    We'll never RAISE your rates or DENY you coverage because of the data.

    Think of it like this: they'll raise the rates faster for people without the devices, but they'll still raise the rates for everyone. And then later they'll stop being so nice.



  • @heterodox said:

    Like that ONE TIME I opened a service request with Oracle Support and within two hours got an engineer who seemed to be quite knowledgeable on the topic at hand and was able to point me at a KB article I missed in my three hours of searching.

    Dude keep away from the 🍄 they're making you say things which can't possibly be true.


  • :belt_onion:

    Yeah, I didn't believe it myself.

    In other news, there's a bubble under the band of my replacement Charge HR (adhesive separated from screen) so I think I may be joining the ranks of those who've given up on Fitbit. Not just going to get replacements indefinitely.


  • Garbage Person

    Oh, it's not the insurance providing the discount at all. The premium is the same regardless, and they don't even know it's happening. The employer just contributes more to their side of the payment.

    This is in their interests as a healthy employee is more productive. I suspicion it'd be even more prevalent in premiumless single payer environment.

    Interestingly, the only requisite for the discount is that SOME number of steps be registered on the account. They gamify to try to get real participation by letting you form teams and running a leaderboard (the damned marathon runners out of the Seattle office will win it), but thats all superficial.

    As somebody who deals with health insurance companies professionally: They do not sufficiently grok IT to ever be able to conditionally discount based on stuff like this. Even in the scope of insurer Health and Welness programs, they don't do third parties. They'll send you an non-cloud pedometer and have a coach check in with you by phone or email, and do it in close cooperation with your actual physician.



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    lack of HAES alternatives

    Like what?


  • Garbage Person

    I don't mind the replacement process, really. Hell, at some point I figure it'll score me a size switch.

    I get the feeling that the big killer on the adhesive is moisture and/or cold, because mine went south immediately after 2 days of show shoveling. So basically, their humidity and splash resistance is overstated.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    Their entire focus on "metabolic syndrome" is focused on reducing BMI and waist size, and assuming the other factors will follow suit. HAES would focus on the blood pressure, cholesterol, et cetera themselves, and ignore the weight. Instead of Weight Watchers, a HAES-friendly program would focus on setting reasonable goals around increasing movement (rather than saying "you must run a 5k", things like "Increase your step count 10% per month"). Rather than constantly putting up fliers about "good food" and "bad food", encouraging people to add one healthy habit to their lifestyle. Et cetera.



  • Ah. The only place I've heard of it otherwise was /r/fatpeoplestories http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/01/06/is-healthy-obesity-a-real-thing-not-likely-study-says/#4dfd88141875
    Sounds to me like HAES done right also results in weight loss,just by a different avenue


  • Garbage Person

    I think it's partially a metrics problem: BP, cholesterol, etc are still comparatively expensive to measure well.

    The goals problem is separate, and I think stems mostly from the people organizing these efforts. The vast majority of people are at least content (or perhaps resigned) to their present physical condition. The 300lb hairy dude with a sedentary desk job isn't ever going to organize the company's wellness program. Nor is the 38 year old woman with two kids and all the physical fallout that entails. They aren't even going to sit in on the meetings (presuming they're public).

    It's going to go to someone who is used to thinking in the terms of health and fitness - some almost invariably female 20 something who plays recreational sports, has held a gym membership since it was a requirment for high school varsity field hockey and whose biggest adult fitness struggle was the Freshman 15.

    They simply don't have the context to set goals applicable to people in other situations. Just as I'd struggle with finding a realistic goal for miss Sportsball.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I honestly don't want to get into this stuff here, but if you do some research in the fat acceptance community and the HAES community, there's a lot of people focused on how we can get people to move more and pick up healthy habits without diving into obsessive food-restriction borderline-eating-disorder stuff that a lot of women do to themselves in the pursuit of thinness.


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