Argos refusing to refund Fitbit that is unusable

Ayr_Rage

You are grasping at straws now.

The Fitbit works exactly as it should.

You are not due a refund as far as I can see.

Hoenir

Argos merely stocks the item. The customer decides whether to buy it or not. 

Aylesbury_Duck

mightbedave said:

pinkshoes said:

mightbedave said:

Grumpy_chap said:

mightbedave said:

I could but then she would have to have the Fitbit connected to a different device, like my phone. Supervised Google devices only allow one Google account on them.

Actually, is it a problem to allow your daughter now to have the unsupervised account?  
If not at age 13, when do you think that point might be reached?
I do understand protective parenting but that does (as in the case of a Fitbit, apparently) cause conflicts with growing up.
You mentioned your daughter pushed back against having a "childish" Fitbit, so will those push-backs only grow ever more frequent and stronger?  Are you trying to hold back the inevitable tide?

This is off topic, but like I said before, my belief is that 13 is too young to have all controls lifted and that is my judgement as a parent knowing my child. 

My daughter didn't push back against a kids one. We just didn't consider them because they are for age 6+ and the adult ones are 13+. Generally with age guidance you go for the older age bracket that your child fits into, the assumption being that the younger bracket would be less suitable.

You don't need to lift the controls for more than 20 minutes though.

I clicked the email link on my son's email taking control of his Google account, deleted him from family link, installed his Versa 4 fitbit,  then added him back to family link.

At 13 he did protest massively about the family link back on until I told him that the alternative of having control of his own phone was that it was taken away from 4.30pm until all homework was done, then handed back to me from 8pm until 7am! He much prefers family link! 

I agree they don't make it clear what a ball ache it is trying to set up a fitbit as well as maintaining control over a child's phone!

I still think Argos should give me my money back though. Not their fault, but under consumer law it is their responsibility and they have sold me a product which is unusable by the person I bought it for...

...because you applied restrictions to her account that rendered it so, and didn't check with the manufacturer or ask the retailer if that was likely to cause a problem.

I think your argument is flawed.  The product (probably) works as it should.  I don't rate Fitbit's products or Argos's customer service, but I don't see how either is at fault here.

mightbedave

Aylesbury_Duck said:

mightbedave said:

pinkshoes said:

mightbedave said:

Grumpy_chap said:

mightbedave said:

I could but then she would have to have the Fitbit connected to a different device, like my phone. Supervised Google devices only allow one Google account on them.

Actually, is it a problem to allow your daughter now to have the unsupervised account?  
If not at age 13, when do you think that point might be reached?
I do understand protective parenting but that does (as in the case of a Fitbit, apparently) cause conflicts with growing up.
You mentioned your daughter pushed back against having a "childish" Fitbit, so will those push-backs only grow ever more frequent and stronger?  Are you trying to hold back the inevitable tide?

This is off topic, but like I said before, my belief is that 13 is too young to have all controls lifted and that is my judgement as a parent knowing my child. 

My daughter didn't push back against a kids one. We just didn't consider them because they are for age 6+ and the adult ones are 13+. Generally with age guidance you go for the older age bracket that your child fits into, the assumption being that the younger bracket would be less suitable.

You don't need to lift the controls for more than 20 minutes though.

I clicked the email link on my son's email taking control of his Google account, deleted him from family link, installed his Versa 4 fitbit,  then added him back to family link.

At 13 he did protest massively about the family link back on until I told him that the alternative of having control of his own phone was that it was taken away from 4.30pm until all homework was done, then handed back to me from 8pm until 7am! He much prefers family link! 

I agree they don't make it clear what a ball ache it is trying to set up a fitbit as well as maintaining control over a child's phone!

I still think Argos should give me my money back though. Not their fault, but under consumer law it is their responsibility and they have sold me a product which is unusable by the person I bought it for...

...because you applied restrictions to her account that rendered it so, and didn't check with the manufacturer or ask the retailer if that was likely to cause a problem.

I think your argument is flawed.  The product (probably) works as it should.  I don't rate Fitbit's products or Argos's customer service, but I don't see how either is at fault here.

The thing is I am applying standard Google parental controls which Google provide specific instructions on how to set up for teenagers. It not something odd or unusual. All my friends do the same with their younger teenagers. Fitbit is owned by Google and all it says on their website is you need to be 13+ and have a Google account. It does not say anywhere that is it not compatible with their own parental controls. The only way you can find out is reading posts like these.

Plus, even though I have now removed the parental controls it still won't allow me to set it up with her account.

mightbedave

Ayr_Rage said:

You are grasping at straws now.

The Fitbit works exactly as it should.

You are not due a refund as far as I can see.

Fitbit website says you need to be 13+ and have a Google account. My daughter is/has both of those. It doesn't work. I wouldn't describe that as working as it should. 

mightbedave

Hoenir said:

Argos merely stocks the item. The customer decides whether to buy it or not. 

No consumer rights in your world then, even if the product doesn't work as described?

mightbedave

pinkshoes said:

 I'm pretty sure the 30 days didn't apply when I tried the same and it just took 10 minutes to reset it up!

It's the only way I can think of to resolve it because despite removing all the parental controls it seems there is still something stopping it working. It just takes 30 days to fully delete the Fitbit account. If you log back in before then it just recovers the deleted account.

RefluentBeans

mightbedave said:

Hoenir said:

Argos merely stocks the item. The customer decides whether to buy it or not. 

No consumer rights in your world then, even if the product doesn't work as described?

It’s whether your argument of a Google account encompasses all Google accounts. In this case, a Google account means a personal account with no restrictions on it. I would imagine some companies would restrict their employees (who may use Google Workplace for their emails and online accounts, professionally) from linking external devices which share data. Indeed there are also reports of this.

FWIW - I think having a supervised account is the right thing to do at the age of 13. I think this issue is with Google and the way they restrict these accounts (I’d hazard a guess it’s the same restrictions businesses use on their Workplace and probably shares the same sort of backend - and only a handful of complaints means it sits in the ‘not affecting bulk users - low priority issue’ category of quirks and bugs). 

Unfortunately it’s a growing trend in tech products - the manufacturer provides the services (for free in this case) and thus can elect different policies than what the shop may be aware of. The separation of hardware and service means that the shop may be held responsible or it may be that these two products (the hardware and the services) and thus the retailer is only reasonable for hardware faults not service faults - in the same way that it’s on you to check if you have good freeview signal before you purchase a big TV and install it and then realise you have no freeview. 

Whilst an interesting, and academic, debate - this doesn’t help you. 

For what you can and should do next:
1. Don’t wait the 30 days - this will exclude you from pushing through a refund (as after 30 days they can attempt to repair or replace the product and this just makes more issues than it’s worth.) 
2. If you can/want to - go back into store and speak to a supervisor or manager. Be firm, but not rude. Be a thorn but don’t start hurling abuse (especially at the customer service people who have virtually no lateral movement). Managers and supervisors are more likely to understand the law, and more likely to bend the company policies than front line workers who follow the script and risk getting fired if they bend the rules (and a watch isn’t something someone should get fired over) 
3. If you get no where with in store (or don’t want to go back - I get that) - speak to online/call centre staff. Same principle applies - firm but not rude. Front line staff have a slight more lateral movement than store colleagues (typically) but again managers and supervisors are where you need to go. But there may be a wait whilst someone becomes free. Calling at quiet times may help. 

4. If none of this works, Google <insert joke about being from a full account> Argos CEO. Write a stern (but fair) email to them - and it’ll more than likely get kicked to a more senior customer service person. The more you follow the steps the more writing there will be on your ‘file’ and the more likely this step will be. 

5. If none of this works - you reach the tipping point. You can either decide to leave it and potentially just sell the watch on a tertiary market like Marketplace or eBay. Or you can write what’s called a letter before action. This letter is your ‘I’m prepared to take this to court, and this is your last chance to negotiate with me’. This is hostile, and will either get them to settle or get them to prepared to fight this in court. Following this is small claims court which you can represent yourself at. Try not to get drawn into the academic debates that have/will go on here, but rather the simple facts that you presented in your first post: 1) you purchased a product. 2) the product doesn’t work with your Google account. 3) therefore your product doesn’t work, and you were denied your short term right to reject. 

I appreciate this was a long post, and I really don’t know how strong the argument is, but I hope this helps. 

Aylesbury_Duck

mightbedave said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

mightbedave said:

pinkshoes said:

mightbedave said:

Grumpy_chap said:

mightbedave said:

I could but then she would have to have the Fitbit connected to a different device, like my phone. Supervised Google devices only allow one Google account on them.

Actually, is it a problem to allow your daughter now to have the unsupervised account?  
If not at age 13, when do you think that point might be reached?
I do understand protective parenting but that does (as in the case of a Fitbit, apparently) cause conflicts with growing up.
You mentioned your daughter pushed back against having a "childish" Fitbit, so will those push-backs only grow ever more frequent and stronger?  Are you trying to hold back the inevitable tide?

This is off topic, but like I said before, my belief is that 13 is too young to have all controls lifted and that is my judgement as a parent knowing my child. 

My daughter didn't push back against a kids one. We just didn't consider them because they are for age 6+ and the adult ones are 13+. Generally with age guidance you go for the older age bracket that your child fits into, the assumption being that the younger bracket would be less suitable.

You don't need to lift the controls for more than 20 minutes though.

I clicked the email link on my son's email taking control of his Google account, deleted him from family link, installed his Versa 4 fitbit,  then added him back to family link.

At 13 he did protest massively about the family link back on until I told him that the alternative of having control of his own phone was that it was taken away from 4.30pm until all homework was done, then handed back to me from 8pm until 7am! He much prefers family link! 

I agree they don't make it clear what a ball ache it is trying to set up a fitbit as well as maintaining control over a child's phone!

I still think Argos should give me my money back though. Not their fault, but under consumer law it is their responsibility and they have sold me a product which is unusable by the person I bought it for...

...because you applied restrictions to her account that rendered it so, and didn't check with the manufacturer or ask the retailer if that was likely to cause a problem.

I think your argument is flawed.  The product (probably) works as it should.  I don't rate Fitbit's products or Argos's customer service, but I don't see how either is at fault here.

The thing is I am applying standard Google parental controls which Google provide specific instructions on how to set up for teenagers. It not something odd or unusual. All my friends do the same with their younger teenagers. Fitbit is owned by Google and all it says on their website is you need to be 13+ and have a Google account. It does not say anywhere that is it not compatible with their own parental controls. The only way you can find out is reading posts like these.

Plus, even though I have now removed the parental controls it still won't allow me to set it up with her account.

I fully endorse your parenting decision, I'd do the same in your shoes.  And actually, you are persuading me that there's more to your argument than I first thought.  I suspect that you're caught up in a software/hardware muddle that RefluentBeans describes well, above,  and where it isn't absolutely clear where fault lies for the lack of function.   I think Argos have got a relatively easy 'out' on that basis, but there's no harm in testing them as RB suggests.

mightbedave

RefluentBeans said:

mightbedave said:

Hoenir said:

Argos merely stocks the item. The customer decides whether to buy it or not. 

No consumer rights in your world then, even if the product doesn't work as described?

It’s whether your argument of a Google account encompasses all Google accounts. In this case, a Google account means a personal account with no restrictions on it. I would imagine some companies would restrict their employees (who may use Google Workplace for their emails and online accounts, professionally) from linking external devices which share data. Indeed there are also reports of this.

FWIW - I think having a supervised account is the right thing to do at the age of 13. I think this issue is with Google and the way they restrict these accounts (I’d hazard a guess it’s the same restrictions businesses use on their Workplace and probably shares the same sort of backend - and only a handful of complaints means it sits in the ‘not affecting bulk users - low priority issue’ category of quirks and bugs). 

Unfortunately it’s a growing trend in tech products - the manufacturer provides the services (for free in this case) and thus can elect different policies than what the shop may be aware of. The separation of hardware and service means that the shop may be held responsible or it may be that these two products (the hardware and the services) and thus the retailer is only reasonable for hardware faults not service faults - in the same way that it’s on you to check if you have good freeview signal before you purchase a big TV and install it and then realise you have no freeview. 

Whilst an interesting, and academic, debate - this doesn’t help you. 

For what you can and should do next:
1. Don’t wait the 30 days - this will exclude you from pushing through a refund (as after 30 days they can attempt to repair or replace the product and this just makes more issues than it’s worth.) 
2. If you can/want to - go back into store and speak to a supervisor or manager. Be firm, but not rude. Be a thorn but don’t start hurling abuse (especially at the customer service people who have virtually no lateral movement). Managers and supervisors are more likely to understand the law, and more likely to bend the company policies than front line workers who follow the script and risk getting fired if they bend the rules (and a watch isn’t something someone should get fired over) 
3. If you get no where with in store (or don’t want to go back - I get that) - speak to online/call centre staff. Same principle applies - firm but not rude. Front line staff have a slight more lateral movement than store colleagues (typically) but again managers and supervisors are where you need to go. But there may be a wait whilst someone becomes free. Calling at quiet times may help. 

4. If none of this works, Google <insert joke about being from a full account> Argos CEO. Write a stern (but fair) email to them - and it’ll more than likely get kicked to a more senior customer service person. The more you follow the steps the more writing there will be on your ‘file’ and the more likely this step will be. 

5. If none of this works - you reach the tipping point. You can either decide to leave it and potentially just sell the watch on a tertiary market like Marketplace or eBay. Or you can write what’s called a letter before action. This letter is your ‘I’m prepared to take this to court, and this is your last chance to negotiate with me’. This is hostile, and will either get them to settle or get them to prepared to fight this in court. Following this is small claims court which you can represent yourself at. Try not to get drawn into the academic debates that have/will go on here, but rather the simple facts that you presented in your first post: 1) you purchased a product. 2) the product doesn’t work with your Google account. 3) therefore your product doesn’t work, and you were denied your short term right to reject. 

I appreciate this was a long post, and I really don’t know how strong the argument is, but I hope this helps. 

Thank you. This is very helpful.