Resolved Apple Not Honouring Free Trial - Who to Contact Next?

[mopatops]

TL;DR - I signed my family up for Apple Music but two of the accounts did not begin the trial correctly and went straight into charging £9.99 per month. After several back and forths with iTunes Support I have been told that;

a) the problem accounts had their trial started and then cancelled (incorrect) and I must now begin paying if we wish to use the service.

b) iTunes support don't have the ability to fix my problem and have advised me to provide feedback on my experience http://www.apple.com/feedback.

I'm not looking to make a complaint, I would like them to honour the duration of the trial period that they are advertising. Anyone have any experience with who to contact next once the first level of Apple Support has failed to address my problem?

Thanks in advance!

----------------------------------------------

My full correspondence with iTunes Support so far:

Me-

"Hi folks, I seem to be having a few issues regarding the 3 month trial beginning correctly for everyone in my family sharing group. Using iTunes to view subscription settings:

- My account (EMAIL #1) shows correctly as Free Trial ending 30th September.

- The account EMAIL #2 also shows correctly.

- The account EMAIL #3 shows as 1 month ending 30th August. Should be ending 30th October. It appears that I have been charged for the first month for this account as we have had an invoice of £9.99 come through to EMAIL #3 (Order ID: *********). The £9.99 has not yet appeared on my bank statement but could you please look into what has happened.

- The account EMAIL #4 shows as 1 month ending 29th August. Should be ending 29th October. I have not received any emails/invoices regarding the sign up of this account but please check that the situation is not the same as above as I may be yet to receive another £9.99 invoice.

Many thanks!"​

Marcel (iTunes Support)-

"Dear Tyler,

Welcome to iTunes Store Customer Support. My name is Marcel.

I understand that there appears a charge on your account for the free trial of Apple Music on the account “EMAIL #3” and you have also noticed that the subscription period for this account ends on "30-August-2015”. Also, the account “EMAIL #4” shows that the subscription ends on "29-July-2015”. I am sure you must be looking forward to get clarifications regarding this subscription. Rest assured, I will be glad to investigate this issue for you.

Tyler, I checked your account and found that the accounts “EMAIL #3” and “EMAIL #4” was previously used for the free trial of Apple Music subscription. Later when this subscription was purchased and hence you have been charged for it.

I’d like to let you know that when you cancel the free trial for Apple Music subscription and purchase it, you will be charged for the purchase and the subscription will work as an auto-renewing monthly subscription. Hence this is the reason why it shows that the subscription will be expired in one month time.

However, if you would like to manage your subscription you can review the article provided below:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT202039

To know more about managing Apple Music membership, kindly refer the article provided below:

Manage your Apple Music membership
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT204939

For the full list of Apple Music features, you can see this page:

http://www.apple.com/music/membership

Tyler, I’m sure the information provided above will be helpful. If you have any other questions related to iTunes Store, please let me know. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Have a nice day and take care!

Sincerely,

Marcel
Marcel
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww"​

Me-

"Hi Marcel,

Thanks for taking the time to look into my issue. Just to check that I understand your response- you are saying that because the trial was started, then cancelled, we must begin paying for the subscription service?

My family aren’t particularly good with technology which is why they all bought Apple devices on my recommendation. I do not mean to insinuate that you are lying but neither my mum (EMAIL #3) nor brother (EMAIL #4) were aware that the Apple Music service existed until a few days ago when I signed them up so I doubt that they accidentally began and then cancelled the trial themselves. It is possible that I unknowingly made a mistake in the sign up process for both accounts, otherwise the situation appears to have stemmed from a glitch/bug in the service. If I understood your response correctly then I also am confused as to why EMAIL #3 has been charged £9.99 for the first month, yet EMAIL #4 has not. Am I due to receive another £9.99 invoice for EMAIL #4?

Regardless, Apple Music debut on the 8th of June and I am surprised to hear that people are knowingly being charged before the 8th of September. I would ask that you reconsider your decision and:

- refund the £9.99 I have been invoiced for and cancel any pending invoices/charges for EMAIL #4.
- amend EMAIL #4 to a free trial ending 29th October.
- amend EMAIL #3 to a free trial ending 30th October.

If you are unable/unwilling to do this I would kindly ask that you escalate my case to your manager or provide me with the details on how to make a complaint.

Many thanks,
Tyler"​

Marcel (iTunes Support)-

"Helo Tyler,

This is Marcel again from iTunes Store Customer Support. Thank you for writing back to me.

I apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused you and I would like to inform you that I went ahead and reversed the charge incurred for the subscription of Apple Music on the account “EMAIL #4”. Within ten business days, 9.99 GBP should be posted to the payment method used to make the purchase.

For more information on managing your subscriptions, including how to disable the auto-renewal feature, see this article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT202039

Tyler, I am sure you are happy with the reversal of the charge. If you have any other questions, please let me know. I’ll be more than happy to help you.

Have a nice day and take care!

Sincerely,

Marcel
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww"​

Me-

"Hi Marcel,

Thank you for your reply. I do appreciate the refund of £9.99 but it appears that you have cancelled the subscription for EMAIL #4 at the same time. If I now try to sign EMAIL #4 up for the 3 month free trial I get a message saying:

"You have already received a free trial for this subscription and are no longer eligible for another. Do you want to subscribe to Apple Music individual membership for 1 month for £9.99? This subscription will automatically renew until cancelled.”

I feel like we are going round in circles but this account can obviously not have received a 3 month trial as the Apple Music service was released less than 3 months ago.

At the end of my last email I requested that you do three things in order to resolve my issue. You have now refunded the £9.99 for which I am grateful but I must again ask you to:

- Extend the trial period on the account EMAIL #3 to end on 30th October. (3 months from the sign up date of 30th July)

- Resubscribe the account EMAIL #4 to Apple Music with the free trial ending 29th October. (3 months from the sign up date of 29th July)

Many thanks,

Tyler"​

Marcel (iTunes Support)-

"Hello Tyler,

This is Marcel again from iTunes Store Customer Support. Thank you for writing back to me.

Tyler, I’d like to inform you that the device that you are trying to use to subscribe for Apple Music is already linked to another account, that is why you have charged on that account. Once an account is used for a free trial subscription on a particular device, it will not be allowed for a free trial again.

The option to resubscribe is available but it will no longer be free, This is a 3 months free trial period and we dont have access to extend it. Once the free trial is cancelled, we can’t put it back. We also can’t extend the existing trial.

However, we recognize that no one is better qualified to provide feedback about our products and services than the people who use them. I urge you to submit any feedback you have about the Apple Music at our Feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback
Thank you for your understanding. If you have any other questions related to iTunes Store, please free to contact us.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Marcel
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww"​

(Huge thanks to anyone who took the time to read all of the above!)

I'm not looking to make a complaint, I would like them to honour the duration of the trial period that they are advertising. Anyone have any experience with who to contact next once the first level of Apple Support has failed to address my problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

[scarecrowmac]

I would call apple and explain your problem. They may not provide iTunes support over the phone but they could put you on to someone who can give you a credit for 3 months worth of the two Apple Music subscriptions.

Hope this helps!

 

[mopatops]

I would call apple and explain your problem. They may not provide iTunes support over the phone but they could put you on to someone who can give you a credit for 3 months worth of the two Apple Music subscriptions.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the advice! I'm pleased to say that Apple have now resolved my problem. In case anyone is interested, story below;

I actually went to an Apple Store the day after posting this thread and they also advised to phone rather than email.

Phoned Apple support and recieved an awful service, to be honest. After an hour on the phone and the call being escalated twice, I was put on the phone with a senior member of Customer Relations who told me that I should have read the T&Cs which state that each device is only eligible for one trial of Apple Music. I was told that because each of my family members used a single iMac (each person had a separate user account and Apple ID) only the first person to sign up was eligible for the trial. I explained that had this been made obvious then each family member could have easily used their individual iPhones to sign up. Customer relations agreed that had everyone signed up using their phones then everyone would have received the trial, no problem. Despite this, I was told that it was my fault for not reading the fine print and that Apple would not consider any form of compensation for the 3 months I would now have to pay for.

I went back to my local Apple Store for advice as I had found them to be far more helpful. Unfortunately, the only thing they could suggest was to start a completely new case with Apple Support so I wasn't particularly hopeful.

Started a new case, this time using the online chat, and couldn't believe the response I got. I was barely using the chat for 20 minutes (most of this time was short periods of waiting while they checked details) and we finished up with everything resolved. They refunded another £9.99 which had been taken for my brothers account and extended both of the trials, not only to 3 months from the original sign up, but 3 months from the date I used the chat.

I like to think that I was polite and reasonable for the duration of the phone call. I'm not sure what caused such different experiences between the two support cases but I'm glad it's sorted now! Would've been £45 out of pocket otherwise.