Spotify Premium Entertainment Package unable to Activate! (With "Oh dear..." error message...)

[Cole1991]

So I have been a customer with Vodafone for well over 10 years and my patience is really starting to be tested.

Having renewed my contract for 24 Months with Vodafone I opted for the Entertainment pack and in doing so wished to resubscribe to Spotify as I have always done (my previous Premium subscription ended on Monday).

Upon everything arriving and sorting the basics out, I go to resubscribe to the service excitedly as I have always done (music is a bit of a lifeblood for me). There are no cookies or data currently on either Samsung or Chrome browsers, so when I click to activate Spotify I am met with the error message "Oh dear (!)

We'll take you back to the home page".

Having chased my tail like a dog to troubleshoot the usual online guide steps it still does not change me getting this message.

I then talk to chat this morning who chased the same tail as myself. Subsequently speaking to tech they tell me to uninstall Spotify completely and that this would be sorted within half hour where they would send me a link... they never did. Either way they tell me to activate this and download Spotify on mobile data. The same mobile data and phone signal that has been awful at my home and work addresses since the pandemic. This same network issue I have complained about numerous times before and yes, you guessed it wouldn't even load the activation page when I needed it most.

So I return to chat where me and the next chat advisor chase the same troubleshooting issues before handing me off to the tech again, where I am told this issue as been escalated and will be sorted within 5 working days. Chat advisors do a great job but even I don't believe I will hear from them or anyone else unless I do the hunting. By this point next week I will have returned to work where I am expected to do just that, not sit on chat logs. Tired, angry and frustrated.

No idea what's happened, why I can't just click a simple activation link nor do I understand why my queries on Spotify and indeed previous signal/mobile data does no one seem to give a hoot about but at best I won't subscribe to Spotify in this way going forth. As I say this service is very important to me and next time I'll happily just pay the few quid extra from them directly because this has ruined 2 days of my holiday time and will probably be weeks before I have any resolution such is my trust in Vodafone. Vodafone need to pull their finger out. As a customer of 10 years I have always tried to have patience, but the most important things don't seem to be working and my trust in the company is rapidly going downhill.

If anyone can help please reply 😮‍💨

[CallumR]

Hey @Cole1991 thanks for reaching out. I'm sorry for the experience you've been having with setting up your entertainment package. 

So that we can investigate this further for you, please reach out to our Social Media team on either Facebook or Twitter. They'll have the right tools to help get this resolved. 

[ste_76]

I have spent the last 1 hr (plus an earlier call).  Upgraded and took out a new contract last Thursday continued with an entertainment package.  Vodafone have cancelled my existing spotify and when I try to re-activate, I am either getting a 403 Forbidden when accessing the Vodafone Entertainment site or when that works and I try to activate my Spotify account, I gate a 505 Error or "upstream request timeout".  Farcical, now being told I have to wait for the issue to to be fixed before any goodwill discount.  Upto 5 days apparently.....

[Cole1991]

To update...

This issue is still not resolved. Followed your advise @CallumR and got in contact with Vodafone through Twitter last Friday.

After initially telling me I didn't have an Entertainment Plan (screenshots says I do!), I went through the usual tail chasing I mentioned initially before chat advisor said this issue had already been escalated 2 days prior and that I have to wait the 5 working days before I can do anything whatsoever.

So 'Happy 5 Working Days' to me! No response from anyone at Vodafone and no proper activation of Spotify Premium.

As I am now back at work, I've spent 2 and half hours of my spare time this evening again chasing this issue, via a detour to make a point how bad mobile data is (initially this was how I was told to activate the account but turns out you can do it on WiFi afterall).

This was followed by being told by the technical advisor that it had been escalated (probably into outer space never to be seen again) and that I would reach a resolution between 24 to 72 hours. As you can probably expect I no longer have that patience.

As I upgraded last Monday (31st July) I am not waiting to find a resolution from imaginary tech support. Will be going in store Friday where if they cannot solve this I will be cancelling the contract as it falls into the 14 day cool off period. This is the most frustrating experience I have ever felt with Vodafone as mentioned before. What's more it's probably something simple from their end.

Having spoke to a few people in tech positions (who also tried activating on their own devices... it failed too!), they point to this being clearly something on Vodafones end. As I'm clearly the only one experiencing this, there is probably some box on some form somewhere on some computer that hasn't been ticked.

Either way I am missing music on commutes and at work like crazy, who'd have thought going back in time with my record player at home would provide solace.

[Cole1991]

For anyone else who may be hitting this problem, this is the message given when trying to activate (and failing).

[Getafix]

Have you tried it on Desktop/Laptop?
https://offers.vodafone.com/gb

Click on above and will ask you for your Phone No. Enter it and will send a OTP to your phone.
Then will let you see your options. If you cannot see it on the first page, then click on Managed Tab.
It will probably show there.
I spotted that Managed Tab recently when I renewed my contract and added Youtube premium back.
Although it had expired, it was under Managed Tab and just clicked on it to continue.

[scoobstu]

I have the exact same issue. Did you manage to sort it out?  

I have spoken to tech support for hours over the weekend and they told me they would reset my whole account and it would work today.  Needless to say it still won't activate

[Janey]

Hi @scoobstu Thanks for your message! Sorry to hear you're having issues with your entertainment pack too. My team would be more than happy to look into this for you. Please drop them a message on our social channels found here so we can investigate further. 

[Cole1991]

Yes but without meaning to worry you too much, with great difficulty.

The wait time for Vodafone to sort it out online took too long and it was always me chasing up the problem.

In the end I went into the store and although I was running into the same problems there, it was with a set of staff who knew the problem and were in store whenever I visited.

They started out by going through the same steps as they tell you online, this failed obviously so the problem was escalated again and I had to wait a set amount of time before following up again amd again with them.

In the end it was escalated past a couple of tech teams, regional managers before being escalated to one of the CEOs. It was at this point it was fixed.

The reason wasn't particularly fulfilling either. A one in a million glitch apparently. Either way, I hope you sort it out faster than I could.

Didn't mind the issue too much as clearly these things happen, it was the turnaround times and the constant chasing up of the problem that were far from enjoyable. As a customer it was hugely frustrating but going in store is probably your best bet I'm afraid.

The experience won't be forgotten for me and with Vodafones constantly awful data signal and failure to do anything about it despite my endless complaints I will leave at the end of my contract.

[Bimal55]

OMG I’m facing exactly the same problem and have spoken to 3 different Vodafone entertainment customer service advisors from India who keep on saying the same thing and say they have escalated and will call me back but still no joy……are u saying the best thing is to go to store to fix it? Will it be fixed there and then? Many thanks for your post…it’s good to see other people facing same issue and not just me