T-Mobile $50 discount online activation is still not working

[Sam_K]

Back during the Galaxy S22 pre-order period from Feb 12 to 14, I ran into an issue trying to take advantage of the additional $50 discount for using T-Mobile online activation.  When you select this discount, during checkout you're prompted to sign into your T-Mobile account using your phone number and PIN/passcode and it doesn't work.  You get an error that says "Something went wrong.  Please try again later."  but it never works later.  Yes, I've verified that I'm using the correct PIN so that's not the issue.  This issue was reported by another customer right after the S22 pre-order period started 5-6 weeks ago and it's still not fixed.  I work in IT and there's clearly some kind of authentication issue occurring between Samsung and T-Mobile.  Here's a screen shot of the error.

The old discussion in the community that I participated in back in February appears to have been deleted because the link to the thread doesn't work and I don't see my comments from that thread in my posting history anymore.  Samsung must have deleted the discussion because it was never fixed.

Samsung, please address this issue. 

[user_ams007]

I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience with your Samsung order, I don't know why the topic post was deleted but the 50 dollar discount is available in I went through the purchase process and it takes off the discount,

[Sam_K]

Ok let me try to explain another way since you're not understanding the issue.  I can put the T-Mobile online activation $50 discount in my shopping cart.  In order to get the discount when you checkout you're required to sign into your T-Mobile account using your T-Mobile phone number and Passcode/PIN.  It is this step to sign onto my T-Mobile account that is failing. 

Here is a screen shot of  my shopping cart showing the T-Mobile online activation discount. 

When I click the Checkout button then I get to the following page where I have to sign onto my T-Mobile account to get the $50 discount and it always fails.  It failed Feb 12, 13 and 14 when I gave up and it's still failing now.

[Carlex314]

I had this issue and got the same feedback from Samsung about the 50 credit. I even saved the chat with them but didn't help at all.  The order lets you add the Tmobile 50 discount but right when you are going to check out, that PIN request stops you and won't let you continue. No matter what you do. I ended up ordering the unlocked version. Horrible customer service.

Try this link as its the same issue. 

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Samsung-Apps-and-Services/Any-body-else-having-trouble-with-the-...

[Sam_K]

Thanks for sending me a link to the other topic describing the same issue that I got and it also had screen shots showing the same error message that I got.  Maybe @user_ams007 will see that multiple people had this issue 5-6 weeks ago and it's still not fixed.  

When I placed my order without the T-Mobile online activation discount last month, I had an email from a Samsung customer service rep that was part of a problem ticket that I opened promising me a $50 credit + tax to cover the T-Mobile online activation discount that I had to remove in order to complete the checkout.  When it came time to credit me later, Samsung gave me a much smaller credit and then said they couldn't fix the credit so I returned the phone just on principle.  

Just the other day I thought that maybe it might be the T-Mobile security feature NOPORT or NOSWAP on my line preventing the online activation from going through but I confirmed twice with T-Mobile that neither one of those security features is active on my line.  

I agree that Samsung's customer service is not good.  They're a multi billion company and they can't find one person on their web development team to look at the error.  It's ridiculous.  I'm sure they all believe it's user error just like how @user_ams007 was responding to me even though I posted the same screen shot more than once with the error circled.  It's even more frustrating for me because I work in I.T. and I know that it's clearly some sort of breakdown in communication between Samsung and T-Mobile's servers or Samsung's process isn't properly interpreting the response that they're getting back from T-Mobile.  

[Sam_K]

No this isn't the solution because Samsung phone support can't create an order with an additional $50 discount to replace the Tmobile online activation discount and also if they build a shopping cart to email me with the Tmobile online activation discount then I still can't checkout successfully with it. There are only 2 solutions, fix the Tmobile online activation during checkout or provide a $50 coupon to every customer who can't successfully perform the Tmobile online activation during checkout so they can use the coupon to replace the Tmobile online discount in their shopping cart and complete the checkout.

[Sam_K · Accepted solution]

I finally placed an order with the $50 T-mobile online activation discount.  The T-Mobile support rep I chatted with via DM on Twitter fixed the issue on my account that was causing the issue so I'll explain what they did so that others can try it.  Apparently my account was still linked to my employer for a discount which no longer exists since T-Mobile discontinued the corporate discount program many years ago.  The T-Mobile rep said "It's possible that having this linked is creating an issue between T-Mobile and Samsungs online ordering system so what I'd like to do is submit to have that status removed and then see if you can complete a purchase online after that."  She put in the request to remove that on Saturday and by Sunday I was able to place the order with the T-Mobile online activation.  She said it could take 2-5 business days to remove it from my account but the T-Mobile rep told me to periodically keep trying to checkout with the online activation discount to see if it worked and it did the day after she put in the request to remove the corporate discount from my account.  

It looks like this corporate discount link caused Samsung to identify my T-Mobile account as a business account which is not supported on Samsung.com for online activation.  Here's a screen shot of part of the T-Mobile online activation sign-in page during checkout which says which account types are not supported. 

To get the corporate discount link removed from your T-Mobile account, I would contact T-Mobile T-Force via a DM to TMobileHelp on Twitter or through Facebook Messenger because they provide better support than the off-shore telephone support reps.  Here's a discussion on T-Mobile's community site about to reach T-Force.

https://community.t-mobile.com/accounts-services-4/how-to-reach-t-force-13286