In short: If Apple Music is not working with Verizon and you see a message that says “This subscription is already being used with a different Apple ID,” contact Apple Support to unlink your Apple ID.
Verizon offers a wireless carrier plan that includes a subscription to Apple Music. All you have to do is connect your subscription to your Apple ID to access your service.
However, many people have trouble with Apple Music not working with Verizon. In some cases, Apple Music won’t link the Apple ID registered on the account through Verizon.
Worse, you can get caught in a never-ending loop sending you back to the Verizon page to verify your subscription. Let’s do some troubleshooting together.
Your Apple ID is linked to another Apple ID
Apple Music won’t work with Verizon if your Apple ID is linked to someone else’s Apple ID. I’ve discovered this after many conversations with Apple Support, as well as trials and errors.
Let me break it down for you.
I got caught in a never-ending loop where Apple Music keeps sending me back to verify my subscription through the Verizon page. The first thing I did was go to Apple Support.
Although anyone from the engineering department wasn’t able to help me resolve it, one of them did point me in the direction that ultimately solved my problem.
I looked on all of my family member’s phones to see if my Apple ID was somehow listed on one of their accounts. I noticed that I had “double contacts” for one of my family members.
As I looked down through the information on the contact, I noticed that my Apple ID was listed there as the linked ID. It was at the very bottom of the contact information.
I tried to “unlink” my Apple ID from that particular contact, but I was unable to do so after numerous failed attempts, so I just decided to delete the contact.
After that, something just told me to go check and see if my Apple Music subscription would verify and it verified my subscription immediately and the problem was resolved.
To summarize, the issue with Apple Music not working with Verizon had something to do with my Apple ID being linked to another Apple Music subscriber’s ID.
Alternatively, you can also ask Apple to unlink the Apple Music subscription from the previous Apple ID. My friend who experienced the same thing did this and was able to solve the issue.
According to my friend, it took a few minutes, but Apple was able to unlink the previous ID from his Apple Music account, and he was then able to register the new Apple ID.
I think it just goes to show how SERIOUS Apple is as a company about not letting anyone rip them off, by sharing Apple Music subscriptions, for example.
Since there was this one little instance where my Apple ID was linked with someone else’s, they were NOT going to let me have an Apple Music subscription until that issue was resolved.
I hope this helps someone else with the same issue. I haven’t found this solution listed anywhere on the internet, and it took over two months to figure this out.
You have an active subscription to Apple Music
According to Verizon, existing Apple Music subscribers must cancel their current Apple Music subscription prior to taking advantage of the offer from Verizon.
You can still get an Apple Music promotional subscription with your Verizon plan even if you’re already subscribed through Apple, but you’ll need to cancel one of your subscriptions.
Once you redeem the Verizon promotional subscription and link your Apple ID, you’ll be prompted within the Apple Music app to cancel one of your subscriptions.
Do not cancel your subscription through Verizon, though. You’ll need to cancel your subscription from Apple so that your Apple Music subscription continues through Verizon.
You tried to link with another Apple ID
Remember what I said about not canceling your subscription through Verizon? The reason you lost access to Apple Music on Verizon could be because you tried to link to another Apple ID.
The first rep I talked to advised me to unenroll (which I later found out was not a good move). I believe that if you unenroll the line, there’s no way of “re-enrolling” it.
After two days of fumbling, I was able to get it to work by adding a line to the eSIM. Once the eSIM had the appropriate plan, I was able to set up Apple Music under the new number.
The issue is not so much attached to the Apple ID (or so it seems) as it’s attached to the phone line. Luckily, I had a patient representative that was able to assist me on a 2-hour call.
The only reason I opted for the add a line (eSIM) option is that I wanted a local number, so this option allowed me to kill two birds with one stone.
Once I had everything squared away, I set the old number to deactivate at the end of my billing cycle. Again, I know this may not be an ideal solution, but it worked. It might work for you too.
Ditch the Apple Music offer from Verizon
You can get Apple Music for free with the 5G Get More plan, or you can get free Apple Music for 6 months with the 5G Start, 5G Play More, and 5G Do More plans.
When you consider everything, you can get savings of about $11 per month. However, I don’t think the hassle with Apple Music and Verizon is worth the money.
If you’ve been dealing with problems with Apple Music on Verizon, I suggest you ditch the offer and subscribe to Apple Music the old-fashioned way (through Apple).
Also, don’t waste your time going into a Verizon store.
I went into my local Verizon Corporate store yesterday to see if they could do anything in person, as was suggested to me by the final Verizon Rep I had spoken with over the phone.
After entering the store, I explained my situation in great detail. But without trying a single thing to fix the problem, they told me to call customer service
I sat in the store for 4 hours on the phone with customer service who transferred me multiple times within Verizon and Apple. Everyone told me that they can do nothing on their end.
After the rep had been gone for an hour, no one else in the store even offered to help me in any way, as I continued to sit on hold with customer service until the 4-hour mark. So I finally left.
In my opinion, the Apple Music offer is just a bonus and Verizon is treating it as an afterthought. I would save my precious time and register through Apple instead of Verizon.
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