Can my K-pop mad mum get a refund from Spotify?

I’m writing to see if you can help me get some money back from Spotify for my tech-challenged, K-pop-loving, 65-year-old mother.

Mama is a big fan of the Korean boy band BTS, but she is not very good with computers.

A loyal fan, she signed up with Spotify in September 2020 to stream BTS’ music. It’s not my taste, but it’s a passion she shares with her grandsons, who love to dance along.

Unfortunately, when Mom got new devices in June and September last year, she didn’t log into her existing Spotify account, instead creating two new ones. So even though she only used one account at a time, she still paid for all three.

I’ve calculated that the double (and triple) payments add up to £209.79. After chatting with Spotify, it has offered to refund three months of two accounts – so £59.94.

I know mom made a mistake, and she should have seen the extra cost. But it was an honest mistake and Spotify can see that she wasn’t using more than one account at a time.

I would like Spotify to refund her the remaining £149.85. Can you help us? AL, Belgium

Helen Crane from This is Money replies: This was up there with the best emails from readers I’ve had since I started writing this column.

First a quick K-pop explanation, for those who may not be in the know. K-pop or Korean pop is a musical phenomenon from South Korea that has exploded in popularity in recent years – and the members of boy band BTS are among the scene’s biggest stars.

They have sold over 40 million albums, have fans all over the world and were the first non-English speaking and Asian act to sell out concerts at both Wembley Stadium and the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles.

And somewhere along the way, they picked up a loyal fan in the form of your 65-year-old mother.

She sounds great – and I’m sure her grandsons are lucky to have such a happy grandmother.

I’d hate for this sign-in error to end the family dances, so I had to step in and try to help.

How did this happen? When your mom got a new phone and tablet, she turned to the Spotify app to keep listening to her favorite songs.

But instead of entering the email address and password she was already using, she accidentally signed up for two new accounts.

One is set up with a second email address and the other is by clicking ‘log in with Facebook’ and signing up with that information.

Usually subscription services don’t let people sign up for an account with the same email address more than once to prevent this sort of thing from happening – but as you say your mom isn’t the most tech savvy and I can see how she could by just slip.

She paid £9.99 a month for her Spotify subscription, but with the second account it became £19.98 and then £29.97.

However, because she used different payment cards for these new accounts, the payments came out as three £9.99 lottery tickets and it was easier not to see on her bank statements that her payments to Spotify had tripled in size.

When she found out earlier this year, you and your mom spoke to Spotify. After some back and forth on the online chat, it offered to refund three months of the accidental payments, or £59.94.

But that still left your mother with nearly £150 out of pocket.

Your view is that while your mom made a mistake, it was an honest mistake – and Spotify could tell she wasn’t using multiple accounts at once.

“It feels mean of them not to pay back something that cost them nothing,” you said.

Thankfully, when I spoke to Spotify, it agreed to refund the extra, which was music to my ears.

Now that we’ve spoken to our customer service team and looked into the details of [this customer’s] bills,

“I can confirm that we have contacted her to offer her a full refund for every month she accidentally had duplicate accounts.

‘This works out to 21 months in total, at £9.99 per month, so a refund of £209.79. We also offered to close the other accounts she uses to avoid further confusion and additional subscriptions.

“We apologize for any inconvenience here, and hopefully she can continue to enjoy BTS with her grandsons.”

Top of the (Korean) pops.