New iPad mini 3 FaceTime and iMessage not working

I Wish that I had more to offer you than a link to another "me too" discussion, but I have nothing more to offer than any of these people have.

imessage and Facetime sign in activation error iPad ios8.1.2

Someone in in that discussion suggested entering incorrect credentials in the settings and after getting a message that the password and username were incorrect, he was able to enter the correct information and activate both apps.

My experience was just the same at the genius bar, we tried everything to get a 3 day old mini 3 working - the assistant tried her two AppleIDs one worked one didn't! Must have created about 4 different AppleIDs to see if that made a difference - but it didn't. We tried one of the new AppleIDs on a store iPad (running iOS8.2) - and it validated OK - so we were left to summised it was an iOS8.3 problem. So left the Apple store with a replacement mini 3 running iOS8.0 on which the AppleID worked. Got it home - and 24 hours later after backing up on iTunes it fell over. Calls and escalation to engineering and a week later fiddling with the clock timing and suddenly it worked, and has carried on working. Still not brave enough to load 8.3 though! So keep up the calls to AppleCare - good luck !! and enjoy following the discussion above (48,000 views must mean something!)

mini 3 iOS8.0

IM having the same issue, wont log in FaceTime and iMessage... It tried with my wife's Apple ID and works but with my old and even 2 new account still doesn't work. Why is that she had her iPad and we can't share the same FaceTime account cuz we need to call each other when tdy's. Should we abandon Apple product? We been having this problem since March and even family share won't work correctly and are about to sell all our phones and I pads and stick to windows. What can we do?