Just changed over to Giffgaff

Ixon

Ixon

Ixon

Associate
Joined
30 Apr 2003
Posts
1,489
Location
Wigan
Been a T-mobile contract customer for years, finally today i cut my ties with T-mobile & moved over to Giffgaff.

Basically i was paying £35 per month, basically so i could get the latest smartphones for free, but since then I've been buying Simfree to use with my existing contract.

Great thing about Giffgaff is i can choose what i want now every month, atm im only paying £10 as 250mins calls is more than enough for me, was getting 1200 mins on my contract, but never used more than 150 mins a month.

As i currently have a HTC Sensation XE simfree which im more than happy with atm, and will be for the rest of this year until the next set of Smartphones in 2013.

Basically with Giffgaff I still get all the stuff i got with a contract, but i can choose what i want, plus not tied into any contract anymore, also with a saving of £25 per month aswell.

Basically the days of having a contract are over for me, any future smartphone i buy will be simfree, to which im also saving money there aswell even though im paying out a large lump sum in one go.
 
The wife and I are doing the same thing next month. Haven't decided yet whether to go with Giffgaff or with a sim free style contract from Tesco etc.

I was fed up with long contracts at £36 a month with almost no flexibility. I'm looking forward to being able to change my handset more often without having to spend more.

My current example. Bought a Lumia 800 for £135 (£325 - £190 trade in for my wife's old 3gs) Tesco contract at £12.50 month is a £23.50 saving on my current contract. So £135 / £23.50 = 5.7 months before I break even. So if I run my current handset for just 6 months I start saving money, if I change it, I will have spent no more than if I were still on contract.
 
Well T-Mobile did try to blag me with the £36 per month totally unlimited deal & an Iphone 4S for free if i stopped with them, but then i would be stuck with them for another 2 years.

I also didn't bother transfering my number over, as i was getting to many spam texts, as im gonna be careful who i give my number to in future.
 
I cannot understand anybody that is not on 3.
15 quid a month gets you 300 mins 3000 text & Unlimited Data. Only excuse not to be on 3 is you are Dead. :D
 
4T5 said:
I cannot understand anybody that is not on 3.
15 quid a month gets you 300 mins 3000 text & Unlimited Data. Only excuse not to be on 3 is you are Dead. :D
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Because for £10 per month I get 250 mins Unlimited Texts & Unlimited Data :D.

Plus the 3 Network around here is pretty patchy, O2 signal is actually better than my T-Mobile.
 
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Ixon said:
Because for £10 per month I get 250 mins Unlimited Texts & Unlimited Data :D.

Plus the 3 Network around here is pretty patchy, O2 signal is actually better than my T-Mobile.
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Surely 3000 texts is no different to unlimited, unless you're a 14 year old girl.
It's 100 texts per day! and even then you could switch to whatsapp if you somehow got anywhere near the limit?
 
You should have asked T-Mobile for one of their sim only deals.

I have a SIM only contract with 500 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited Internet (3GB) for £7.50 a month after talking to them last month ;)
 
I did and was not offered anything like that, for £10 i was offered 100mins of calls 200 text's and 500meg of data that it.
 
I've just changed over to giffgaff too, and have a word of warning.

It IS cheap (when it works). This is the only reason to transfer, and a pretty good one admittedly, but heaven help you if you have a problem.

The SUPPORT is AWFUL. Don't be conned by their whole online, our members provide support in the forums thing. It is entirely misleading. These members are customers like you, and the ONLY thing they can do is tell you what you can read in the FAQs and instructions anyway. Period. They can't provide real support and resolve any kind of problems with your account. If you're too lazy or hard of thinking to figure out how to plug a sim card into your phone you might be grateful, but it is otherwise worthless. (In fact my experience is that 'members' effectively serve as unpaid advertising monkeys for giffgaff, mostly concerned with their post count, kudos and recruiting new members in order to earn a few pennies of free service back from giffgaff.)

For actual support you have to submit a message to an 'agent'. You will receive a reply from 24 to 48 hours later (yes really that long) and because these 'agents' are outsourced, they can't resolve problems either, but refer your problem up the chain. Therefore expect another reply, yep you guessed it, 24 to 48 hours later. and so it goes on.

So if something goes wrong expect to wait DAYS for anything to happen at all, which if you are without service could be completely unacceptable.

What I'm so disappointed about is that online support could have been a great USP, fast, efficient & convenient. I can refurnish my entire house on Amazon and have it delivered the next day, yet Giffgaff cannot reply to an email in less than 48 hours let alone correct a fault with their service. In my opinion if you're going to do web support you have to do it really well. giffgaff don't even do it averagely, they do it badly.

Ok, so it's gone wrong for me, my giffgaff web page displays the wrong number, balance unavailable and I cannot buy new credit in any way so my phone is currently a brick, but don't take this as purely a rant - it is a truthful account of how giffgaff support works. Be warned.
 
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AndyCr15 said:
T Mobile everything free and infinitely for £7.50 is still not as good value as Three at £15 IMHO...
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How much faster do web pages and other similar things process compared to T-Mobile?

I was thinking of this exact thing before I renewed, but due to the nature of the network protocol, I didn't think I'd see a blazingly faster difference, as of yet.

Would love to see some tests though.
 
mnemonix said:
GiffGaff rant
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Couldn't agree more with all your points. Make sure you buy a new goodybag at least 24 hours before your current one is set to run out otherwise your in for a world of issues. My GF forgot to buy a new one and it started eating into her actual credit when she sent a text/made calls. Logic says "go on the website and purchase another goodybag" but it took 24 hours after the goodbag ran out for her account to "refresh" before it allowed her to purchase another one.

GiffGaff works really well when it actually works. Trouble is, more often than not, it doesn't work!
 
mnemonix said:
I've just changed over to giffgaff too, and have a word of warning....
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Steve_bullockuk said:
Couldn't agree more with all your points...
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Just been looking up some reviews and they are full of comments like this. Network downtime, failed purchases, no customer service, 48 hours! to resolve a problem. I rely heavily on my phone for work, so I will be giving Giffgaff a miss.

Anyone know if the Tesco 12 month sim only iPhone contract can be used on other phones, as this seems to be their best value.
 
imb4tman said:
Just been looking up some reviews and they are full of comments like this. Network downtime, failed purchases, no customer service, 48 hours! to resolve a problem. I rely heavily on my phone for work, so I will be giving Giffgaff a miss.

Anyone know if the Tesco 12 month sim only iPhone contract can be used on other phones, as this seems to be their best value.
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The only issue ive had is with the goodybag system as I mentioned. Everything else has been spot on. a lot of people claim its slower than actually being with O2 but ive not found this.
 
Steve_bullockuk said:
Couldn't agree more with all your points. Make sure you buy a new goodybag at least 24 hours before your current one is set to run out otherwise your in for a world of issues. My GF forgot to buy a new one and it started eating into her actual credit when she sent a text/made calls. Logic says "go on the website and purchase another goodybag" but it took 24 hours after the goodbag ran out for her account to "refresh" before it allowed her to purchase another one.

GiffGaff works really well when it actually works. Trouble is, more often than not, it doesn't work!
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That's weird as I never bother buying a goody bag until I realise my old one has expired, and it's always active immediately. Maybe that has something to do with me never leaving credit on my account though?

I've had no problems with giffgaff so far and I'm hoping it stays that way if what you chaps are saying about their CS is true :(
 
Steve_bullockuk said:
The only issue ive had is with the goodybag system as I mentioned. Everything else has been spot on. a lot of people claim its slower than actually being with O2 but ive not found this.
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Might switch the misses and let her try it out for couple of months before I do.

From what I understand you can have credit and a goodybag running side by side? So when first signing up, top up £10 credit and £10 goodybag. When the goodybag runs out you top up with another but if there is gap between the old one finishing and the new starting you will use up a little but of the £10 credit. But the £10 credit remains as long as you have continuous goodybags.
 
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