Does anyone use giffgaff here?

I am considering switching to giffgaff due to their low rates.

Anyone with giffgaff, is it any good from personal experience?

How is their customer service? Is there a content control block for mobile internet, if yes how do you remove it without a credit card?

How easy is it to transfer your existing number from personal experience?

Cheers

I can answer this, as I have been using giffgaff since about june or july of last year.


from my experience they've been really good. I've saved a lot of money compared to my old O2 contract. plus earned money back from helping people on their forums.
there have been one or two times where the network has gone down for half an hour to an hour, in my time of being with them. no big deal tho... happenes with all networks.


customer service is good. you can either ask a question in their forums, and people will fall over themselves to answer it for you.
if it is something account specific - you can contact a member of staff - they usually reply well within 24 hours.

there MAY be an 18+ content lock. you can contact an agent and they will either remove it for you - or I think you can go down the route of taking ID into an O2 shop. but you would have to check about that.


be prepared for people to come on here and start telling you that giffgaf is some sort of pyramid scheme or a scam.... it honestly isn't.

remember you need your phone to be either on O2, or unlocked to any network for the sim card to be accepted.

if you are going to join.. get someone on the forum to send you a £5 referral sim. (ie, when you top-up with £10 - you get an extra £5 free.
they will be falling over themselves to do this - because they get £5 free too.

the goodybags are really good value.
250 mins, unlimited texts and unlimted internet is £10 a month. (and there are no fair usage caps for internet or texts - which is pretty unique to any network)

I suggest going onto their website if you're not sure, have a look around, register, ask a few questions if you want to find out more..... even order a sim card....
you're not committed to joining until you make your first £10 topup.

I've been with giffgaff for 4 months now.

Transfering my number was easy, customer service is good even though i've not really had to use them.

There is a content lock but i haven't looked into taking it off

Best of all its cheap!

If you want a sim give me a shout mate

I switched from o2 Simplicity to giffgaff in July 2010 and to tell you the truth, there's no difference at all (apart from the massive savings).

I still get the speaking clock
I still have 3G coverage in all the same places.
Calls still sound as crystal clear.
Dialling 4444 still takes me to the top up line.

My iPhone even says o2 on the screen and not giffgaff. This was quite useful when I went in the o2 shop and fibbed about being an o2 customer (for a free micro to full sized sim tray).

I'm with giffgaff. They ballsed up over the content, not because of it being out of their control, but their response was below average.
They vary their offers a lot, which is good.

If you are used to using forums, then solving problems by message is fine. I have raised 2 incidents and was happy with the response.

With a goody bag do you still have to top up yourself once a month or can you set it up to top up automatically?

You can set an auto top up.

good network with good deals but they need to improve there customer service

Biggest downside is that it runs on O2 which isn't great for data. Hopefully 3G900 will change that.

Giffgaff are good.They are basically the same as o2 but much cheaper prices.Customer support is through online forums or via e-mailing an agent.The forum response is very quick or for account related issues,you usually get a response within 24hrs.
Overall im very happy.I get more money back from giffgaff than i put in to top up which cant be a bad thing!

Cheers....Neil

p.s Auto renewing goodybags are not yet available but auto top up is.

I've only ever had one problem.

This was the reply:

I goodwill gesture of 24p wow!

Can you set it to auto top up 10 pound a month on the 15th of every month?

Yes. You can.

incorrect.

auto-topup kicks in when the credit drops below £3.
not on a pre-defined date.

Another thumbs up for giffgaff here. I moved to them recently when my Orange contract ended and have been really happy with the service... 3.5G coverage and fast web browsing speeds in most places, cheap as chips, and the truly unlimited data means they are one of the few networks you can use things like Spotify Mobile on without having to worry about going over a data allowance. Haven't needed to use customer services, but my number transferred over in three days with no problems.

at the moment auto top up dusnt do anything unless you go below £3 I think it is but I think u can set it to £1... you can't buy a bunch of goodybags at the.moment either... only two at once...

I joined to simply use a sim in my iPad for the (very) infrequent times I'd take it out (I am in no way a heavy user at all).
I went through all the signup, paid for my time etc and then had some issues on the setup of the data connection, they then told me in no uncertain terms that that was not allowed (and indeed upon reading that was true). So I asked for a cancellation and refund and was refused point blank. I'd used no minutes, no data nothing but they would not refund me. Since then I've avoided them like the plague and warned all about how they run their business.
Be aware.

Just to let you all know, I'm putting my money where my mouth is and leaving giffgaff for Three.

My transition from O2 to giffgaff went perfectly. Buying credit and goodybags has been just fine. All the promotions done mean my average spend on giffgaff has been less than £10pm. (I used to get the half price £15 goodybags for £7.50 and recently been getting the 250 min ones).

The support from giffgaff has been great too - I emailed them a couple of times and got a relatively speedy reponse (email reply within 24 hours usually).

So giffgaff themselves have been great for me, unfortunately the whole premise of unlimited data was undone for me by the pitiful speeds I was getting on several handsets. I was getting at least 3 bars of HSDPA everywhere (often full H signal) but the speed was always between dialup and 3G, almost never 3.5G and never in the order of megabits. It let me down, not being abel to stream music etc (using Zune pass).

Switching to 3 will cost me £5 more per month, will mean no signal deep inside buildings (though better signal at home already!) but it will be worth it as I can properly use my phone for what I bought it for - a connected, mobile experience e.g. music, browsing, apps etc.

So I'm positive on Giffgaff, positive on 3, very negative on O2's 3G network. I may well change back to giffgaff if the 3G900 upgrades prove effective in increasing data capacity.

Just as a followup: I messaged GG to request a PAC and received one 25 minutes later with no fuss about staying - great service.

How much does sending a text message cost?

How much for calling cross-networks and above all, do you get any free calls?

Free to other giffgaff users
4p to everyone else
Free (and unlimited) with all goody bags over £10


8p a minute on standard PAYG

With a £10 goody bag, you get 250 minutes.

All the information is very clear on their website: http://giffgaff.com/index/offer

you can use it in ipad as they can't prove u have or u havnt as with tethering... it just us against the terms. ur it can be done

Rubbish, they can tell and they don't need to prove it. If they suspect you they have the right to take action.

All web requests to the internet include things called headers, in which is announced the name of the device and or browser used. They will quite clearly be able to tell the device has been tethered and used on a device other than a mobile phone.