I have been on giffgaff for about 10 months now.

I have been eligible to collect cash in one payback period thus far, December 2011 in which I received over £400.

Of course all mobile users are unique and what is fine for one user may possibly be unacceptable for another.

If you are reasonably techie savvy and understand about unlocked phones, sim free phones, PAC codes etc not having a customer service phone number is no big deal.

I had the age restriction block lifted within 5 days of contacting an agent with no issue.

If you are the sort of person that want to constantly call up customer services for every issue as you are not tech savvy then giffgaff may not be for you.

In terms of monetary value IF you can get good coverage and are a moderate to high user of mobile data the £10 goodybag offers outstanding value.

If you do not use a goodybag the basic tariff prices have a habit of increasing every so often. Used to be 4p per text and 8p per minute WITHOUT a goodybag.

Another reason I am with giffgaff is payback, you wont get rich from it but as a little bit of extra income it isn't that bad. With minimal effort you can make over £400.

Overall I would rate giffgaff from my personal experience based on my first 10 months as this:

8 out of 10

I joined up to Giffgaff a little while ago to give them a try. I created an account online which was very simple, the sim card arrived very quicky in a nice little white package which I thought was cleverly designed.

I thought the £10 goodybag was good value for money. I got 2G only in most rooms at home with 1 room able to receive 1 bar of 3G and when I travelled around I found their 3G coverage just wasn't up to much. I took it from home to work a few times, up to Birmingham and travelled around trying to stream online radio, but the problem was there isn't much 3G outside of the main towns.

From a 2G point of view the coverage was rock solid and for calls and texts it was brilliant and very good value. If you have a 2G phone it's plan and simple GG all the way.

I might occasionally use it or top it up again, but I don't think it would be a primary network for me as data coverage is my biggest want, I use my phone more for data than I do for calls and texts.

I would give them 7/10.

Can someone explain how the cash back scheme works, read the site but its not 100% clear.

You refer people and earn points, then the point get converted into money every so often. I'm sure there is stuff about it on the Giffgaff forums.

Coverage for me is excellent. Constant HSDPA since O2 upgraded all the masts around here. Even in the office I get 3G....
It's no better and certainly no worse than the other providers. I'm not forced to stay with it for any reason either. Ready to jump ship any time something appears that would suit me better. Until then.......................

Since we're sharing, here are my views:

Good points about giffgaff; there's no denying the £10 goodybag is great value for money, their out of bundle pricing is good, and payback (the more you get involved) is nice. Additionally customer service is OK, as long as you are reasonably tech savvy.

Bad points about giffgaff; the bottomless pit that is the technical team, their website (for an online only service it should be better, I mean really) and last but by no means least - it runs on the O2 network.

I've recently left giffgaff, for one reason - coverage. The O2 network for me is hopelessly overloaded, on 2G and 3G/3G900; dropped calls, signal up and down like a yo yo, cell breathing, you name it it's happening here... and this is after a "network upgrade". I live line of sight from a mast that's been converted to 3G900, it's only a few hundred metres away, but can my handset hang on to it's signal - can it ****. As a result, I have two phones on Three and (and I never thought I'd say this) a backup handset on Orange PAYG ostensibly for 08 calls and Orange Wednesdays.

All in all though, my score for giffgaff would be 6/10. It would be higher if they ran on a different network, but since that's clearly never going to happen it's a bit of a moot point.

I think Giffgaff on Vodafone would be amazing, I think it is the network and technology that lets them down. I like the concept and the pricing, it's just the 3G coverage and technical issues / reliability that are the down sides.

I could not agree more, although it will never happen as giffgaff and o2 are both owned by Telefonica so in effect giffgaff is just the budget version of o2 like genie used to be.

As I just posted in the other giffgaff thread...
The concept of giffgaff is excellent but the implementation is dire.

Vodafone have MVNO's including Talk Mobile who compete with GiffGaff offering 200 Mins/500 SMS and 500 MB of data for £8 a month on a 1 month rolling contract. That compares favourably with GiffGaff's 250 mins, Unlimited SMS and Unlimited handset Internet I think for £10 a month for many users. Talk Mobile also offer 400 Mins, 3000 SMS and 750MB of data for £12 a month PAYG.

So customers have the choice of using the Vodafone network via an MVNO at similar prices to O2's GiffGaff if they shop around.

http://www.talkmobile.co.uk/simple.html

Also ASDA Mobile runs on Vodafone for people who want cheap calls and texts without a bundle but I don't think they are so good for data packages though

However, GiffGaff can be (and is for me) totally free....None of the others offers a payback rewards system.
Nice to know that there is always somewhere else should one become dissatisfied with whatever provider they use.

In the survey i did i gave it 8/10.

Marked down because i have deep reservations about giving u16s payback for simply posting on a forum, money for activating sims, sure, from posting on a forum?

Not so much.

As a pricing package its worth 10/10, really its not beatable. As I rarely need 3g its worth 10/10 as 2g is 100% solid for me.

IF, I used 3g then my score would drop as it can be a bit hit and miss here in South Wales so taking into account 3g coverage I'd give 8/10.

So, a mean score from me of 9/10

Great for those who don't make many outgoing calls but receive lots. Their Hokey Cokey Goodybag at £5 offers 100 mins and 300 SMS + free giffgaff calls/texts but you also get an extra 1 minute credit for every full minute of calls received. A bit like the 3Pay plan that was discontinued some years ago.

This could be be very suitable for a small business or someone who is self-employed. Also a great deal for casual use or a second mobile for social use. Flexibility is good too as you can top up with a small amount and not have to commit to buying a goodybag which is time limited. That means you can leave the phone at home when you go on holiday and its not eating into your credit. Handy.

I'm not using giffgaff for data yet but will try it soon to see if its a viable alternative to a Vodafone contract. No complaints about topping up or rewards so far and I was able to get all the settings for an Orange Rio on their forum easily.

So for voice and text at minimal cost its a 9/10 from me.

Do there sims work on iPhone 4s?

I had a giffgaff SIM on my old phone, the new one is locked to Vodaphone.

Vodaphone 3G has terrible coverage and their data package on PAYG is awful in comparison to GG.

I know we all have different experiences with coverage and if you live in a rural location a particular network might be very bad but honestly if you think Vodafone have bad 3G coverage then wait until you try O2/Giff Gaff.

If EE are good where you are the their payg Big Data deal is good. For £10 a month you get unlimited texts and data plus the £10 to spend on calls (probably about 40 minutes). This would be crap if you need lots of minutes but I don't so it is fine for me as EE is the only option at work.

Yes they will work in any unlocked handset. There is a forum on GiffGaff's website where members provide advice about how best to unlock phones that have been obtained for use on a contract. There are a number of options for the iPhone depending on which network originally supplied the handset so best to check out what would suit your particular needs.

While Vodafone have the second worst 3G coverage across the UK, looking at thier map it appears it's the worst where I live in South Devon. At a customer's on Wednesday night taking thier repaired PC back and she asked me to connect her Daughter's smartphone to WiFi "because it won't go in the Internet when she's out in town". Found out it was Talk Mobile, so did a quick Google search because I didn't know what network they used and all became clear!
In contrast, thier ADSL was running at 200Kbps because of a sync issue so I just connected thier Laptop (Which needed the AV updating) to my EE Hotspot and was getting about 5Meg.
It's a shame I can't recommend VOD or O2 where i live because it would be nice to have more options. As they always do, she asked me who they should change to and I had no choice but to say Three, Orange, TM or Virgin but not Tesco.
I'm hoping LTE will change things soon and bring prices down eventually.

Having said all that, if you want calls and texts (and ignoring the recent O2 outages and the very recent crossed lines thing), then GiffGaff/O2 have the best 2G voice network of any network for coverage.

It does all depends where we live. I have used Vodafone (and now Talk Mobile) as that network is the best in the fells when I am out running. You can get good 3g at the head of Ennerdale! But EE is the best at work so I will have to switch.

I had nothing but problems when I was with Giff Gaff, dropped calls and the internet only occasionally worked, sometimes you do get what you pay for.

I'd say a lot of the good reviews for Giff Gaff you need to take with a pinch of salt - people get money off their bills with the whole referral scheme and collecting points each time they help someone etc, so it's hard to know if it's someone's genuine opinion or if they are just getting pound size in their eyes.

Saying that I've known people who have had no issues at all, but as you physically can't phone someone to get an issue sorted it does make problem solving rather difficult.

I looked at the EE but evidently EE don't do PAYG. Virgin however do have a so-called PAYG Big Data http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/gener...chooseus.sm072 although it's not really unlimited data as apparently they throttle your speed down to a very slow 384Kbps once you exceed 10GB.

Did you not read my post

I already said, I used to be on GiffGaff and it worked perfectly, coverage was great.

My bad. I forgot to say that the Big Data plan is with Vigin who use EE. Sorry.

Jesus are you just trying to score cheap points? I was not talking about a particular location, I was talking about coverage - you know, like national. And I am not even joking.