If you've been following the giffgaff saga, you're probably aware that the unlimited goodybag has been taken away from the £12 deal and moved to £18, and that from March next year it goes up again to £20.

Is it unlimited? well. you would have throught if you didn't tether, use your sim in a tablet that it would be, maybe subject to traffic management, but there are several threads stating that they are getting bans and warnings for using 11GB in one month.

I don't think 350MB a day is that bad personally, but the thing that annoys me is they won't tell people it's 10GB. Three gives a feel like home allowance of 25GB in locations abroad, which makes 10GB of UK data on a deal advertised as "unlimited" just crazy.

Some of the giffgaff members make me laugh. One giffgaff community member posted to say

Is it me, or has this just got more and more mad as the saga has gone on, isn't it about time to bring it to an end... Ofcom...... *shouts* OFCOOMMMMMMM!

Source

giffgaff used to be the best, but the quality definitely seems to have declined.

When I get 3G (which is rare) it's very slow, calls cut out randomly, phone call sound quality is atrocious, I get texts sometimes an hour after they've been sent to me, I've bought a goodybag before and ended up with 2, spending twice as much without my knowledge - this has happened a few times and yeah, prices are going up.

I had a feeling it wouldn't be long until unlimited turned out not to really be unlimited.

I've had a look at Three and even though they're slightly more expensive, they seem better.

No idea why another thread has been created to discuss this issue when the OP posted this one not very long ago.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...245&highlight=

The same topic has also been included in an O2 financial results thread by the OP!

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...9#post75048449

A familiar agenda? Most giffgaff customers know what they choose and as they only sell no commitment packages there is total freedom to move if revised offerings don't suit the needs of the customer. giffgaff is a very different concept and proposition to contracts and 'rolling' contracts, every goodybag is a one off purchase and is bought on the basis of the terms offered and member feedback when paid for. Bottom line is if folks don't like the deal or the manner in which they are treated they can move with no penalty other than the cost of their current goodybag.

Your first link is about the GG pricing consultation and setting tariffs, the 2nd is about O2's financial results. This thread is about bans or data use, please keep on topic.

Lol - It has some fanatical users that frequent its "community". I have a giffgaff sim and it provides a dreadful data service so I'm surprised anyone can use that much. The community is like a bubble that is insulated from the real world.

It's good to create increased awareness so people don't get taken in by the hype especially related to its unlimited marketing scam. I was appalled that the Which? award it won was based on survey feedback alone from just 95 "customer" responses. How many mobile customers are there in the UK ? It's all just marketing over substance

Exactly, that member thought they were sticking to the rules, and used what I would consider to be a moderate amount of data.

The person that posted from the community saying "glad you're leaving. my data use is less than 500MB for the whole month" doesn't need the unlimited goodybag.

The problem is giffgaff's "community" is made up a very small percentage of its customers. The reason giffgaff still offers unlimited data despite not be in a position to delivery a usable service during peak day is to attract new customers that believe the marketing. It needs the constant churn to offset those that leave after a short time due to the reality of a poor data service.

Here's the message the member got for using 11GB on an unlimited goodybag legitimately.

Basically.. "Pay us for your unlimited phone data, but then connect it to some other companies / somebody else's wifi please."

I think there are some cultish elements to it. When I post on another site how shit GG is (sometimes in response to a how great GG is post) I get hordes of people on my back with the usual tired excuses - "they're cheap", "all networks are the same", "3's coverage is crap because it doesn't work in my shoebox flat", etc.

I honestly don't know why the ultra-misers feel the need to do this. I guess they need to get people onto the pyramid scheme for the referral bonuses? I'll stick to paying *less* than GG for a superior service elsewhere.

I have said before that I dislike the heavy data users on unlimited phone plans (the people who permanently tether and are proud of racking up hundreds of GBs a month), but I'd agree with the GG OP, 11GB is nothing these days. When I've been away from home and tethered in a hotel room, I can easily do a gig or two if I don't watch it.

"They can leave is they want to" is not an acceptable answer to any of the below.

1) they want what they paid for
2) it's not nice to be told things like "you have been warned" and to be made to feel like you've done wrong and you're being banned from something
3) it's a lot of hassle to move supplier, people were duped into moving and leaving their old supplier in some cases for a deal that didn't stand by what it advertised, it was mis-sold, and continues to be mis-sold

Quite true, it even happens here, look at post #3 in this thread as an example.

giffgaff clearly don't want heavy data users and their warnings that have been openly posted on their site prove the point so perhaps the service is not the best option for some.

At the end of the day it all comes down to profitability and giffgaff seem to want to offer handset unlimited data without it affecting their profit. I'm not sure how they can square that and perhaps should simply offer a set amount for the £18 a month which would allow users to know exactly what they were buying and that would also allow them to get rid of the Traffic shaping restrictions that are also quite murky.

It's pretty easy to port numbers into and out of giffgaff so if things change and the monthly offer no longer meets a users needs they can port to another provider with little fuss or penalty.

Some people will pay to unlock, join giffgaff, send off for a sim, reconfigure their phone and APN, buy credit, then go through the number porting process all to find out it's a false claim and they have to go back to their old provider or find another, which means repeating that whole process again. That doesn't sound like 'little fuss' to me.

giffgaff haven't been open, that's the point, people have to guess what they can use in data for their £18, soon to be £20 and 11GB doesn't sound like a lot to me. They then get "warned" and told to use another companies wifi to use data on their phone, and told that if they don't change their usage they'll be banned for 11GB on an unlimited plan.

You really don't get it Wavejock

1) they want what they paid for
2) it's not nice to be told things like "you have been warned" / being banned for using 11GB
3) It IS hassle to move supplier, especially twice because you were lied to and mislead by the website
4) It continues to be mis-sold as unlimited

Has anyone tried contacting the ASA about GiffGaff? They're usually quite good at putting a stop to these kind of ludicrous "unlimited" claims, when clearly that isn't the case.

FTFY. How long before the parent decides to rein in their children, end the failing experiment and move everyone to full-fat O2?

I'm sure in private he gets it, he just won't EVER criticise anything to do with O2...

This "unlimited" that is not is becoming a joke.

Its either unlimited, which is "without limits", or it is limited in some way.

That includes usage amount, being speed restricted, being managed at certain times etc

Any company offering unlimited then setting FUP or restrictions is mis-selling.

Can you imagine a bank getting away with it, so why should other companies get away with it.

All providers should simply be banned from using the word 'unlimited' unless it really is.

Yes i agree with you it should mean Unlimited
Not tell you its unlimited and then tell you are capped at 11gb
It should mean unlimited the networks have been getting away with it far to long

As for GiffGaff you need your head tested for going with them they have just got worse over years.

Despite its claims about honesty, ethics and openness is just a marketing front. The first place many prospective customers may look when considering becoming a customer is the "our offer" section that includes "compare market" or "UK prices". Here they find information carefully selected to make giffgaff appear the cheapest. Heck we only have 4 MNO's in the UK yet giffgaff chooses to omit Three from its comparison. Just a bit misleading...

http://giffgaff.com/index/pricing

http://giffgaff.com/compare-pay-as-you-go-tariffs

Of course, they leave Three off and ignore all the other competitors, MVNOs, supermarkets and even a main MNO, all of which are cheaper than giffgaff.

I suspect there are an awful lot of shills on their community forum.

Ultimately Giffgaff clearly can't cope with the demand for mobile data, unlike other networks. Asking people to use Wi-Fi is just laughable.

They may as well remove their tagline "Giffgaff - The mobile network run by you". A quick read of their community forums suggests that customers are not happy.

It's so obvious that Giffgaff can't cope with their unlimited data customers, they should simply stop offering unlimited data. Maybe sell large goodybags like 10/20/30GB but cheaper than competitors. It's better than offering "unlimited" and then not actually giving it.

Giffgaff must be scared of losing their unlimited data customers to Three.

Dear customer,

Sorry, you've used 11GB on your unlimited, if you continue to use more data we'll ban you from buying an unlimited data plan again, please use another companies data connection via wifi to reduce our costs, and keep on paying us for the pretend unlimited data on your handset, oh and by the way it's gone up by £6 this month, and goes up by another £2 in March, an 80% price rise.

THANK YOU!
signed giffgaff

It is -->incredible!<--

I suppose that if you are a Giffgaff user, you might still find that using Wi-Fi is quicker. Perhaps it isn't such bad advice after all!! It's funny because Giffgaff is basically admitting its network is crap, and it can't cope with people daring to use it.

For me, whether I'm using Three or EE, I rarely find Wi-Fi is anywhere near as fast as mobile data. My EE connection is limited, so that might encourage me to use Wi-Fi to save my allowance, but on Three - if I can get 20-30Mbps on mobile data, or 5-6Mbps on Wi-Fi (the usual speeds I seem to get when using The Cloud or O2's Wi-Fi service) then, sorry, Three, but I'll be using mobile data regardless of how many free hotspots are around.