“Could not get account acccess to stop recurring Goodybag payments: Password resets did not work despite various attempts over weeks and it was on a device not a phone so i could not get a reset link.
This was later exacerbated by the failure of the 2 factor authentication to work. In the mean time I notified the giffgaff team; as I was not coming directly from the account to their help they had to verify I was the account holder. Over the next three emails I provided email addresses, bank details, payment amounts and date as well as details of the device first used on the account including dates when the account was opened.
They advised that I had not provided the relevant or sufficient information in order to verify me as the account holder and terminated further correspondence re same!”
“I would not recommend buying a giff gaff recycled phone. Mine is an OPPO and it is a disaster in more ways than one. Camera doesnt work well and takes pics through a mist. There are various problems with it and I regret having bought it.”
“Bought an iPhone 11 2months ago supposed to be one below the best refurbished one What a joke it’s had a non Apple screen and battery fitted. Went to turn it on no screen display but the phone is live and no the phone hasn’t been dropped. Warranty useless how do you download the info on phone without a screen. I could have bought a new se phone from Apple themselves. Don’t use a company that supplies rubbish”
“I have been texting my husband in the USA and it has cost me £45 over the last week, money which they keep taking from my bank. I am not happy as this is horrendously expensive”
“Came back from Thailand for a holiday and got a GiffGaff sim card for my phone. Once I got back to Thailand I wanted to cancel my account. Tried logging in and got told there was an error at GiffGaff end and try again in a few minutes
After 2 days of trying this I emailed their customer service and they said they had to verify my identity and asked for my GDNR information. This is not like normal identity checking and they wanted several bits of information I've never been asked for before. I tried to provide this info several times but they said some of the information didn't match their records but couldn't elaborate further so that the matter could be resolved
They forwarded me to their complaints dept but they were just as unhelpful
In the end I had to install Giffgaff app on another device and managed to cancel my card details but GiffGaff would not confirm this (so helpful - NOT)
I felt they were just wanting to keep me waiting so that they could take another payment”
“Terrible customer service. My number port from O2 failed due a problem with giffgaff. Was without my number for over 2 weeks. Customer service is via email chat & they're absolutely rubbish at getting back to you. Was told it would take 5 working days to sort it with the engineers which is ridiculous to sort but it was actually 10 working days. Even then customer services didn't know it had been fixed I had to tell them. I raised a complaint and was treated with scarcasm in their email. Have since ported to Lebara ... half the price for the same deal & seamless transfer.”
“Oh man where do I start with giffgaff?
1. REFURB PHONE NIGHTMARE - Don't ever think about ordering one of their refurbished phones. I spent £500 on a 'like new' iPhone 12 (July 2022) and it arrived an absolute state probably not even worthy of the bottom condition grade. Had to mess around returning it and wait for the money to come back. God knows how this happened, either the people employed to package refurb phones are partially-sighted or they just thought they could get away with short changing me.
2. GIFFGAFF RECYCLE SCAM - Before my 'new' (scuffed and ruined) phone arrived from them, I had the misfortune of choosing to trade in my iPhone X using GiffGaff recycle. Quoted £145 on the website for the phone which is in excellent condition. Received a revised quote from them for £29 (!!!) due to 'screen burn'. There was no screen-burn when I had the phone and unluckily for them I have photos taken before I posted it off to prove it!
So currently awaiting this second issue to be resolved, just wasting hours of my life trying to get through to an 'agent' to help me out. Only positive has been the Twitter team who respond quickly and will try to help you. Good luck finding a phone number to call or a direct address to email.
All in all what should have been an easy and quick process has turned into a time-consuming drag where they've not once but twice tried to screw me over.
I certainly wouldn't recommend them to anyone after this.”
“Given then a pristine S20 plus 5G stole my phone and offered me £250 at first then said it’s only worth £80 told them to F…. Off and they refused to send my phone back they are scammers”
“SCAMMERS.I tried to sell a phone with them . it was in Pristine condition ,and the original offer was 250pound they then revised it to 50pound .FOR A BRAND NEW PHONE.INSANE.”
“Battery died after 5 months. Contacted giffgaff..Wanted stupid verification that they supplied the phone. Every time logging on had to get a verification code via email. Got nowhere. Contacted their ceo twice and still waiting on their reply. I found that when trying to get the phone returned via their website it is un-navigable. This must be deliberate IMO. Will never again use these people.”
“Unfortunately I have 2 devices with giffgaff but honestly the signal is an absolute joke to the point you can't even make an emergency call. Not good when you have terminal illness and need an ambulance. Funny there AIs pick up on you saying something they don't like but you can't give people a decent signal. You can't complain and they don't really care because it's happening a lot and they are fully aware. In fact I think it's too get people to get WiFi so they can control every part of our lives. Sounds like conspiracy? Wait and see 2030.”
“Sold my iPhone SE to gift gaff and they quoted £11.33 , it was a poor price as the phone was in good condition, nothing broken but I accepted as I am disabled and find it difficult going out , so sent my phone to them , after 2 weeks of waiting they have said my iPhone was cracked on the case so changed my quote to £5 . My phone case was not cracked and they are lying and if it is broken they have broken it . I wish I had read the reviews for tgis company first as I wouldn’t of sent my phone to them, giff gaff need reporting to trading standards.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND GIFF GAFF”
“No customer service. Over complicated « Goodybag » system. Too many SIM cards issued, and no real info on how to activate them. I have £30 in credit, and cannot access any data through no fault of my own. Very cheap, but can use the service! Complete shambles. Avoid”
“The top up/ goody bag is designed to trip you up!
The first month I wanted a goody bag for £25 which costed me £50 and the second month I wanted £15 goody bag which costed me £30.
I was refunded £15 as a goodwill gesture. What about the rest of it?
I do not recommend giffgaff as they use tricks to get more money out of you than you want to spend.”
“Terrible. Awful. Zero Support.
I was so impressed with giffgaff's SIM card ordering process and the fact that they mailed me a SIM card from the UK free of charge. Setup and activate were easy and I was very impressed with the user interface and experience.
The huge fail happened when I landed in the UK where I'd be using the SIM card. I had my iPhone 13 set up correctly, and giffgaff showed as my carrier in the upper left corner of my iPhone, however the service didn't work -- at all. I cycled my phone off and on to no avail.
I used giffgaff's chat function with their agents and to say they were not helpful would be an understatement. After the fourth message they stopped responding at all. This left me for a week in the UK unable to use my iPhone unless I was connected to WiFi.
I am most disappointed that I wasted £15 for a plan that went unused.”
“Giffgaff are the WORST !!! And You Cannot Save Valuable voicemails so those left by my Dear departed Dad were deleted & lost and I tried everything to save them. You can't it's the GiffGaff way of things as per!!!
Amy problems/issues and there have been numerous over my time with GiffGaff and you have to problem solve Yourself.
Avoid - there are much better networks and deals out there and with customer service.”
“Poor customer service. Bought refurbished phone and broke after a month. Returned and unable to fix so was told a replacement would be sent. Week later still no phone. Have been messaging but I am being ignored- avoid avoid avoid . Worst ever”
“I was miss sold a phone
I bought a phone online that was sold has coming with 128GB. But it arrived with 64GB. When I contacted the company I was told that this was a mistake on the web page and I was not honored what I thought I had bought. It was too late for me to change my phone due to the circumstances. Customer service is poor, no intend to even address the issue.”
“Rubbish customer service. My SIM card failed to work despite 2 attempts to activate it. When I contacted them about this I kept getting messages back saying my account had no active SIM card (no kidding, that's why I was contacting them!) and therefore they couldn't help. I eventually figured out for myself that I had 2 accounts because of the 2 attempts to activate the card, so I started all over again contacting them from the other account. Their system seemed to have transferred my number to an apparently imaginary SIM card, which they suggested I put into my phone to solve the problem. Eventually they gave me some long-winded but fairly useless instructions to swap my number from the imaginary SIM to the real one - luckily it is possible to work out from the website how to do a SIM swap. It requires an activation code that's written on the bit of plastic attached to the SIM card when it's delivered - it didn't seem to occur to them that most people would long since have thrown this away. (Luckily mine hadn't yet made it to the bin.) The whole process took 9 days, and at no point did anyone at giffgaff admit that the company had gotten anything wrong or offer anything even vaguely resembling an apology.”
