“SCAM: If I could rate 0 stars then I would!!
If I could rate 0 stars then I would!!
Trading in my 3 year old iPhone 11 which was in immaculate condition, it always had a glass screen protector and a hard backed case. There were no marks at all on this phone. Received a quote for £85 due to the condition of the phone.
I asked giffgaff to send me the pre-paid postage in the post, which was made of a small cardboard cutout and a plastic parcel bag. Packaged the phone within the cardboard inside the parcel bag and shipped it at my local post office.
3 days later I receive a quote of £17 (!!!) for screen burn (!!!), which is not the condition I sent the phone in at all. The iPhone was fully working, fully functional with no issues, and I only traded it in due to needing the newest specs for a new career move. Seems like a scam on giffgaff’s end to con customers and not pay them what they deserve for trading in. Wish I read the reviews beforehand and went elsewhere. £17 and “screen burn” is an insult.”
“Ordered a refurbished iPhone through giffgaff and the first one didn’t even charge so I asked for a replacement. Second one arrived which charged but drains within 20 minutes of using it. From 100% to 1%…in 20 minutes… save yourself the agg and don’t bother!”
“Really not competitive service. This is very apparent in the lower data packages. We've noticed much more competitive packages through Martin Lewis and have concluded that Giffgaff is not interested in serving customers who require data packages between one and five mb.”
“If I could give GiffGaff -100 stars I would. I bought my wife a refurbished phone with a 24 months warranty. After a week the screen started locking and wouldn't respond. The phone was sent back and replaced. The second phone started to have the same issue so was sent back again. The third phone came in a different colour but hey it worked so that was a positive. This third phone lasted about a month then had the same screen lock issue so sent back. This was at the start of February we are now in April and after lots of messages to GiffGaff they have finally got back to us to tell us the camera is broken (WTF it wasn't broken when it went back) and this isn't covered under warranty. We had used GiffGaff for years but would never use them again. Customer service is none existant, the whole company is a scam. DO NOT USE AT ANY COST!!!,”
“When facing issues there is no contact centre to ring, and is very difficult seeking help online, I ported my number over to giff gaff and then ported back out as soon as the port was complete, I would rather pay extra and stick with a mainstream provider, this has a very much back street job experience”
“A disgrace of a company. Making up excuses and infming me that I had not packaged a phone up correctly for a warranty claim.
Like others here it was a z3 fold. Once again a claim there was a dent.
It left with a black line and was returned with a blank screen.
Don't ever buy a refurb phone from them. Terrible”
“Save your Money and shop elsewhere, Giffgaff now says that they supply world wide phones and that any mistakes made are either by there suppliers or customers not by them. You buy a phone from Giffgaff in the UK you would expect that phone to work in the UK. Allowing you to access all the functions on that phone well not with Giffgaff. I received an amercian phone which had Caller Id and SPam Protection Blocked as well as Samsung Wallet and other Samsung Apps. When I contacted Giffgaff I was told its a suppliers fault as Giffgaff dont know what phone or where that phone comes from that is sent to its customers. So i was advised send phone back but there is still no Guarantee that you will get a phone that will work fully within the UK. What sort of answer is that or is that from a responsible supplier. After all i bought the phone from, Giffgaff not one of their suppliers. When i raised a complaint an agent from customer services who i was dealing with and told me complaints is a different department took it upon themselves to cancel my complaint telling me that in writing. They then denied that and said they made a mistake as they corrected it as soon as they noticed it. When i stated it was myself that informed them that they had cancelled the complaint they then changed the story again. All in all a terrible experience with them and no wonder so many customers are leaving them. A search online found out that i was not the only customer to receive a phone that would not work fully in their country of residence due to the fact being manufactured in another country and havings its CSC Firmaware Locked to that country of Manufacture. It time Gigggaff accepted responsability and where taken to task.”
“VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE & UNPROFESSIONAL.
1. Fail to address problems receiving or making calls. Tell you to change your phone or sim, although 7 people i know of in the area are having problems. So they think there are 7 faulty phones or sims.
2. Deny there is a problem with a mast, then say there is.
3. Say mast issues not their responsibility, despite being my service provider.
4. Can only contact them through their link, no phone.
5. Happy to get paid then ignore problems. Dont even read your messages. Just send the same generic reply.”
“Avoid if you buy refurb phone the warranty is not worth a penny i bought Samsung galaxy z3 fold got black line across screen said it was my fault i no its a Samsung fault but wanted 290 to repair it that was dearer the the price of the phone avoid avoid you have be warned”
“Just Bought iPhone 12 Pro Max. Refurb … like new grade …
It had a minor cosmetic issue on the rear panel. It looked like a grease smear but wasn’t, but I might have tolerated that BUT 77% battery health is not acceptable, clearly not tested by their suppliers “… to ensure they are in 100% working condition.” What a hassle. I hope the refund process is slicker😒🤞”
“I bought a refurbished galaxy fold 4 and slightly over a month after purchase the screen stopped unfolding (opening) the completely. I have found that this is a very common fault on the galaxy fold.
But giffgaff is denying the warranty even though this has happened after no fault of my own. They gave me 3 options: 1. Pay them for the repair £532 (similar to what I paid them for the phone!) 2. Leave them the phone for free?! 3. Get the faulty phone back without being repaired.
Samsung shouldn't sell those phones due to this very common fault and other common problems such as cracked screen due to opening the screen, black lines, etc.
I am going to the Financial Ombudsman with this and hope they will help me again.
Giffgaff seems to be very unreliable as some time ago I ordered from them a sim card that (O2) with internet data that was unusable (internet extremally slow) and charged me for that without a refund.
Below is the response I have received from Giffgaff:
Hi,
We've taken a look at your Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G Refurbished and the repair isn't covered by your warranty. Good news is that we can still fix this for you if you'd like, it will be at a cost of £532.00.
Your Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G Refurbished details
Original order date: 06/11/2023
Original order ID: 536766160
IMEI: 352334703172103
I have written a complaint to Giffgaff: Incident number: 240109-000401”
“I canceled my account and cant stop the charges
I canceled my account with you on the 3rd October 2023 and Giff Gaff still continue to help themselves to my money. I have stopped it at the bank and will need despute the October and November and December incorrect charges with my card company.
No way to contact anyone re assist with the resolution, and your add attachement button below does not work!
Certainly will not use this rinky dink outfit again”
“Don’t recommend selling old phone to giff gaff. They quoted me £90 & then said they’d only give £18 as camera was damaged. This is not true! I’d taken many photos the same week I sent it to giff gaff to trade in. I can’t get hold of anyone to arrange return & the decline £18 offer button doesn’t work, just sends you round in circles. Avoid at all costs.”
“Avoid if you can.
Giffgaff customer service is non-existent, so avoid having any contracts, as you can't get any support beyond "computer says no" responses.
If you must, use them on the Pay as you go basis, as still very cheap.
However, network quality is going down, so I'd suggest looking elsewhere.”
“0 stars if I could! Shocking from start to finish! Purchased a £99 ‘refurbished’ phone with the understanding that there may be minor damage on the phone - no problem. Receive the phone and it doesn’t connect after ringing (you can’t hear/they can’t hear on connection) Contact support who raise an investigation/repair. Repair quote comes back £269 to repair the lens!!! Nothing about the connecting issue & completely ignore the not working issue. Passed to member relations who were about as useful as a chocolate teapot and just repeated the customer service agent! Never again.”
“The network is becoming worse and worse. I have lost signal and mobile data a lot in the last year. I think they no longer receive the same coverage as O2.
Going abroad, out of 4 phones with giffgaff only 2 registered automaticly for the roming.
Comunication with them is quasi-inexistent. They promise an answer in this much tome and they do not answer in time.
Our phone numbers are vital to us nowadays, as we need them to aprove payments and a lot of other things, not only to communicate between each others and it is very unseztling when you are in the situation of not being able to ise your phone number to be promised the issue will be sorted in this much time and to waiz and wait jist to see thet they did not respect their promise.
There is no number to contact them so you can't do nothing. You just wait and something of vital importance might need you to use your phone but your hands are tied up.”
“I've just bought a giffgaff pay as you go by making one click on the £8 for a month and i was shocked to receive a confirmation email from giffgaff saying thank you for buying 18 months contract which I never agreed to. I thought that I can cancel through the email I received from them said " don't worry if you changed your mind" yet I found out I have to worry because I have to pay £72 to cancel a service I didn't buy.This is completely unprofessional and misleading behaviour, I will definitely warn every one using gifgaff or intended to use it.”
“Ordered refurbished Samsung fold 4 from them but received a faulty phone. They make so impossible to login now and contact them. Ask so many impossible to answer question. In the past they sent me a sim card I had to return because the data wasn't working but forgot about it.”
“I currently have an iPhone XS Max which I bought refurbished from giffgaff. It came immaculate and although the battery does go down much faster than it should, I have just put up with it for the past year or so and will shortly be replacing the battery.
However, I recently stupidly took a chance and bought a iPhone 13 Pro Max from giffgaff refurbished like new. Once again, immaculate but this time the battery ran hot straight away and it lost charge at an alarming rate (100% - 0 in 3 hours). I sent it back straight away and got a refund of £679. Although cheaper than new, I do not expect to pay that kind of money for a phone that clearly has a major fault.
I will avoid giffgaff in future.”
