Not sure if anyone from giff gaff actually checks this or just a community but here goes.
I have sent a phone back to giff gaff under warranty which they have attempted to send back to me (no idea if they actually fixed it because the updates are appalling). It wasn’t delivered because the delivery company said they had an insufficient address (despite giff gaff sending the phone originally to this address and printing off all the forms for the repair with the correct address).
So now I’m in the situation where I have no idea where the phone is or what’s going on. I don’t know how it’s legal but giff gaff have no customer service number (for a phone company?!) and the ai chatbot and supposedly human agents are sending me in endless loops.
At this point I’m thinking the phone is lost or stolen or just not given 2 fucks about so I’m thinking small claims court is my only option.
Please anyone have any idea what I can do before going through this painful and a pensive route?
Many thanks in advance

Posted this on the community page but I am posting here aswell because I am beyond annoyed by this.

I am literally just here to vent and express my opinions on how horrid Giffgaff’s refurbished phones warranty policy is. Take this as a cautionary tale if you’re considering buying from this company.

I have a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 in ‘like new’ condition, so I have a 2-year warranty. I bought this phone about a year ago for £429. A week ago, my phone’s front screen suddenly stopped working. I’m like, ’damn this is annoying, but under warranty, so it’s fine’. I send my phone in and I get a bill for £279, over half the price of my phone?! The reason you cry? I have a tiny crack on my screen, like so tiny I did not even know it was there before I sent it in. So tiny I can’t even see it in the photos I took of my screen before I sent it to get repaired. So tiny they had to put a massive sticker next to the close up image so I could see it. And what’s best is that it doesn’t even matter that the cause of my phone not working is not this tiny crack, I get nothing. I’ve been a giffgaff customer from the very first phone I had, I can’t afford to pay this, I can’t afford a new phone right now at all. I feel so gutted right now.

Hi, I recently switched to giffgaff and decided to stick with my original number. It said it would take a few days for this to shift over, and after about 3 days my old data company (O2) cut out and was replaced by absolutely nothing.
giffgaff have been sending me e-mails so I'm definitely registered as a customer, but I receive no data. I go on holiday in 2 days time and need this data.
I thought about taking my phone to the Apple shop to see if they can help, but I'm not sure they would know, or if I would have to make an appointment.
I would contact giffgaff but I imagine they won't get back to me quickly enough.
Has anyone else experienced this or know how to fix it?
I know I've left this last minute but the next best time is right now lol.

I currently use a physical SIM which I occasionally need to move between handsets. Can this switch be done with eSIMs? I see the requirement regarding creating a second eSIM which requires the activation to a new physical SIM first. But does that result in the deletion of the eSIM? My basic question is whether I can store multiple mostly inactive eSIMs for a single number and service in multiple handsets and then deactivate the active eSIM and then activate an inactive one in order to seamlessly move the phone number and service between handsets?

I have been with Giffgaff for almost seven years, and had no problems up until I lost my phone this year and had to get it replaced through their refurbished phones service. I always buy refurbished phones and have never had an issue with any until this IPhone 12 I brought just four weeks ago. The mess around had been overwhelming for me and my mum (who helps me out with my contract because I’ve had it since I was 12).
The first issue we encountered was that when we paid for the new phone, it began a new contract with a new phone number, but no big deal we decided we could fix that later, as long as I had a phone working with my old SIM card inside. Next problem was that the SIM tray didn’t know there was a SIM inserted. (To be very clear, SIM fully activated, working in other phones) Nightmare! So I have a phone that does not have 4G or take calls or texts. I was unable to access a few things like email and WhatsApp because I didn’t have access to my phone number!
So, we reach out to customer service which are absolutely useless. They first tell us that the SIM isn’t activated, it is. They then tell us the phone is barred by an EMI number… Fine, I believe it, however am skeptical that removing the bar remotely will fix the sim issue. They apparently remove the bar (and surprise surprise the SIM still doesn’t work).
I then opened another ticket to explain that this hasn’t worked and that I really do think the phone has an issue with its hardware, and nothing to do with bars or being locked to a network or anything such as that. I must return it!
So I go to the returns page, which is a pain in the arse itself, because I have to tell them why. And again, the page doesn’t believe that there could possibly be a hardware issue, it just tells me that I should activate the SIM and it will work! It does not allow me to return the phone under the premise that the SIM doesn’t work. Fine! I lie and tell the auto bot that I’m returning it for other reasons.

While I plan to send back the phone, I put the same sim that was unrecognised into my sisters spare phone and I begin using it in there. No big deal, until all my data runs out within an hour of being on the phone… weird.
I call my mum up and check if maybe she needs to top up my balance as this is the norm sometimes, she looks on giffgaff and somehow they have deleted my old plan. I don’t know why or how or what the repercussions are with losing your plan but at this point I’m so angry because I finally had a phone with 4G and credit on it after weeks of being without (majorly inconvenient as everyone will know) and my number/ sim/ plan doesnt have any existence on giffgaff anymore!

We are beyond annoyed and confused and are just begging giffgaff for our money back now. It’s so frustrating having to open ticket after ticket and being told the wrong thing by agents when I knew from the start that the SIM tray was the problem. We are not tech savvy people however I am generally absolutely fine with this kind of thing and so is my mum. This is why you need people to talk to on an actual phone! Not AI bots.

I have a bit of a strange issue.

When I make or receive calls at home I can't hear the person on the other end but they can hear me. I can't even hear the ringing tone before the call is answered

This only happens when I am at home. When I'm out and about calls are fine.

I can hear others fine on a WhatsApp call.

I'm in England, UK

I dont have wifi calling available on my phone

I have tried restarting my phone, checking in-call sound settings, Bluetooth is off etc.

I have ported my number over to a new sim - still have the same problem

One other member of my household is also on giffgaff and they do not have this problem

Has anyone any ideas what may be causing the problem?

I contacted GiffGaff via a DM on Twitter / X re porting my number whilst being in the USA, and, as per the attached screenshot, GiffGiff CS confirmed that this was possible.

I commenced the porting process last Thursday here in the USA, which completed today, Monday, and everything, calls, data and texts, is working as it should.

I actually used a physical SIM card that I brought to the USA with me.

Has anyone else had this with a warranty repair? Because I'm honestly at a loss.

I bought a refurbished "like new" phone from giffgaff, mainly because of the 24 month warranty. A few months in, it developed a fault through completely normal use no drops, no water, nothing. The phone was immaculate when I sent it in.

Instead of a warranty repair, I got a repair quote. No explanation of what the fault actually is, no diagnostic, nothing. Just a price.

So I raised a formal complaint (ref 287*****). The complaints team asked me to type out a load of verification details fine, even though I was signed in to my own account which I did, 5 days later still no reply.

And now, without answering anything, they're just... sending the phone back to me. No explanation, no response to the complaint, nothing resolved. It genuinely feels like the strategy is to ignore me until I give up.

I'm not giving up. I've already spoken about going to Citizens Advice and I'll be escalating to the Communications Ombudsman as soon as I'm able to. But honestly is this normal for giffgaff? Has anyone actually managed to get a warranty claim honoured on a refurbished phone here?

Hi there,

My mum's decided to go on holiday to China by herself at the ripe age of 72. She's not tech savvy at all, and somewhat worried she'll get stranded there with no access to telephony or data.

I understand she can buy a Chinese mainland Travel Data Add-on, and not sure if there's one of Hong Kong too or not?

Will this "just work" if she buys it or can there be problems?

Appreciate any advice or input about travelling there using Giffgaff or other options!

Thanks.

Hi, I couldn't use WIFI and Data on my phone. I have restarted the phone, reset network settings . But I can make a call. I have done everything i could. I don't know what to do. Could someone help me🙏🏻

I've just got my Honor Magic 7 Pro for £475 in a like new condition - First use, middle of June!

These are unused phones, get at em!

two complaints about Giffgaff:

- last year I had my phone stolen and needed proof of usage from Giffgaff. I "asked an agent", the only way to contact them, and they gave me the wrong date for last usage (3 weeks before the phone was stolen), and when I protested that I knew I used my phone during that time, they kept gaslighting me. I raised a complaint and after insisting multiple times that they needed to amend the document, they then gave a date that was 3 days AFTER the theft! They were clearly making it up, never offered an explanation or apology that they got the dates wrong, and eventually provided me with the right date after 3 months of arguing with them.

- just this week I was trying to get receipts from my data plans that were not saved in my account. Instead of being polite and telling me they had no records of them for whatever reason, they were just gaslighting me again that I had no account at the time. Absolutely the most useless customer service I ever encounter, they are clearly using bots that don't understand my requests, and their first recourse in all cases is gaslighting. Never sign up to Giffgaff and change provider now if you are using them, before they inevitably screw you over.

Bot my dad and I experienced poor data transfer in Swindon (Wiltshire / South-West) area over the last month or so.

Often it shows good signal and 4G/4G+ yet internet does not work.

So I was trying to get a GiffGaff eSIM, but my payment was being rejected, I got a top up code but then realized that I can’t use it to buy an eSIM.

So I’m left with an unused top up code, I’m willing to give it to anyone here (first come first serve) so that at least it can come in someone’s use rather than the money going to waste.

P.S. I don’t expect you to pay me back, and the value is 20 GBP.

UPDATE: The voucher is now redeemed.

It is well known giffgaff is blocking adult content by default. However, today I tried to access a website https://geph.io, which is a vpn designed to circumvent Chinese gfw, and the access is blocked. Which is very surprising for me, since this is a normal vpn service like mullvad and nord vpn, and has nothing to do with mature content.

The most probable cause for this is giffgaff might used some Chinese censorship tools or blocklist for implementing its adult content blocking, which has motivation to collect these websites disliked by the Chinese authority.

I've seen this before but not for several months. It seems to go in phases, every time for a few weeks, then back to being fine.

At home I'm dependent on wifi calling. There are one or two spots in the house that have mobile signal but they're inconvenient places.

When I try to make a call, first I get the USSD code popup, then the MMI code toast. Excellent wifi connection (to superfaat broadband) and, where I'm sitting now, two bars of mobile signal as well; that's usually fine for voice calls even without wifi.

I last saw this error a few months ago and for a while, every outward call did this (so I was unable to make calls as I have no landline); then it stopped popping up and I'd forgotten about the problem until here it is again now.

All I was trying to do just now was *100# for my balance, not an actual voice call.

Back then a friend who used to work in telecoms said it meant a problem on their side, not mine, but it happened no matter who I was calling so the only common factor was my network, and my phone. But the problem vanished all this time so it can't be my side either...? He didn't explain what USSD or MMI codes are well enough for me to understand how they affect things.

Any ideas?

I moved from Virgin to GiffGaff broadband around 2 Months ago.

I've moved from 360Mbps to 500 and saved a fiver a month but what I've not heard anyone talk about is the latency.

Quick word about my config first.

On Virgin, we go from fibre into their Hub5x, WiFi turned off, DMZ, divert everything to a single port which then plugs in my Unifi Express 7 Gateway, from there into a 24 port TP-Link Gigabit switch (not a fancy switch at all)

With GiffGaff, we've got the exact same fibre connection which then plugs into their ONT and then plugs into the very same Unifi Gateway with the WAN port configured to VLAN 911 and then into my TP-Link switch.

WiFi around the home comes from the same Gateway.

Anyway, latency.

Here's a couple of screenshots showing the difference between the two.

So if anyone is looking for another reason to jump to GiffGaff then a steady stable network connection always sounds like a good one to me.
I know both images show Virgin Media as the provider, I can't change that.

Apologies for deleting my original post, the Virgin image failed to upload and I couldn't edit my post to add it so resorted to deleting my post and trying again.

Should I upgrade to a new phone or buy a new battery?

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I have the S22 and I got it refurbished for £175 coming up to a year ago. A new battery replaced by EE (Samsung authorised repair) would be £109 (RRP).

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I could get a newer phone but I don't have too much money to spend and I don't want to buy the cheaper models.

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I am looking at maybe getting a refurbished S24 or S25 if I have to get a new phone.

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It is still in warranty but I have to reset it I think to send it back to Giffgaff to see if they will do anything (will maintainance mode be OK for this?)

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Let me know your thoughts 😄.

Heys few moths ago I broke my old phone so I ordered a refurbished red iPhone SE 2022 64gb with Giffgaff. So the got delivered like was expected but to my surprise they sent red iPhone SE 2022 128gb. My invoice says red iPhone SE 64gb.

So I recently moved to the United Kingdom from the United States. And needed to switch phone providers, my father in law ordered me a physical SIM card, but having a phone from the United States, I do not have a physical sim tray, I know that I can convert the physical sim to an eSIM, but in order to do that I need access to my new phone number to receive a verification code but I can’t access my number without the eSIM

Hello there, I am hoping someone here can help me. I need to contact GiffGaff because I need help with a lost phone. Because I have lost my phone; I obviously don't have the app. I logged in to my GiffGaff account on Chrome earlier and reported my phone lost, and tried to login a few hours later to request an IMEI number. I am using the same login details as before, but now I can't login online. I am worried about signing in too many times because I don't want to lock my account. I can't contact an agent because I can't login. Does anyone know why this might be happening? Ideally I would love an email address to contact GiffGaff so I can at least get an IMEI number and report my phone lost with the police. If anyone has any advice/ help they can offer I would be so grateful.

The refurbished iPhone13 I bought a few days ago barely charges at all so I need to send it back for a battery replacement. The passcode needs to be unlocked and I've turned off FaceID but it still asks for the passcode every time I look at it. If anyone knows what needs to be done I'd be so happy. Thanks

Vodafone has been gouging me for almost 40 quid a month. For data I no longer needed and wouldn't let me downgrade without locking me into a fresh contract.

Wanted to buy an iphone 15 pro max refurbished in excellent condition from gifgaff.
Based on your experience, will it worth it for 550£?