Summary: From Three mobile network to GiffGaff (4 out of 5 marks) & staying on for now
So here's my user experience. I was originally a "valued Three customer" having joined in 2005/2006 on a very cheap 24 month contract. I kept on upgrading and slowly was paying over thirty pound a month. Being broke & friendless, it was always my intention to go on a rolling/pay and go - since VAT increases rarely impact these users. Anyway, here is a brief summary of my experience switching to GG:
Mid August: Getting my PAC code off Three
Called Three, was sort of hoping they would offer me a good deal to retain me - didn't happen. PAC code obtained after a 10 minutes. (Experience: 4/5 Three just let me go like a nobody)
24 August Friday afternoon: Signing up online
Got a GG sim from a friend. Followed the instructions to signup online (easy peasy). Didn't need to use GG straight away, as wanted wait out Three notice period, so added £10 credit to get the sim approved. Did note that sim approval takes 2 to 24 hours so waited... and waited... and waited...
(3/5 Felt a little uneasy)
25 August Saturday morning: Waiting for approval - system delay
No approval came through, so checked the GG community forum. Wanted to ask for help, and noticed loads of post about this. Checked the
Service Updates: Notice board as people suggested and noted there was a problem
Delays in top ups, goodybags and activations [24/08/2012]. I was not impressed at all, began panicking for a bit, thinking I'd been robbed. Logged in the forum every so often (as the website logs you out) to check for updates and come afternoon received a text to say that my sim was indeed approved!
(2/5 updates on website was not all that reassuring for a new customer!)
25 August Saturday afternoon: Waiting for credit + missing penny issue
Since I got my sim off a friend, I was wondering where is my free £5? Checked my account, clicked about for a bit, and noticed that the £5 was waiting to be approved (yay) switched
My GiffGaff and my credit was showing as £9.99 - missing a penny (nay). Went back to the forum to search
"missing penny" seemed to be a completely normal occurrance (totally unacceptable imho!) so contacted an agent to get it back. The rest of the day spent logging in to check
My GiffGaff every hour or so. By the evening both my £5 and £0.01 were approved and my account was showing £15 credit.
(1/5 total waste of a day)
13 September Thursday afternoon: Setting up porting
Was going travelling so logged on to port my number. Surprisingly, not only was it easy (type in the PAC), I was also able to schedule porting to happen on a future date. So I selected to port the number over on 20 September Thursday. I printed out
a copy of the instructions re porting and
the android settings so that I would know what to do.
(4/5 easy peasy)
20 September Thursday morning: On the day of porting
Took out my Three sim, inserted the GG sim. Turned phone on and put inputted the correct settings. Come afternoon lo and behold received a roaming call from a friend in London. Oh happy days and cheers to zero hassle porting! Aside from talking too long and using up all my credit whilst roaming (which meant trying to top up abroad, which was an absolute pain due to restrictions on GG website) all went smoothly.
(4/5 still easy peasy)
Then - Present: Credit/Goody bag + Payback
Since my number activated, being the simple person that I am, I tend to buy a £10 O2 top up voucher from Tesco's and call 43430 from my phone to add credit
(even though you can also do it online). I tend to only buy a £10 goody bag online using my credit when I need to call/text someone. And (touch wood) I have not had any problems at all buying goody bags this way (unlike some users have problems with recurring goody bags).
(5/5 lemon squeezy)
I have tried to be more active on the forum to get
payback points (1 point = £0.01), but are far more experienced users with speedier fingers that trump me at the job. My stats so far: 1 solution authored / 70 kudos given / 3 kudos received => got paid a grand total of £22.06 via PayPal on 13 December. So, for the past 3 months I have topped up £40, deducting the payback, this averages out to £5.98 p/m!
(5/5 a very happy customer)
Tips:
- There is no telephone customer support - you have to use the forum and/or ask an agent to solve your queries.
- There are systems issues at time - you can only be patient (and keep a back up sim).
- In general, you are not allowed to tether (share your mobile internet by using your phone as a wifi hotspot). You can only tether on the £10 goody bag (1gb limit). If you are an iPhone user, you may have to jailbreak to use the tethering function.
- You can only have 1 goody bag/ giga bag at one time until it expires. If you use up your goody bag/ giga bag, you will have to wait until the bag has expired to buy a new one.
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