Giffgaff conned us all!

[Richard10002]

In February, I changed mine and my wife's mobiles from T-mobile to Giffgaff, purely because of their unlimited mobile broadband for £10 per month. I turned down an offer of £7.50 per month for 1Gb from T-Mobile, which is obviously no longer available.

 

Just had an email from Giffgaff telling me that they have decided they can't afford to provide unlimited Internet for £10 per month, and there seem to be 3 options they ate "discussing with their members"..... Each of which involve increased prices, or much less Internet.

 

So, they have done the usual big business trick of offering a great deal, increasing their customer base, then stiffing them with something lik this.

 

As a matter of principle, I will be leaving, even if it means I pay more per month.

 

It's not the money, it's the principle!

 

Having sung their praises, I am no longer recommending Giffgaff

 

Richard

[Grace and Favour]

Richard,

 

The T-Mobile 1Gb for £7.50 (with free USB stick) is still available

as is 2Gb for £10 per month

[nb Innisfree]

It seems to me that giffgaff are having probs with unlimited internet due to a minority abusing the system and are discussing openly and honestly with members on a solution. They are reluctant to introduce an FUP as other networks have but may be forced to do so. Personally I think Giffgaff are trying to be reasonable and above board but some are never satisfied and will try to take things too far and spoil things for the majority. If an FUP of say 5gb with the £10 goody bag was introduced I would consider that good value, in fact I would prefer that as it would stop any users from being greedy.

 

ETA: Anyone who thinks other networks will work better need to think again, Giffgaffs problems are the same as all network providers, not enough bandwidth to go around and to expect things to carry on regardless is unrealistic.

Edited September 14, 2012 by nb Innisfree

[Richard10002]

Richard,

 

The T-Mobile 1Gb for £7.50 (with free USB stick) is still available

as is 2Gb for £10 per month

 

I May not have been clear. The deal I'm talking about is for phones, not mobile broadband, e.g. 250 minutes, unlimited texts & unlimited data for £10 per month. The deals you refer to are for mobile broadband only.

 

Giff gaff may end up being competitive with the other providers, and I may be cutting off my nose if I switch..... But I just hate the cuddly way they have drawn people in, with words like membership, community, discussion, UNLIMITED, only for it to turn out to be the same sh1t, different day!

 

Thanks for looking though!

[Richard10002]

It seems to me that giffgaff are having probs with unlimited internet due to a minority abusing the system and are discussing openly and honestly with members on a solution. They are reluctant to introduce an FUP as other networks have but may be forced to do so. Personally I think Giffgaff are trying to be reasonable and above board but some are never satisfied and will try to take things too far and spoil things for the majority. If an FUP of say 5gb with the £10 goody bag was introduced I would consider that good value, in fact I would prefer that as it would stop any users from being greedy.

 

I don't disagree with respect to the abuse, but they seem to be talking a lot about tethering, which is easily prevented, they just don't seem to have the will to do it. you can also identify abusers and do something to limit them. An FUP of 5Gb would be fine, but they are talking about a limit of 750 Mb for £10, then a charge per megabyte thereafter, so their cuddly talk doesn't ring true anymore - not with me anyway.

 

If they are having a problem with abuse, they should deal with the abuse. If they want to put prices up, they should be big enough to be honest about it. Somebody, somewhere, is making a lot of money out of Giffgaff.

 

I think they have grown to hundreds of thousands of users, and have had a meeting to discuss how to put prices up, whilst remaining cuddly - they will lose some users, but inertia will mean most will stay. Having said that, there are a lot of the same opinion as me on the thread where GG are asking for feedback. It could bite them on the bum - and I hope it does to be honest.

 

Cynical? Moi?

[carlt]

Giffgaff are wholly owned by o2.

 

Surely nobody really thought the cuddliness was genuine?

[CV32]

I attempted for two weeks to register the sim i got from them - gave up in the end and binned it in favour of Three. I guess they were just too popular and their system could not cope.

[Athy]

So Giff Gaff are riff raff?

I have never heard of them - they can't do much advertising.

[Richard10002]

Giffgaff are wholly owned by o2.

 

Surely nobody really thought the cuddliness was genuine?

 

Sounds a bit like Tony Blair and The Labour Party in 1997 - fooled a lot of people for a long time!

[larkshall]

So Giff Gaff are riff raff?

I have never heard of them - they can't do much advertising.

 

 

Oh they do, the number of emails from them in my spam box averages about 20 per month. I don't know where they got my email address, but I was an O2 or rather cellnet customer a few years ago, I wonder .....

[Richard10002]

Giffgaff are wholly owned by o2.

 

Surely nobody really thought the cuddliness was genuine?

 

It was a cuddly business model, which is not a bad idea in these days of rip off merchants - very attractive to a lot of people. It will be interesting to see how long they survive, now that things are changing.

 

Perhaps you can't make money by being honest an honourable.

[oarfish]

Makes you wonder what they are going to do about 4g usage caps. Piddly little 5-10Gb caps are pretty useless for me working from a boat. As it is I have to juggle sims and watch out for the ludicrous 3 punishment pricing. I would like a provider that would actually let me ..pay for data use. I was happy to shell out for unlimited cable broadband but there's no mobile equivalent as far as I can see. Business mobile broadband has even lower caps. I guess itinerant software developers are not really a big enough market for them.

Edited September 14, 2012 by oarfish

[nb Innisfree]

I don't disagree with respect to the abuse, but they seem to be talking a lot about tethering, which is easily prevented, they just don't seem to have the will to do it. you can also identify abusers and do something to limit them. An FUP of 5Gb would be fine, but they are talking about a limit of 750 Mb for £10, then a charge per megabyte thereafter, so their cuddly talk doesn't ring true anymore - not with me anyway.

 

Cynical? Moi?

 

I can't find anything that says that, maybe I have missed it but if they do I think their customer base will rapidly shrink, maybe that's what they have to do to survive, personally I will carry on if they do that as it is still the cheapest PAYG, I would probably switch to £5 goodybag as that does represent better value anyway with my usage and carry on using our 3 mifi which is faster than O2.

 

I do think Giffgaff is an honest attempt by O2 to try and introduce a more flexible and affordable mobile phone service to a large section of users.

[Athy]

Oh they do, the number of emails from them in my spam box averages about 20 per month.

I must be underprivileged. I receive all kinds of tempting offers via e-mail, pledging me four grand a month for three hours' work a day, requesting me to keep a few zillion pounds safe for a distinguished African gentleman who is temporarily indisposed, assuring me that a particular brand of pill will enable me to pole my boat along without the need for a pole, but nothing from this company. In fact, until I read this thread I would have thought that a giffgaff was a finch with a beak impediment.

[Gibbo]

I want to know what an FUP is.

[Athy]

I want to know what an FUP is.

It's the thing that you drink your foffee out of.

[nb Innisfree]

I want to know what an FUP is.

 

Fair usage policy

[Richard10002]

I can't find anything that says that, maybe I have missed it but if they do I think their customer base will rapidly shrink, maybe that's what they have to do to survive, personally I will carry on if they do that as it is still the cheapest PAYG, I would probably switch to £5 goodybag as that does represent better value anyway with my usage and carry on using our 3 mifi which is faster than O2.

 

I do think Giffgaff is an honest attempt by O2 to try and introduce a more flexible and affordable mobile phone service to a large section of users.

 

 

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/Mobile-Internet-Community-Consultation/td-p/5917422?utm_source=giffgaff&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-OBC013. There is a link to a slide show,

 

I got an email yesterday, telling me that something was changing, and I could discuss it as above, but the deadline for feedback is 20th September. I had my say but hardly felt worth it.

 

In real terms, I'm ranting about something that will cost me about £30-60 per year, so not a big deal...... I just don't

Like the way they've gone about things.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Richard10002

[mattlad]

I want to know what an FUP is.

 

 

It's the thing that you drink your foffee out of.

 

Oh cupping hell!

[nb Innisfree]

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/Mobile-Internet-Community-Consultation/td-p/5917422?utm_source=giffgaff&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-OBC013. There is a link to a slide show,

 

I got an email yesterday, telling me that something was changing, and I could discuss it as above, but the deadline for feedback is 20th September. I had my say but hardly felt worth it.

 

In real terms, I'm ranting about something that will cost me about £30-60 per year, so not a big deal...... I just don't

Like the way they've gone about things.

 

Just got up to speed with the giffgaff proposed options and I still think they have done their best to remain transparent about tackling a difficult problem which affects all networks.

 

FWIW I prefer option 2.

[kryspduck]

Trouble with the unlimited offer on mobile phones is the massive abuse that can take place.

 

It's easy to hook up a mid/ high-spec smart phone directly to an HDTV with a mini HDMI, pair a bluetooth keyboard to the smart phone and you've got yourself a pretty good desktop PC. Couple that with film/ game streaming and you'll be racking up stacks of data on a tariff not designed to cope with the volume. As said on an earlier thread, it's a small minority spoiling a good offer for everyone else.

 

I'd say, GaffGaff are less to blame than those who seem to always abuse and exploit a generous and unique offering, to the detriment of those of us who use it more sparingly.

[nb Innisfree]

Trouble with the unlimited offer on mobile phones is the massive abuse that can take place.

 

It's easy to hook up a mid/ high-spec smart phone directly to an HDTV with a mini HDMI, pair a bluetooth keyboard to the smart phone and you've got yourself a pretty good desktop PC. Couple that with film/ game streaming and you'll be racking up stacks of data on a tariff not designed to cope with the volume. As said on an earlier thread, it's a small minority spoiling a good offer for everyone else.

 

I'd say, GaffGaff are less to blame than those who seem to always abuse and exploit a generous and unique offering, to the detriment of those of us who use it more sparingly.

 

Exactly, we have a monthly cotract of 5 gb with 3 and rarely go over that but cases where Giffgaff users are exceeding 20+ gb is taking the piss as far as I am concerned. Some live their lives by the 'I want it all and I want it now' principle.

[Marc Harris]

There was a discussion earlier in the year in the GiffGaff forum, where they were having to cut the data connection for some phones that were using over 1gb per HOUR!! That's the kind of usage that has killed the unlimited internet for the rest of the community. I don't think GiffGaff are being unfair, I think that a certain percentage of users are abusing a small company.

 

There was a competition on a new russian network earlier this year, to see how much data a mobile phone could consume on a mobile network, with a prize for the highest use (this was done to test their network stability / capacity). IIRC, the winner was in the region of 370gb a month!!

 

I'll stick with GiffGaff as long as they remain competitive.

[nb Innisfree]

There was a discussion earlier in the year in the GiffGaff forum, where they were having to cut the data connection for some phones that were using over 1gb per HOUR!! That's the kind of usage that has killed the unlimited internet for the rest of the community. I don't think GiffGaff are being unfair, I think that a certain percentage of users are abusing a small company.

 

There was a competition on a new russian network earlier this year, to see how much data a mobile phone could consume on a mobile network, with a prize for the highest use (this was done to test their network stability / capacity). IIRC, the winner was in the region of 370gb a month!!

 

I'll stick with GiffGaff as long as they remain competitive.

 

I foresee a situation where the abusers will carry on with the higher priced goodybag and the networks simply can't cope with such a high level of traffic, as I see it data has to be charged at a rate that makes abuse impractical.

[Richard10002]

There was a discussion earlier in the year in the GiffGaff forum, where they were having to cut the data connection for some phones that were using over 1gb per HOUR!! That's the kind of usage that has killed the unlimited internet for the rest of the community. I don't think GiffGaff are being unfair, I think that a certain percentage of users are abusing a small company.

.

 

Abuse by a few is not an excuse to punish the many. As I've already said, abusers can be identified and stopped. I don't think any £10 user would have an objection to a Fair Usage Policy of anything above say 2Gb or 4Gb per month. 750Mb per month, as a limit, is designed to increase revenue, not to stop abusers. As said, the real abusers won't be bothered about £5 per month, and will move to the higher priced tariff. Giffgaff will have the same problem as now, assuming they are telling the truth.

 

They will almost certainly remain competitive, but many users will no longer see them as honest, which was one of their USPs.