O2 has launched giffgaff, a new pay as you go mobile phone network -- with a bonkers twist. giffgaff relies on user contributions to drive down prices. Inspired by Wikipedia, social networks and user-generated content, the SIM-only network crowdsources marketing and customer support. It's nuts.
A giffgaff SIM works in any phone, including the iPhone. The complete absence of customer support and DIY marketing campaign keep the costs down -- calls lasting less than an hour to other giffgaff SIMs are free. So is data, for the first six months. It's 8p per minute to landlines anywhere in the UK, EU, Australia, Pakistan and the US, and 8p to UK and US mobiles. A UK text message costs 4p.
As well as paying for top-up, you can earn points. Give a giffgaff SIM to a friend, and when they activate it you get 500 points. If a friend mentions you when they sign up, you get 200 points. Recommend giffgaff through the site and you get 50 points. Extra points are earned by helping others in the support forums, or creating adverts and viral videos to advertise the network. And what do points mean? Prizes. 100 points equals £1. In May and November your accumulated points are turned into either cash or top-up credit, or can be donated to charity.
So what do you think? Are you tempted by the wacky marketing and the low, low prices? Is this a bright new dawn for the mobile future, or crazier than a bag of badgers and doomed to death by daftness?
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Anonymous 22 July, 2010 14:58
cheap... bloodfire..::::::::::P
Anonymous 18 August, 2010 07:43
Free £5 giffgaff Sim. Yes I can provide free giffgaff sim and and also micro sim for your iphone 4 with £5 credit once you activate. Free unlimited (not capped at all) calls, texts and unlimited browsing starting from £5. Email me s4nj(at)ovi(dot)com for a sim.
Anonymous 25 August, 2010 19:47
Order a free giffgaff sim card with £5 bonus, with your 1st £10 top-up. Phone must be unlocked or with o2. email me at giffgaffme(at)mail(dot)com
Anonymous 14 September, 2010 16:13
just a relauch of the old Gene Sims if your provider wants your custom contract/ payasgo they will match most deals offered so why bother changing sims unlocking phones and changing numbers at least other pay as go sims let you recieve calls once active no have to topup.
Anonymous 17 September, 2010 16:02
For free giffgaff sims and Micro-sims for iPhones and iPads with £5 free credit when you top up with £10 and truly unlimited internet on no contract see giffgaff-sims..co.uk
Anonymous 25 September, 2010 22:04
Brilliant network, sod the rest...always liked O2 and I think this is a brilliant idea. Also the FREE FREEPHONE numbers mean I can ring abroad using my MOBILE for next to nothing via companies like 1899;com or 18866;com.
Free calls and texts to Giffgaffers, most of my friends and family now are. Cheap calls and texts otherwise with the FREEPHONE bypass for international calls, weekend mobile calls and local rates like 0845 or 0870 numbers.
I only need topup once every 3 months, EXCELLENT!!! Also free internet til 1st December and a good range of add ons (goody bags) if so required.
Anonymous 26 September, 2010 14:28
being a non-techno pensioner, i think giffgaff is brilliant for simply calls and texts
Anonymous 2 October, 2010 14:41
If you have never found yourself needing to call up customer services to discuss your bill or set up your phone, Giff Gaff will be your worse nightmare. Giffgaff have what they call the community to 'help' you.. another way of looking at this is you will spend an hour searching over a forum to find only the blind leading the blind.
The alternative is Tesco SIM only 30 day rolling contract, where the inclusive minutes tends to be at least 100 more than Giffgaff, you get a good customer service to call. Downsides no free 0800 numbers, no free giffgaff to giffgaff calling and once you have used all your allowance the costs are 20p instead of 8p min.
I would say if you know you make lots of calls and texts and have a pretty constant usage profile, Tesco is best as you are more certain to remain within the more generous usage allowances appropriate to your use profile. If your usage is sporadic and indeterminate, Giffgaff would be better as you may often exceed your allowance from one month to the next, then you fall back to having to use purchase credit at which calls and texts will be charged at cheaper tarrif rates than tesco.
Anonymous 2 October, 2010 14:42
meant if your have ever, not if you have Never... sorry
Anonymous 10 November, 2010 12:48
As I only come back to the uk for a week here and a week there, this is the perfect sim. I was surprised to still have unlimited internet after 2 months away.. all in all over 12 months, I've spent £15 with this company and used it for 3 weeks in the uk with constant internet! While I'm abroad I still get the unlimited texts too... No other company provides anything like this- is so perfect for people in and out of the UK, at least. :D
Anonymous 11 November, 2010 16:11
Ordered my microSIM yesterday. If it works as promised it will be the best deal on the market and I'll spread the word for them.
Anonymous 16 December, 2010 08:23
what top up voucher would you buy then? an 02 one or would you go into the shop and say can i have a mobiel top up voucher for GiffGaff please?, to be given a reasonbale response of O.o.
Anonymous 20 December, 2010 12:35
i am on o2 sim only simplicity contract,unlimited text and calls to o2 users.600 mins to any network £15 a month that suits me and is well worth it.
Anonymous 22 December, 2010 16:05
Very interesting concept. It would be great if they could extend it further than prepaid and include long tail services: telruptive.com/2010/12/22/giffgaff-the-first-community-driven-telecom-experiment/.
Anonymous 8 January, 2011 11:25
They are the only UK mobile provider I can find offering unlimitied, unlimited mobile internet.
I joined O2 becuase "unlimited" meant "20GB too mack sure you're not streaming 24/7 on it". Now that is going down to 500mb.
Anonymous 9 January, 2011 19:25
You can't get more for £10 on any other network. Unlimited texts and internet, and 150 minutes. End of discussion for me.
MrsGrey 12 January, 2011 10:43
Forums for advice are a good idea, but what happens when you have a problem with the network itself? Can you call 02? What kind of a reception will you get?
Anonymous 13 January, 2011 21:44
People seem to compliment Tesco a lot here...I just got screwed by them...My unlimited data just turned out to be 500meg and then £4/meg afterward. I am now looking at GiffGaff and it appears to be perfect for what I want, unlimited text and data goodie bags which are REALLY unlimited.
Anonymous 16 January, 2011 13:36
this network is the best pay as you go sim you could buy for your fone, and its free :)
* UNLIMETED internet (no data alowence, thats right its unlimeted, you will never run out of internet for a month)
* UNLIMETED txt
* 250 minutes any network
for just £10 a month with a goodybag
:)
lest's see any of you nay sayer's beat that
Anonymous 1 February, 2011 14:51
Gifffaff is way better than tesco. I had tesco and realised the don't have a call waiting or call forwarding feature which I use all the time. I though all companies should have that. Gifffaff Is the best as they always have half price offers
Anonymous 7 February, 2011 10:52
No-one's even mentioned any ethical considerations. Asda are part of the huge multi billion dollar Walmart corp.
If you get your groceries there "because it's cheaper" then you obviously haven't thought it through. Same thing applies to Tesco.
If, like me and my wife, you have some concern about how food is produced and shipped, then you wouldn't use either of them for food or SIM cards!
Anonymous 5 March, 2011 18:41
Recently got a Samsung Galaxy tablet and have found the Giffgaff sim excellent and was advisd to be the cheapest way of running my tablet! Now my whole family have got giffgaff sim cards in their phones and tablets and we can call and text each other for free. My daughter had a Tesco pay as you go sim card and was eating up about £30 per month. Also now use tablet to phone mobiles, instead of landline, with my £10 goodybag deal, so all round saving our family a lot of money.
For those in doubt, give it a try, you can even transfer your number!
When my husband cancelled his £40 per month Blackberry deal with vodafone, they rang him up to find out why and were not even aware of Giffgaff. More fool them!!!
Anonymous 9 April, 2011 13:34
how can any1 compare tesco mobile lol. im sorry im on giffgaff and 250 mins unlimited texts and data for £10 is amazing, and they have more minutes for more money, i think they are gonna change there 15 pound goodbag to like 400 minutes. thats amazing. tesco mobile only has david tennants voice as its main selling point :P 1 downside to giffgaff (understandable though ) no tethering and no tablet use unless the tablet can make calls i.e the galaxy tablet read up .
Anonymous 28 April, 2011 19:24
i've tried using giffgaff amazed at the low prices however i ordered my first sim online intrugued to see whats on offer and had topped up £10 and bought a goodybag, the sim activation took hours and yet the wait was not at all worthwhile. It gave me no service whatsoever and never even allowed me to make calls or texts so i was left with nothing. I asked for advice and help by the people of giffgaff and unfortunately they do not have call centres wich is most definately a down side. I then replaced my sim and had gotten a new one hoping that this would activate facing no problems whatsoever. Yet again i was wrong, i began activating yesterday at about 4pm but even today it has not yet activated.
Anonymous 30 April, 2011 20:56
There is a clever way to get a FREE £5 credit when you apply for a Giffgaff sim - see ww.giffgaff-specials.com
Anonymous 28 May, 2011 10:19
You can get the Giffgaff sims through quidco for free and get cashback think its £4
Anonymous 23 June, 2011 16:25
Thinking about getting a Giffgaff sim with £10 goodybag. This should get me 250 mins, unltd texts and unltd internet. However, unltd internet apparently runs out on 3rd July 2011, so what happens after that? Will I be able to use the internet? Will I be cahrged an exhorbitant rate if I do?
gwailofilms 30 June, 2011 14:27
From their blog:-
"I can never seem to write a blog without talking about data, so true to form, we are on track to start charging for data (if you do not have a goodybag which includes unlimited data) from the 1st July…or are we? We are, however as the 1st is a Friday and charging for data is no way to end a week, we are implementing charging from the 4th July."
Anonymous 27 July, 2011 13:22
GiffGaff is the best network ever! They don't have call centres but there community gets you a response within less than 1 minute by tons of people. Certainly the best!!!
Anonymous 8 August, 2011 11:27
I joined giffgaff on 28/07/11 and by 31/07/11 it had stopped working, i had no incoming calls or texts. I contacted giffgaff and it took them 28hrs to reply, said they had done some button pushing, but it did not work.
I had to order another sim saying i had lost mine, which i had not. My new sim arrived on the 05/08/11 but will not activate. It took a further 28hrs for them to reply when i told tem it will not activate.
It's the 08/08/11 now and i have been advised it will take a few days untill they unblock my phone which i never asked them to do in the first place.
I have been without a phone for over a week. My number was not ported it is the number that came with the sim so it was not that.
if was not for the fact my wife's sim is fine and we could have free calls to each other i would have gone to a bigger network days ago. Be aware.
Anonymous 14 August, 2011 00:59
I joined giffgaff this month August 2011. My experience of giffgaff so far has been inspirational! I have complete control of my account and spending. The Goodie Bags are great and very flexible for your budget, superb value for money too. I have literally halved my monthly bill and get as much or more than I was getting per month with my old network supplier, (contract). I have found the O2 network very robust and strong signal most or all of the time. Nice one giffgaff!
anonymous 21 August, 2011 02:17
i have been with giffgaff for about 3 months now and they are the best mobile phone network and the cheapest i have been with,i have been reading some of the comments made by other people about not getting the sim card to register,but you must topup your phone 1st then the phone will work but you must 1st check to see if your phone is unlocked or on o2 network then pop the sim in and away you go, within minutes you will get your giffgaff settings to download and you are ready to enjoy your phone for as long as you want
anonymous 26 August, 2011 16:40
Hello,
Is it true i have to top up at least once every 3 months, and is there a minumum top up of £5?
anonymous 27 August, 2011 23:20
I'm on O2 at the minute, a relative told me about giffgaff. the thing that I liked most about the tariffs was that you could get unlimited Internet, messages and free calls to anyone else on giffgaff.
anonymous 1 September, 2011 11:50
I think giffgaff is great. You can call, txt and video message other giffgaff users for free!!. It's also great that you can call internationally for just 8p per min!! Freephone is FREE unlike with other providers and you can keep your number if you don't want to change it!
X
Email me to recieve your Free sim and £5 Free credit emahoshi@aol.com
anonymous 11 September, 2011 18:48
Problem now is it has gone _it_ up not working since thursday,total pain
anonymous 17 September, 2011 17:23
Have had an appalling time with giffnaff, had same problems as most, no service or signal,after a few hours, not much help from the numpties on the community site, more like 'care in the community!' and when I tried to leave, they lost my number!
Let's hope they never end up running the country, and who the chuff wants internett on the phone anyway? on a screen smaller than a cheap satnav, but then you're probably Facebookers, forgot, get a life, get some REAL friends, or if you must bugger about in cyberspace, get a PC/netbook/laptop..... and free broadband, and that's unlimited too! and you can actually see what's on the fecking screen!
anonymous 1 October, 2011 16:13
Ive been with giffgaff since February.
So far their network has gone down 3 times, MMS went down twice, 'Goodybags' have not carried over when you have pre-purchased the next one meaning no way of phoning/texting from your phone for around 18hours during the first of the month (has happened the past two months in a row.)
Such a shame. I love the idea (No need to phone India all the time, just pop on the forum) but them fixing technical faults takes at least 12hours a time and The 'Agents' are pretty rubbish and just seem to send canned responses. Meaning your only hope for a fix is the community, people just like you ,who also don't have the means to actually fix it and just adds to the confusion during times of network failure.
Ive removed my referral links from my social media pages and forum signatures as I dont want my friends in the same position as me a few weeks after they activate their sims.
If you are planning on joining giffgaff I would recommend looking in the 'community' forums and discover some of the downtime issues and bugs you will come across.
When the network is fine and the goodbag systems work its an outstanding network. When (not if) the network falls on its arse and your goodybag/credit goes missing every month or so for anywhere between 5hours and a day, its a real pain in the arse.
anonymous 2 October, 2011 13:49
http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/freecredit
FREE £5 CREDIT WITH THIS SIM CARD
CALLS 8p PER MINUTE
TEXTS 4p EACH
FREE CALLS AND TEXTS TO OTHER GIFF GAFF MEMBERS
anonymous 12 October, 2011 21:30
a load off ******** if u ask me i spoke to o2 the other day and they couldnt find you running of their network unlike the other small networks like tesco etc and was advised to contact u as soon as i could get to a pc as you have no contact numb you would be a fool to go ere,they will have credit card details and robbed me off my £10 as soon as i activated my sim only fools should use these tools
anonymous 20 October, 2011 16:54
Hi to all you giffgaff member Im a police officer and recieving many calls and emails claiming giffgaff are harrasing the general public by sending simcards out to them then after a few weeks later demanding money for this Please be aware the trading standards and the bbc watchdog are hot on your tail so beware giffgaff
anonymous 22 October, 2011 21:36
It's a joke-and born again giffgaffer's will hear no critism -poss because they are hoping to get paid for offering 'useful advice?' Steer clear- you will spend hours trying to sort the muddle out-whilst being told that you're lucky to be allowed share such a cheap service !
Comments such as 'you could be paying a lot more to have these problems from other providers'
is the help you will get. Comedy act.
anonymous 3 November, 2011 11:52
The so called 'unlimited texts' are only to other giffgaff customers,
anonymous 12 January, 2012 22:00
really happy with giffgaff so far, you can get a micro sim from http://www.giffgaffmicro.co.uk