“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.”
“I bought a basic pay as you go sim to use just for a day or two, however, I got an email saying that I was put on a CONTRACT THAT I NEVER AUTHORIZED!? WTF! I spent time removing my card details, billing addresses etc. I never agreed or wanted a contract, I just wanted a simple and basic pay as you go sim which I picked up from my local Salisburys but clearly they did something which they should not have done. AVOID AVOID AVOID”
“That is Dodgy company,bought sim card ant 10 £ top up for my daughter,yesterday received an email I was unrolled to contact which I never sign,that company be checking by Police and for people who deal with business this unreal I hadd sim for free and top up for 10£ now i have spent my time tomorrow to cancel dodgy contract 🙄”
“From the start my experience of buying a refurbished Samsung phone from Giffgaff was poor. I was not kept informed when my phone would arrive and it just turned up out of the blue. Right from the start the phone ran hot and battery life got worse each day. Two weeks later during my holiday it became almost unusable, very annoying. I sent it back for replacement and again they didn't say when I could expect the replacement, it just turned up by DPD. It was the wrong colour so I complained and demanded a refund. I did get a refund quickly, Giffgaffs only saving grace. Their customer service is like something from the 1970s, absolutely dire.
Save yourself grief and purchase elsewhere!”
“I traded in my immaculate I phone as I was buying a new 14. It was in excellent condition, worked perfectly and no scratches.
I was quoted £105 and sent it in 3 days later when their packaging arrived.
As I hadn’t heard from them 6 days later I contacted them and they said it had been received and was being processed.
Today I received £21. What a joke. An agent tells me I was emailed regarding the drop in price and Sue to me missing the deadline it was too late to reject the offer.
I have just found the email in spam and it states the reason to be screen burn. Absolute rubbish. This is a total scam. And I see from the posts that there is a trend of this going on. I don’t seem to be getting any joy from their ‘lovely agents’ either regarding next steps. I shall be contacting the ombudsman if I don’t get this resolved.”
“Dont buy refurbished iPhones from giffgaff, my advice and only advice is buy apple certified refurbished it's the only way you can be safe. The giffgaff refurbished phone came in a cheap package with holes in it and the phone which was meant to be like new
Had a cracked camera lense and the phone screen was visibly replaced by something slot cheaper. I noticed when setting up the phone it got really hot and I thought maybe it just needs updating. After that I also realised how weird the battery percentage was, as it would just drop 2% or 3% sometimes in the space of minutes and the phone was meant to have a capacity of 96%. I found that really fishy, I sent it back a day after. Terrible company but the only thing I do rate which isnt a great thing is their refund system is good I got my money back pretty quickly”
“I have just wasted 25 pounds again,,, yesterday l topped up 25 pounds and l cannot stream music or watch TV or face call???? It stops every few seconds because the Internet is so slow.... lm now going to seek legal action because giffgaff is ripping people off”
“3 phones all junk one battery dead and when charged only lasted 2 hours ond deep scratches all over the back then 2 nd phone wrong phone sent then 3rd phone screen very damaged and faulty on off button, who checks these so called refurbished phones a 5 year old?”
“Absolutely rubbish,,,, the Internet is on off all the time, no good for anything,,, also the network coverage is very rubbish even calling is a problem if your travelling. Its the worst network available, there's better and cheaper out there,, l don't know how they get away with it,”
“I bought a refurb iPhone 12 Pro with 18 month warranty £819.00 because it was described condition VERY GOOD, 18 months and one week it went off for no reason and would not come back on , no drops no scratches and no water contact , I contacted expert community helpers and was talked through different things to get it to come on , nothing worked , I was advised by them to take it to apple shop which I did , what they don’t tell you is apple don’t like doing anything with. Phones from giffgaff because they put in cheap components, but they took a look at it and said that a component inside is dead at no fault of my own and that I should go back to giffgaff after noticing phone was in mint condition,
And that as a consumer I do have rights, an agent called Emma had me sending phone back and forth after I had said I don’t have any money to pay for repair, then told me they want £519.00 which would take the phone to £1,338.00, agent Emma keeps mentioning 12 months warranty and when I correct her she ignores , she also asked for the receipt that I originally had with phone but has not sent it back even thou I’ve asked a number of times,
Glad I took a picture of it , I’m in the process of ombudsman, and hope they pick up on her dishonesty and lies,I’ve also spoken to citizens advice who had advised me loads to do and say which I’ve already done and said so they are passing it on to trading standards, because although my warranty is out by 1 week I still ave rights , it’s not fit for purpose , it should have lasted longer than 18months and one week , a warranty is a voluntary service agreement that a shop or manufacturer chooses to give you over a product it must be satisfactory as described and fit for purpose and last a reasonable amount of time , watch this space because I’m not giving up , Emma at giffgaff will not help you in any way as a consumer!!!!”
“Quite shocked so many have had a bad experience with refurbished phones, i bought a Iphone 11 in excellent condition and it arrived a day later with not a single mark on it...battery is 88% health and so far has gone down 2% from 100% after 90 mins, my old Iphone 8 would lose around 20% in a hour maybe even more.
Only thing that annoyed me was the fact it turned up with a standard usb charger and not the proper Apple fast charger or whatever they're called and didn't come with a plug but for the price i paid i could replace the battery 2+ times and buy a new charger and plug and still be no where near the price of the Iphone 11 new.
Seems it depends on your luck then maybe i just got extremely lucky as i like i say my red Iphone 11 hasn't got a single thing wrong with it and you could even argue its not been used...if the battery health couldn't be checked i would assume this is a brand new phone that's how good of condition its in and its saved me over £150.
Would use them again, lets say i did receive it and it wasn't this good i would just send it back for a replacement until i was happy.”
“Same as other reviews here. 'Like new phone' arrived with a battery that would not hold a charge. It would last an hour being used and just die in standby mode to the extent the phone can't be turned on the next day. They boast the phones are checked. I don't believe this is the case.
Even offered to take it to have a new battery installed at a certified company and for them to pay 40 pounds towards it. Just got asked to send it back regardless. Once bitten, twice shy for sure! Just hope the loan agreement gets cancelled with Klara as it was through Giff gaff.”
