“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.”
“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.”
“Worst excuse of a company ever!
I ordered a phone and it got sent back to their courier depot!
Giffgaff were no help whatever, failed to respond to my messages (which is only means you have to contact them, obviously because their service is so terrible they don’t want to speak to customers on the phone, it’s easier to defend a terrible company anonymously.”
“Ordered a refurbished iPhone on 9th it stated delivery 3-4 days. It came the next day but I was at work so I changed delivery to depot pick up. They sent the phone back via their courier’s depot 140 miles. I have contacted them nearly on a daily basis and still do not have a phone or my money back and they’ve not responded. Also, you’ve no phone number or direct email address to contact them.
They are worst “company” I’ve ever dealt with and would not recommend them to anyone as they’re just a bunch of scammers, who don’t care about their Customers.
AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID”
“Similar to others leaving reviews here, I was also tricked into purchasing a "like new" phone from GiffGaff which arrived with 84% battery health which means that of 500 possible charge cycles of "peak performance", 400 have already been used. When I raised the issue with giffgaff that 84% battery health is far from "like new" (upon receiving the phone, the battery hardly seems better than my 6-year old iPhone SE 2016), they told me that their only guarantee is that the batteries of all their refurbished phones are "over 80%" (bearing in mind that any battery health under 80% is not worth having). On second look at the descriptors of the tiers of conditions on their site, I realised that "like new" was only applied to the appearance of the phone and not to its technical capacity. I think it is utterly misleading to the consumer to be selling phones under a descriptor of "like new" when it does not apply to all aspects of the phone being sold. I will make a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.”
“They are bullies. They have bullied my 79 year old mother. She didn't use her phone much and they threatened that they'd cut her off. She bought credit, but that didn't satisfy them. The sent her a text saying they would cut her off if she didn't use it, so she left her house to use the phone (lives in an area with no signal) and sent 3 texts. Their system didn't pick it up and they won't believe that she sent the texts even though she has screenshots to prove it. They lied and said she used 'imessage' where the screenshots clearly show she sent texts. So they cut her off and have pocketed the £15 credit they made her buy. So 10 years or so of being a loyal customer means nothing. Bullies!”
“Could not get account acccess to stop recurring Goodybag payments: Password resets did not work despite various attempts over weeks and it was on a device not a phone so i could not get a reset link.
This was later exacerbated by the failure of the 2 factor authentication to work. In the mean time I notified the giffgaff team; as I was not coming directly from the account to their help they had to verify I was the account holder. Over the next three emails I provided email addresses, bank details, payment amounts and date as well as details of the device first used on the account including dates when the account was opened.
They advised that I had not provided the relevant or sufficient information in order to verify me as the account holder and terminated further correspondence re same!”
“I would not recommend buying a giff gaff recycled phone. Mine is an OPPO and it is a disaster in more ways than one. Camera doesnt work well and takes pics through a mist. There are various problems with it and I regret having bought it.”
“Bought an iPhone 11 2months ago supposed to be one below the best refurbished one What a joke it’s had a non Apple screen and battery fitted. Went to turn it on no screen display but the phone is live and no the phone hasn’t been dropped. Warranty useless how do you download the info on phone without a screen. I could have bought a new se phone from Apple themselves. Don’t use a company that supplies rubbish”
