“Pricing and data allowance look good on paper, but in reality it's irrelevant if you can't get a signal.
I swapped from EE to Smarty, but struggle to get even 3g data and phone calls rarely work - in Leeds city centre.
Swapped to giffgaff after 1 month. More expensive, but it works.
Old Chinese proverb - "good no cheap, cheap no good."”
“For me it's been definitely worth changing to Smarty from EE a few months ago. So far have had better signal in my cave of a flat (Smarty uses 3 masts) and I've managed to cut my monthly costs which were about £40 a month for unlimited texts, calls and data with EE, to the exact same package for £16 a month with Smarty, but with the added freedom of a month by month rolling contract.
They also gave me a referal code which you can use if anyone is thinking of switching to Smarty, and we both get a £10 credit to our bill and a free month! Basically it would also mean you get to try for a free month then cancel if u weren't happy.
Feel free to use this code, just remove the 5 spaces between all the forward slashes. 👍
https: / / i.smarty.co.uk / YHvDye
U may want to screenshot that in case they remove this post.”
“Decent prices but reception and data is just too unreliable. Very poor reception in town and lucky to get >2mbps in most areas. Limited places you can get full 4g speed but there are real packet drop issues on this network. Wifi calling is nice and if service was a little bit better then I would stay.
30GB for £10 is too good to be true, you’ll be lucky if you can manage to download that much.”
“TERRIBLE COMPANY AND SERVICE. DO NOT USE. DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.
Words can’t describe what a terrible company this is. Do NOT purchase. Awful customer service, non existent internet. Please do not waste your time like I have. If I could leave zero stars I could. ABYSMAL!”
“I was with Smarty for 1 year and 7 months. At the time they were the cheapest option I found and I was also interested in getting money back for unused data.
They are no longer the cheapest option and a couple of problems I had with them recently led to the decision of leaving them. The did nothing to solve the issues, they just waited for me to leave.
For everyone's sake, I will only share here the second incident.
Out of the blue, my phone lost the ability to send or receive messages from/to outside the Smarty network.Calls and Data were fine. I could also send messages to my wife (also on Smarty), but messages to other people would never be received. I actually found out about this issue because due to my work I constantly need to receive text messages and I started receiving fewer than usual. Then I tested further and realised that it was anyone outside Smarty.
They have an email address but it takes days to get any answer. When there's an incident, this is not an option.
They have no phone number to call, so the only option is a web chat. It's the same experience as a call centre. You speak to several people that know nothing and maybe after 1h chatting, you find someone who actually cares.I had several chats, all the same. They asked me again and again to reboot my phone and similar nonsense.
Finally, I thought I'd made some progress when they said that there was an incident in the area with the Three network. I could actually check myself the status of the incident on Three's website. When the message was cleared from the website my line was still not working properly and I contacted them again, only to be asked again to reboot my phone, etc.
They did nothing until I threatened to leave. Then, all of a sudden, they offered to escalate this to the "network team". I don't know if such a team exists or if they can solve any issue, but after 4 days they fixed nothing and not even bothered updating me.When i contacted them again, they told me that the network team had concluded it was my fault. According to them, they had looked into the issue and seen that my phone was not communicating with the tower or their network.It's really funny considering that I could send messages to Smarty just fine, plus calls to anyone and data was also fine.It's also funny considering that at some point they decided it was my fault but didn't really bother telling me. This looks to me like they didn't even try and just waited for me to call back and tell me some more nonsense.
They did nothing else, not even offered replacing my SIM card.In the end, I moved my number to another company and guess what... I put the new SIM card in and everything started working just fine with my "broken" phone.
Smarty, you are very unprofessional and have no idea what you are doing. You wasted my time and just waited for me to go away. So, I respected your wishes and moved my 4 lines to another company. I only had issues with 1, but after seeing what really happens when there is an issue, I didn't want to risk it.”
“40 hours after I put in my shiny new Smarty sim in and accepted their delicious cookies I had lost my phone numbers, old and new! The customer service dept doesn’t exist I cite Fulani and that persons manager and that managers manager as being not just hopeless but entirely incompetent. Please I beg you don’t use these people”
“Good network better than most and not stuck down to long contracts plus free month on referal just take spaces out my link for free month http:// referme. to/ mx3F8Kx”
“**Use link to get free month when you sign up****
Coverage turned out better than Vodafone for me,
30GB of data unlimited Calls and txts, sim arrived within 48hrs and number was transferred within half a day.
Coverage is better than Vodafone for me.
Absolutely delighted
Take out the spaces to get an additional free month.
https :// i.smarty. co. uk/ l5Jq4C”
“I've been a Smarty customer for almost a year.
However, I just had a number of issues with them repeatedly during last month that are just unacceptable.
They blocked my SIM card, without previous notice, allegedly for a "misuse" of their services. First they explained that their system had detected I was using it for "Business" purposes rather than personal use.
They realised this is non-sense as just made 2 or 3 phone calls in the last month? Then their main argument was that I was "continuously using roaming", I've been a bit more than 2 weeks abroad, I wouldn't say that goes against their policies?
Anyway, they did enable my SIM back after more than 24 hours, just to block it again, without notice and right after charging me £10 for the monthly fee.
I understand these blocks may be automatic but they should get it sorted. I'm still blocked after more than 24h for the second time and can't use the service I've been charged for.
What would happen if I didn't have a SIM of a local provider?
Absolute cowboys, avoid at all costs.”
“So initially everything was great I was really happy with my signal strength using the app was easy I even recommend to all my family and friends but the a few weeks ago my signal strength started to drop and for the last 2 weeks never got above 2 Mbps. Now here's the big problem they have no centre to call up just a succession of random web based people in India that have very little idea on fix anything and focus more on placating you with over the top pleasantries rather than finding the problem.
FYI smarty customers don't want to wait a full day on chat that's not how it works....so I'm done with them”
“So initially everything was great I was really happy with my signal strength using the app was easy I even recommend to all my family and friends but the a few weeks ago my signal strength started to drop and for the last 2 weeks never got above 2 Mbps. Now here's the big problem they have no centre to call up just a succession of random web based people in India that have very little idea on fix anything and focus more on placating you with over the top pleasantries rather than finding the problem.
FYI smarty customers don't want to wait a full day on chat that's not how it works....so I'm done with them”
“So initially everything was great I was really happy with my signal strength using the app was easy I even recommend to all my family and friends but the a few weeks ago my signal strength started to drop and for the last 2 weeks never got above 2 Mbps. Now here's the big problem they have no centre to call up just a succession of random web based people in India that have very little idea on fix anything and focus more on placating you with over the top pleasantries rather than finding the problem.
FYI smarty customers don't want to wait a full day on chat that's not how it works....so I'm done with them”
“So initially everything was great I was really happy with my signal strength using the app was easy I even recommend to all my family and friends but the a few weeks ago my signal strength started to drop and for the last 2 weeks never got above 2 Mbps. Now here's the big problem they have no centre to call up just a succession of random web based people in India that have very little idea on fix anything and focus more on placating you with over the top pleasantries rather than finding the problem.
FYI smarty customers don't want to wait a full day on chat that's not how it works....so I'm done with them”
“Unlimited data is great, price is great - but since May 2020 most websites take 20 seconds (+) to initially load. Web forums plus my own tests suggest this is a Smarty DNS infrastructure issue (finding a site's IP number from it's name). Using a VPN - with it's own DNS servers - gives instant and fast connections to all websites, affirming it's a DNS issue. For users without VPN software (we have one for working in China), it would be unusable.”
“I would have given Smarty no stars if I could. If you rely mostly on WiFi and a few calls and SMS in the UK then it may be a good cheap deal. But if you dare to travel then you will be left stranded abroad with a locked phone like me.
I am on holiday and the only thing that works is WiFi reception. No calls, no SMS, no data. My sim us locked by smarty. They have done this before and refuse to even say why. I checked my account and I have only used 80mins of calls and 200MB of data this month!! So no excuses for high usage.
After more than 24hs the webchat (no customer service phone to call) hasn't even seen my message, never mind reply to it. In the midst of a pandemic and no one can reach me and I cant contact my family due to Smarty.
I don't know how they are allowed to operate.
They are also against the Equality Act because if you have a foreign sounding surname and travel abroad and make calls from there, they assume you violate the terms of service and disconnect you. If you have an English sounding surname this doesn't happen even if you use X10 more mins and data.
When I am back in the UK I will leave them and contact the regulator.”
“For the last 6 months i have basically been chucking my money down the drain. the last five months of that were down to my own laziness, i'll admit. the service has been absolutely nonexistent. luckily i've not had to be outside often as i've been dependent on my wi-fi to use the phone for anything other than checking my face out in the camera. contacted Smarty to let them know and their response was effectively, "have you tried putting the phone in rice?". needless to say, i am now (after another two weeks of laziness) in the process of moving to another provider. however, i now can't seem to access the PAC code in order to transfer my number across. what an absolute nightmare! should have known it would be too good to be true with their prices. lesson learned. always chuckle at this line in reviews but, steer well clear. if you have money to waste, using it to light fireworks would literally give you more bang for your buck.”
“Iv tried phoning from my mobil 333 but it won’t connect me ! Iv also trying both numbers you advertised as help numbers and again won’t connect me says this number not recognised!!! The broad band is so slow !! And it keeps dropping so I can’t go on internet . So not happy that I won’t to cancel and go back to plusnet that I did not have any problems with !”
