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★★☆☆☆

“Not Even Close To Unlimited Data”

written by Kenny1984 on 15/03/2013

Product: Giffgaff £15 per month for 400 mins, unlimited texts unlimited data.

I have been on GiffGaff for 6 months. At first I was very happy with the service (especially the price). The network did go down a couple of times, but I gather this was an o2 problem, and I was only mildly inconvenienced.

Since then, I have had my data cut off 3 times. They say this is for 'illegitimate usage'

The first time, fair enough - i left my torrent program running and downloaded about 2gb over the network - oops! I got a warning, then they cut me off a couple of days later. (again, for downloading about 1gb over the torrent network). After that, I switched the 'wi-fi only option on, and assumed I would have no more trouble.

Last month, I got another warning. I did not understand, as I had not been doing any heavy downloading. I kept an eye on my data usage, and carried on as normal. However, a couple of days later my data was barred.

On both these occasions, I contacted an agent, and to be fair was reconnected within 24 hours. Again, a mild inconvenience.

I could not understand, as I really do not download heavily. The only thing I could imagine it was, was tethering. I occasionally turned on my hotspot to allow my girlfriend to browse the internet on her nexus 7 when we were out and about. However, this data usage was probably far less than 50MB.

So this month I have not tethered or downloaded more than 100MB using my torrent app. Surely it would not happen again?

Sure enough, a few days ago I get another data warning. I really was struggling to find out how I was breaking their terms and conditions. So I stopped doing anything except web browsing. Yesterday I got barred again.

I contacted an agent yesterday morning, and asked them to explain why I kept getting cut off. I explained I have 2 independent data usage monitoring apps on my phone, and they reported under 1GB of usage in the last week, under 2GB in the last month. All of it quite spread out. On average, I use about 100MB a day. I made all this clear, and asked if there was another reason I kept getting barred (my CCTV camera app connecting to unusual ports, ditto my torrent app maybe, the vpn I connect to sometimes?) If they told me, I could stop doing it!

Their reply (which took over 24 hours) was just a generic message telling me I had high data usage, and advised me to cut down on my data!

They also did not acknowledge I had even been barred, and therefore could not reconnect me! Do they not have access to my account or data usage stats?

The agent obviously did not read my question at all, and it ended "thanks for your question customername" They could not even be bothered to replace that with my name in their automatically generated message!

I messaged back saying they had obviously not read my message. I did not mind really, I just wanted my data back on. That was 6 hours ago. I still have no data. I'm not holding my breath for a reply. I have stopped my recurring goodybag, removed my debit card details and requested a PAC code.

My advice? They are cheap for a reason. If data is important to you, and you use your connection for anything except basic web-browsing, spend an extra tenner, and go for three's 'the one plan' Truly unlimited data.

I am still shocked that they can advertise this plan as 'unlimited data.' I have downloaded 2GB in just over 3 weeks and been cut off.

Incredible.

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