[pctech]

Yep I know it's not their name but after my experience I think it should be.

After 5 years trouble free service with O2 I decided to try a couple of the cheaper services.

First I tried Talkmobile who were good from a cost and customer service point of view but the Vodafone coverage where I work and live is dire

I looked into Giffgaff and thought I had nothing to lose as they used O2 but were a fraction of the PAYG cost of O2 but were the same as Talkmobole in this regard so got my PAC from Talkmobile and got the SIM from giffgaff on 1 August.

Went through activation which took 2 hours for some reason. once my balance appeared on the site I tried a test call which worked great so I thought I'll go ahead and request the port so I did.

Used my phone to call and text no problem over the course of the next 24 hours on the temporary number, I even added 10 pounds to my balance in case I wasn't able to top up for a while after the transfer.

Port day came (3 August) and I did the regular power cycling you are supposed to do, at 11.30 a.m. the phone would log on but stopped me dialling out.

Logged onto the site and balance was shown as not available, rang my mobile number form work desk phone and got the message it was not in service 'no problem' I thought ''they must be transferring it'

About 12 I was able to dial out again and the friend I rang must have lnown it was me as they greeted me when I answered.

When I finished the call I texted another friend who almost always get back to me within about 5 minutes of me texting her but heard nothing.

Tried texting myself from O2's free text facility on their site and this didn't arrive either.

Checked the site again, still no balance and old temp number still shown.

Checked again about 3 and balance had reappeared along with ported number.

I decided to ring my own number again with phone in front of me and in signal, went straight to voicemail.

tried a couple of further times that day, still went to voicemail on Talkmobile, power cycled my phone again, no change.

logged an issue with an agent but ordered one of their goodybag bundles to try and jump start their systems.

Was fed up at this point so put in a PAC request too.

Next day got the PAC first but no response to my question about the port issue, found out by my own investigation it had finally gone through.

Went to use my phone on Friday lunchtime to text, got message there was no network support for messages.

Rebooted but this has no effect, tried to use my phone later only to get a number barred message.

Raised another issue.

Got a response on Saturday stating a bar had been imposed by their system which had been lifted.

Have asked for explaination for this and have just been told it was a temporary lost/stolen bar accidentally placed by their system.

Searching their forums seems to indicate this is a bit of a regular occurrence, someone has had a replaced SIM barred for 7 days and some poor guy has had 60 quid worth of top ups in processing for over three weeks.

I am awaiting delivery of an O2 Pay and Go SIM and intend to port back as Giffgaff seem accident prone and unable to fix system problems.

[DaveC]

Nice to see 'old' names on here.

I think GiffGaff's method of support is good for some things, but when things really go wrong it takes some time to sort them out.

The only problem with O2 PAYG as far as I can see is the ridiculously high charge for making calls unless you have a bolt-on

[Ben]

Hi pctech, welcome to Talk3G :)

That does all sound rather messy. All of the networks seem to demonstrate a healthy dollop of incompetence when it comes to resolving more complex issues, though in this case the extent of the issues themselves would quickly cause anyone to lose confidence in GiffGaff. I doubt you'll be trying them again?

Perhaps Talkmobile have also been at fault here, though... it must take two to port.

[pctech]

I don't think I will be trying them again no.

I would dismiss the porting issue yes as it could have just been Voda that were slow at making the changes on the porting platform or these being passed through to Everything Everywhere (was originally on Virgin)

Although CPW get a bad press the experience I had of Talkmobile was actually rather good, they answered promptly, were helpful and understood entirely when I explained I was leaving because of the bad Vodafone coverage.

Hello btw, DaveC, good to be back on a forum with some activity other than spam and thanks for the welcome Ben

I will be going onto Text and Web which has the 25p/min for first three mins and 5p after tariff which I've been on since I joined O2 five years ago but yes you have a point, but then they do prefer those on contract.

Going on contract for a month proved to me I didn't need one at this point at least, maybe if I get an Android or Windows Phone handset which eats data like a piranha then I'll have a fresh look at it, O2 would be my only choice if I were to do so as the CS alone is worth it IMO.

Also while I'm all for intelligent networks that help the customer, ones that randomly impose lost and stolen bars concern me a little.

[DaveC]

Actually, I've got text and web. My daughter pays for the family bolt on - so calls and text to those numbers don't cost me.

There is the Calls 50 bolt on at £7.99 and £1 back as reward so 50min, 300 text, 500MB and £2.10 spare credit to use as I like effectively costs £9 per month

[Ben]

Also while I'm all for intelligent networks that help the customer, ones that randomly impose lost and stolen bars concern me a little.
I need a Like button for this!

Makes me wonder if they're having fraud issues and some rudimentary process is suspending accounts that meet certain triggers pending review...

[solo12002]

Pctech and Dave C.

Welcome to the fourm, more active than the other one. I lok forward to reading your words of winsdom and points of view.

[Hands0n]

Good morning all, glad to be back (or am I? Just catching up on two weeks awayness).

I have been using giffgaff off and on for a while now. Finally one of my phones has the SIM permanently installed with a modest Goody Bag added. I think that the experience of the OP is annoying, to be kind to giffgaff, and really does them no credit. This day and age number porting should be trivial. Even OFCOM think so! So to read the experiences of pctech is frustrating, pure and simply to observe how the operators can still cock things up quite so badly.

[DaveC]

The big problem is 'donor' lead number porting. In Pctech's case it will be the network that originally was allocated the number which did all the work. This has the potential to get very messy!

From the number of posts on other forums it seems Vodafone are the worst for screwing things up - they did it with me 3 years ago. I always think it crazy that my calls have to pass through Vodafone when I am on O2.

The networks have resisted all attempts to have a central database of numbers and to change the method of porting.

[Ben]

The way it works is truly bizarre. There should indeed be a centralised database. Some countries even have free (or reasonably priced) access to these, so third parties can easily route calls and messages where prefixes no longer mean anything.

[miffed]

From the number of posts on other forums it seems Vodafone are the worst for screwing things up

Or maybe it is simply that more people are porting away from Vodafone ?

[pctech]

I've learnt my lesson.

With O2 the phone just works which is all I need.

We be good to see a database run by a nominet type company, mutually owned by the operators.

[DBMandrake]

The big problem is 'donor' lead number porting. In Pctech's case it will be the network that originally was allocated the number which did all the work. This has the potential to get very messy!

Agreed. It's a very messy situation where potentially up to 3 different networks are involved and all have to do their bit at the right time for number porting to work.

There are several different "partially transferred" scenarios that can happen depending on who screws up, and finger pointing between the networks is bound to ensue.

I've only ported numbers twice - one phone from O2 to Three and one from Virgin to Three and both went smoothly and on schedule, but maybe I'm lucky.


From the number of posts on other forums it seems Vodafone are the worst for screwing things up - they did it with me 3 years ago. I always think it crazy that my calls have to pass through Vodafone when I am on O2.

The networks have resisted all attempts to have a central database of numbers and to change the method of porting.
Isn't the UK the only country in the world with donor lead number portability ?

[pctech]

Well got the O2 PAYG SIM, topped it up and have filled in the keep your number form on the O2 site, now just waiting for them to acknowledge the port request and tell me when they are going to move it.

[Hands0n]

OFCOM certainly allowed the network operators (fixed line and mobile) to truly cock up and make more difficult the number port. It is archaic and designed to be as hard to achieve success. It has very manual processes, in fixed line even resorting to fax still in some cases, with virtually no true B2B automation between networks.

A central "clearing house" is vital to the future, but there seems to be no work going on even at the concept stage. OFCOM should mandate that the network operators (both kinds) fund the creation of a central clearing house with full B2B availability, perhaps Portal features for the smaller operators. This could bring down porting to within an hour of launch!