Mobile phone sim-only deals - what do you recommend?

Philtre · October 2023

I can't even get the PAC code from Lycamobile. Sending to 65075 results in error message and customer service is non existent.

ewal · October 2023

Giffgaff for me. £15 for 35Gb a month which is probably way too much now I think about it. Should review my usage.

revsorg · October 2023

Philtre said:

I can't even get the PAC code from Lycamobile. Sending to 65075 results in error message and customer service is non existent.

In fact I got a reply from the Lyca helpdesk to one of my many support requests. I think it's staffed by narcoleptics who routinely fall asleep with their face on the delete key.

One of my theories about the Lyca website is that they take advantage of it not being zero-rated for Lyca customers. What this means is that if you run out of data and are using your mobile data to try and navigate their website to buy more, if you make the mistake of buying credit rather than an almost impossible to find data bundle, you use up your credit in the process because you've been buying data at a ridiculous per-MB price. When you eventually find the bundle and attempt to buy it using your credit, it turns out that you can no longer afford it.

Of course if you have WiFi this is a non issue, but as I said in a previous post, our WiFi was down which is why I found myself in this stupid predicament in the first place. Once you become wise to it, it's easy to work around, but it does feel a bit like a poverty trap.

Grampa · October 2023

Been with Lyca for 4 months, cheap as chips and absolutely zero issues. I'm a very light user, rarely go over a couple of calls, a few messages or 200Mb (yes Mb) of data a month. Was with Virgin mobile before, complete joke of a company, used to send me a bill of £0 every month for Virgin Media, didn't have it but just in case I ever wanted it!

Philtre · October 2023

Grampa said:

Been with Lyca for 4 months, cheap as chips and absolutely zero issues. I'm a very light user, rarely go over a couple of calls, a few messages or 200Mb (yes Mb) of data a month. Was with Virgin mobile before, complete joke of a company, used to send me a bill of £0 every month for Virgin Media, didn't have it but just in case I ever wanted it!

Have you tried logging into your account lately?

JMS96 · October 2023

+1 for Smarty. Been on it for about 5 years. Absolutely no issues. Whole family is on it now.

Philtre · October 2023

Soon as I can get the PAC from Lyca, I'm going with Smarty.

jonnyburgo · October 2023

All on IDMobile in our house, 20Gb unlimited texts/minutes, data rollover, £7 a month

Philtre · October 2023

Like other people trying to leave Lycamobile, I still can't get my PAC. Reported to Ofcom.

An example of this company - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.lycamobile.co.uk?sort=recency

TTony · October 2023

Paying a lot is no guarantee that you'll get a good service, but aiming for the cheapest generally increases the risk of something going wrong - usually something going wrong when something has gone wrong (ie you have a problem that you can't get fixed).

So which service you choose depends on how important the connectivity reliability / capacity is to you, how risk averse you are, and what the signal coverage/strength/stability is like wherever you are.

Philtre · October 2023

TTony said:

Paying a lot is no guarantee that you'll get a good service, but aiming for the cheapest generally increases the risk of something going wrong - usually something going wrong when something has gone wrong (ie you have a problem that you can't get fixed).

So which service you choose depends on how important the connectivity reliability / capacity is to you, how risk averse you are, and what the signal coverage/strength/stability is like wherever you are.

Which is why I'm only signing up for 1 month deals until I can find something that works. I'm trying Smarty next (3 network) once I can get the PAC from Lycamobile.

Philtre · October 2023

Update: I've signed up to a £6 a month contract with Smarty and should receive the SIM soon.

However, Lycamobile is actively ignoring all customers' requests for PAC codes to leave (see comments here). Cannot cancel or update contracts, either.

I've filed a complaint with Ofcom who has responded and said "While our remit usually does not allow us to become involved in individual cases, in an attempt to assist, I have contacted LycaMobile on your behalf to request that they review the matter and contact you directly within five working days."

I've also emailed and DM'd on Twitter to Lycamobile who have not responded for PAC request.

So there a lot of very unhappy Lycamobile customers right now who are being lied to and cannot leave.

bluecat · October 2023

I have been with EE since before they were EE. Can't remember the previous name it's been so long.
I pay for two phones SIM only, mine and Mrs B. They both have unlimited calls, unlimited texts and 10 GB of data. £17.00 PM.
I really rate the company, 10 years ago when I lived In a cottage in the back of beyond I could not get a signal at home, they sent me a signal booster to plug in the mains and everything was splendid afterwards. You can usually negotiate a good custom deal to suite yourself, give them a whirl. It's worth a try.

Philtre · October 2023

If you have a Lycamobile account you might want to read this - https://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/update

Copy and paste below because they keep deleting their announcements:

Notification to customers

Following investigations carried out as a result of disruption to our network, it has become clear that Lyca Mobile UK Limited has been the victim of a systems cyber attack. We are working around the clock to ensure that the impact to our customers is minimised.

Lyca Mobile first became aware of this on 30 September and took immediate action to contain the incident, which included isolating and shutting down systems where appropriate. We also instructed leading security and other experts to help us investigate and minimise any impact on your data including the period during which we recover our systems. We have also notified and are in discussions with all of the relevant regulatory authorities.

It will take some time to fully complete our investigations and carefully restore all of our systems, but it is now clear to us that the attackers have accessed at least some of the personal information held in our systems. We now believe this includes at least some customer data, so we are writing to advise you to be vigilant in case of any suspicious activity.

The main types of personal information which we hold in connection with our customers are set out below.

Identification information: where you have given them to us we may hold your name, address, date of birth, alternative contact number and/or email address.
Where provided to us, any identity information such as proof of address, copies of passports, identity cards or similar information that was provided to us as part of your initial verification when you purchased your phone service.
If you have set up an online account, such as MyAccount, with Lyca Mobile then we may also hold a password for you. Our policy is to ensure that passwords are encrypted in our systems, but since we do not yet have full details of the cyber attack, please see the recommended actions below.
Customer service interactions: some interactions between customers and our customer service team are recorded (having been selected at random) and those records are held for up to 60 days.
If you have chosen to store a credit card in your online account then we will also hold the last four digits of your credit card number and its expiration date. The full credit card number will also be held, but will be encrypted for additional security and we consider the risk of any access to be very low. We do not hold the 3 digit CVV code in any form.

We would also like to flag to customers that our number porting functionality has been affected by the attack on our systems. We are currently unable to provide users with PAC codes. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and are working around the clock to ensure this and all other functionality is restored as quickly as possible.

Password resets

If you have a Lyca Mobile password, then as an extra precaution we recommend that you reset that. If you use your Lyca Mobile password for other online accounts, you should change it now. If you have reused the same credentials including the same password elsewhere (e.g., on unrelated websites) you may wish to consider changing those too as a precaution and as good practice generally.

Staying vigilant

We remain vigilant for any suspicious activity and are recommending that you please do the same. Given the nature of the information potentially involved, there is a risk you might be targeted for phishing attempts, fraud or nuisance marketing communications. Criminals may use your personal details to target you with convincing emails, texts and calls. Be suspicious of unsolicited requests for your personal or financial details. If you receive an e-mail which you're not sure about, treat it with caution, or if you have been a victim of fraud or cyber crime, contact your bank immediately and you should report this to the police.

The security of your personal information is very important to us and as our investigation progresses, we will consider whether we need to take any further steps to help protect that information. While we hope to bring all of our systems back online as soon as possible, we are doing so carefully to minimise any further issues. Please bear with us if there are any interruptions to service in this time.

We are also liaising with the Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO") and Ofcom.

Contacting us

If you have any questions, you can contact our Customer Services team at cs@lycamobile.co.uk.

You can also find more information generally about how we handle your personal information and your rights, together with details of our Data Protection Officer, in our website privacy notice. This can be found at https://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/lycamobile-privacy-policy.

06 October 2023

Marc Payne

Data Protection Officer

Philtre · October 2023

The problem is you can't login to your account to change your password, remove credit cards, or get a PAC.

Philtre · October 2023

The nightmare continues. Got a new SIM from Smarty for £6 a month. Can receive phone calls but can't make calls and data not working. Help chat says they don't know what the problem is. So, onwards to try another provider...

Philtre · October 2023

And so the Smarty contract has been cancelled after less than a day because I couldn't make calls or use data. The search continues...

RaymondLin · October 2023

Philtre said:

And so the Smarty contract has been cancelled after less than a day because I couldn't make calls or use data. The search continues...

What is the cause?

You don't get a signal where you are?

Your phone is broken?

I mean it's a strange problem. did you try another phone with the sim card? Did you have VPN turned on?

Philtre · October 2023

RaymondLin said:

Philtre said:

And so the Smarty contract has been cancelled after less than a day because I couldn't make calls or use data. The search continues...

What is the cause?

You don't get a signal where you are?

Your phone is broken?

I mean it's a strange problem. did you try another phone with the sim card? Did you have VPN turned on?

I tried all options with CS in chat. Had a signal, tried in different locations, different phones, no VPN, data on, data off, reset network settings, etc etc. Making a call always gave a "Sorry, your service does not allow access to this number". They couldn't figure it out.

RaymondLin · October 2023

weird!

On the plus side, at least you spoke to Customer Service!

ThePrettyDamned · October 2023

I was with 3 for a long time, never had trouble. Now I'm with id mobile and no trouble.

3 were weird though. I could get my current phone (pixel 7) with 100gb data per month for £28 per month (I think). I called and said "can I have that please?".

"no, we can do 30gb for £35 per month - that deal is for new customers only, you're upgrading"

"OK, well I can go to id mobile for unlimited data for £fewer per month - is there really nothing you can do? Doesn't feel like an upgrade to get a worse contract for more money".

"no, sorry, but we'd hate to see you go"

A real shame, as 3 were fine for me. To be fair, id seems identical and I think is on the 3 network.

Philtre · October 2023

Where I live I need to be on EE or one of it's providers.

strumjoughlamps · October 2023

Philtre said:

Where I live I need to be on EE or one of it's providers.

So why did you go with Smarty?

Pablo · October 2023

I’m currently trying 1pmobile which uses EE. You can buy bundles called boosts, similar to GiffGaff’s goodybags. One weird issue where they charged me 1p for data usage because there’s a delay between the old one expiring and the new one applying. A couple of minutes on support chat and they added it back to my credit. Early days but so far so good. Website looks pretty basic and no app though.

wibble · October 2023

Philtre said:

RaymondLin said:

Philtre said:

And so the Smarty contract has been cancelled after less than a day because I couldn't make calls or use data. The search continues...

What is the cause?

You don't get a signal where you are?

Your phone is broken?

I mean it's a strange problem. did you try another phone with the sim card? Did you have VPN turned on?

I tried all options with CS in chat. Had a signal, tried in different locations, different phones, no VPN, data on, data off, reset network settings, etc etc. Making a call always gave a "Sorry, your service does not allow access to this number". They couldn't figure it out.

I presume your phone is network unlocked?

Philtre · October 2023

strumjoughlamps said:

Philtre said:

Where I live I need to be on EE or one of it's providers.

So why did you go with Smarty?

Because I didn't know that until I tried the 3 network.

Philtre · October 2023

wibble said:

I presume your phone is network unlocked?

Yes.

Philtre · October 2023

Update to this very tedious tale from hell...

Got a deal with EE for £7 a month as a BT customer. Now waiting for the PAC to kick in tomorrow to move my number from Lycamobile to EE...

Philtre · October 2023

...and my number has ported to EE! Great coverage on EE, 4G and 5G, can get through to a human on CS within 5 minutes. Result.

Snap · October 2023

I used Plusnet for years without any hitches, but as has been said they are ditching the mobile business.
I'm hamstrung in that the only networks that work inside our house are EE & 3.
Switched to Smarty (uses 3) recently and it's not very good - very week signal everywhere at home. Means the phone drains more power trying to get a good signal.

I've just ordered received sim from 1p mobile - uses EE, so far so good.

On reading up a bit, turns out that these network resellers, like 1p, smarty, voxi, Lyca etc don't always get the full network access of the underlying provider. Lyca doesn't allow for wifi calling or VoLTE, and doesn't access some of the EE faster transmitters.
I found this site pretty helpful

https://www.simsherpa.com/

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Mobile phone sim-only deals - what do you recommend?

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Notification to customers