Lyca MSE Blagged Offer

HaroldWhistler

Having seen people comment about the Lyca mobile website being a bit dodgy occasionally when it comes to sign up/payments etc, can anyone vouch for/advise on the Lyca "MSE 1" offer? (Or any other blagged Lyca offer)

I saw it listed on the MSE comparison tool for SIM deals. The offer (at time of writing) listed for the MSE 1 deal for instance was £0.05 per month for 6 months and £4.75 a month after that for a SIM with Unlimited Mins, Unlimited Texts and 3GB of Data.  

I was considering using this as a temporary SIM in order to do a PAC switch to that temporarily and then transfer back to another network to get a new customer price for Unlimited Minutes. And possibly considering one of the other larger data deals for a longer term SIM given they use the O2 network. 

What I was wondering was the method of ensuring that the Lyca product doesn't auto renew and keep charging you. With other networks I have seen it is explicitly a 30 day rolling when you sign up, or else with providers like Lebara, or Smarty, their website is generally very smooth so you can log in and just turn any Auto Renew function off. With Lyca though, I am a bit concerned seeing posts on here about people finding the sign up ends up glitching after payment, or their website being very dodgy. 

Are they reasonable to go for? 

*Update - I signed up for the MSE 1 deal. With Lyca, you don't appear to have a Lyca account immediately set up at the same time. I am guessing you have to wait for the SIM with your Lyca number to sign up and change Auto Renew to "off".

*Apologies if I posted this originally in the wrong section. 

NeilJung

Link to actual offer on Lyca site: https://www.lycamobile.co.uk/ucustomer/exclusive-lyca-mobile-offers/

Hoping we can keep up discussion on that offer, even tho it's expired, and the original offer thread is locked. I am aware this is a duplicate reply, as I also replied to the "1p offer" thread, so it's up to a moderator to check and see which thread is most appropriate for this post. I would say this one, so if the message posts, I will go and delete the post from the other thread to save the bother actually. It does have a couple of other useful replys in it tho, but this thread has the better title so I would personally keep this one and merge the posts from the other into here. Just what I would do.

End of the first month I got a text saying "Your MSE exclusive will autorenew at midnight. Please make sure you have enought money in your account". Since it's renewed by DD I was slightly confused. Same thing happened to a friend I got to sign up for the offer and they thought, much as I did, that it was a backhanded attempt to trick people into adding money to their Lyca balance....ok. Maybe they are a foreign company and don't do English well or something.... Didn't add any money to balance and it autorenewed by DD the next day.

Reading what I just wrote, I am aware I did make an incorrect assumption when the message said to make sure there was enough money in my account. They must have simply meant in my bank account, which is absolutely fine! The only issue there, if any, is my friend who I also enticed to join Lyca was equally confused by the same text. It's hard to pin the blame for that on Lyca to be fair, as I'm sure the majority of customers were not in fact confused by that. Will leave what I posted intact, as it being my own error it's still possible that some people would also have been confused by the txt. I'd say that one was more my fault than theirs tho.

End of the second month, (which was in fact a couple of days ago) another confusing text along the lines of telling me to send a specific text to them in order to cancel the auto renewal of the MSE plan and offer, implying that it wasn't paid for or something.... It was a weird one, and I started looking for the original offer page to see if it had really said 6 months. Found it through Google search as the offer had expired here, but managed to get the page and screenshot it.

Perhaps it was my own confusion or fault in misintepreting yet again, but I thought Lyca were pushing the boundaries of credibility as a provider a little too far, despite adequate service, as it seemed they were either not competent or accurate in their communications with customers, or they were being duplicitous and hoping people would add money to the balance they had no need to add, and in the second instance cancel the contract that actually benefitted them and was the entire reason for signing up to Lyca in the first place.

Again, that is simply how it seemed to me. Other peoples mileage clearly varied or there would be a lot more posts here crying foul! I'm not always right, and would love to hear some positive and alternative feedback on the offer, texts recieved and service. Please do comment if you have had a good experience, as often it's only the wheels that need the grease who squeak.

Every attempt to get a PAC code by text failed however. All the responses said I could not get a PAC code. The first reply was "Sorry your PAC request has failed.....Please try again....contact customer services", and then the next 5 attempts all got the response; "Bundle topop is not done". Retrospectively yet again, I suppose that was lucky, as the deal did autorenew a couple of days later....

Honestly, having spoken to their India based CS team to set the offer up properly in the first place, I was really not too enthusiastic about having to ring them up again at all, so just decided to wait and see. I will add that there was no actual problem with the CS agents as such, and they were simply doing the job to the best of their abilities, but I had to call back a couple of times to get an agent I could actually understand the English vocalisations of, and at that point it was still unfortunately a struggle and required understanding and patience from both parties to communicate in any meaningful comprehensible form. (yes, I do have a fair amount of experience of Indian call centres from over the years, but some are a lot higher standard in English than others). Sorry to anyone that works there, I'm not trying to offend, just stating the facts as I experienced them.

Anyhow, this morning I get another text through telling me my MSE plan (that I had been sent a message offering me the exact text to send them to cancel) had in fact auto-renewed and I was charged the agreed rate from the deal. Will wait and see what happens next month I suppose.

Apart from these peculiarities (perhaps only of my own misunderstanding), the service is perfectly fine, and it's a good deal if you don't mind having to process the texts they might send, and endure some confusion as to what is actually going on.

It was just a bit of a surprise and I guess I just misunderstood the texts, but maybe if Lyca see some feedback on these issues it's something they will be able to clarify and improve upon, as it's a very good deal, and basically if I had simply ignored the texts entirely I presume the same thing would have happened and it would auto-renew regardless.

kat19521952

I signed up to this deal MSE1 5p a month for 6 months and £4.75 thereafter and was confirmed by email from Lyca with ref number. Email told me SIM being sent but also stated that in order to use the SIM I would need to  sign up to one of their 'great value' payment plans (all of which were much more expensive). This is confusing as I thought I had already signed up to a deal!

All my be revealed when SIM arrives but wondered if anyone else had experienced this and what was outcome

HaroldWhistler

kat19521952 said:

I signed up to this deal MSE1 5p a month for 6 months and £4.75 thereafter and was confirmed by email from Lyca with ref number. Email told me SIM being sent but also stated that in order to use the SIM I would need to  sign up to one of their 'great value' payment plans (all of which were much more expensive). This is confusing as I thought I had already signed up to a deal!

All my be revealed when SIM arrives but wondered if anyone else had experienced this and what was outcome

That might just be a generic automated advert e-mail highlighting their other plans. When I ordered the 5p a month MSE 1 deal, I got an order confirmation e-mail showing me the details in a table which stated MSE 1, National, £0.05 and a PIN activation code. Then subsequent e-mails regarding delivery. When the SIM came, I just popped it in and it just activated without me having to type in any PIN in this case and it's working (without me having to have bought any of their other plans). 

SWAMP_MAN

Hi, I recently set up a contract (MSE 1) for my wife, £0.39 a month for 6 months and I believe £4.75 per month thereafter. To the best of my knowledge it was set up correctly. She received a message on December 1st saying that payment had been declined and after contacting them was advised to take the matter up with her bank, this was done and she was told her no requests for payment had been declined. 
She is now in a position where she can not make calls. Given that £0.39 was initially taken and it shows a request for a further £0.39 in November one can only assume the contract was was set up correctly.
She never received a text or email stating that payment had been declined.
An email has been sent to customer services, unfortunately it can take 48 hours for a response.

Mariamare77

Lyca Mobile deals - BEWARE
I read MSE newsletters religiously and often use the tips on savings and best deals, so when I saw Lyca Mobile deal I decided to dump my provider of 5 years and switch. This was the worst decision ever and highly recommend that nobody who values their time and connection to use them. 
It was a disaster from the very beginning, when I could not activate my SIM card and after 1 month they simply disconnected me as, apparently, I did not press some button on their website to renew my bundle. Their customer support is utterly useless, they can't do anything (and I challenge you to understand what they are saying), they pass your request to their technical team who have 24 hours to respond. In my case, they did not do anything, so I had to buy extra bundles just to keep connected over the weekend when I was travelling. 
Their coverage is very questionable too, when I entered Monaco, I got a text message from Lyca saying Welcome to Kosovo.. 
I wish I never switched, trying to save £10 a month I encountered so much stress of not being able to use my mobile that it was totally not worth it. 
I am switching back to my old provider now.

Nerf

I signed up to this offer, switched from years with GiffGaff. The sim activated ok, but as soon as i tried to make a call i was told i needed to 'top up' my balance. A bit confusing as i signed up for 5gb data/unltd minutes and texts for 5p and then £4.95 a month. Had to register on the lyca website but couldnt find any other options other than signing up to another bundle, so i opened the chat window to ask why my already purchased deal wasnt activayed. i started the chat at about 5.30ish. finally got to 'chat' with someone but after a few minutes the chat was suddenly disconnected - at exactly 6pm... turns out the companys customer service team finishes work at 6. so the person that was dealing with my query seemed to have gone home.....

Ive just ordered another giffgaff sim... lesson learned.

kat19521952

I have received SIM now but again telling me to sign up to plan, minimum £5 a month for 20GB data, which I don't need, and having read other peoples comments and the tortuous instructions for getting PAC code, keeping number etc etc, I have decided that life is too short, will stay where I am and go and decorate my Christmas tree instead! 
I have only paid 5p and presume as not using SIM card they will not ask me for another payment?
Thanks everyone

clanger1664

I signed up for this offer when it was £2.45 for the first 6 months, and the SIM arrived fairly promptly. Like others i found the sign up process was somewhat confusing as it seemed to suggest that I had to buy a bundle but there was no sign of the MSE exclusive bundle I had signed up for, and I couldn't tell whether the offer was activated or not. Somehow or other it seemed to work though, my card was debited for £2.45 and everything seemed to work. The following month I received a text saying my MSE exclusive would be renewed at midnight and to make sure I had enough money in my account. Like others I found the wording a bit strange, but did nothing, and my credit card was debited for £2.45 and everything continued to work.
So far so good. 
Last week I received the same text again that my account would be renewed at midnight on Friday. On Saturday morning I received another message saying that they had been unable to renew my bundle due to payment failure. A bit odd - it was a credit card with plenty of available credit. I also received 2 messages saying simply 'test', and an email which looked for all the world like a phishing email as it was addressed simply to 'dear customer' and gave a phone number which wasn't mine at all.
I checked my Lyca account which still showed the credit card and a red X, which returned an unfathomable error message when I clicked it. I tried adding another card, which seemed to require me to 'authorise it'. Perhaps I did not authorise the original credit card - I didn't know it was a thing. I searched the available bundles to try and buy my MSE bundle but couldn't find it. As I was away from home and now had no mobile data this was all quite difficult, and both the app and the website (as presented on a phone) are clunky, slow and difficult to use. It took me ages to even find the saved cards section on the website.  By now it was Saturday evening and I still didn't have a working bundle. Customer services are not available past 6pm, or on a Sunday, so I had to wait till Monday morning, when via on line chat I was told that because my auto renew didn't work I was no longer able to get the MSE exclusive bundle and would have to purchase a standard bundle - all of which are poor value compared to my previous provider. I've given up. I've requested a PAC code (which arrived immediately) and will be leaving Lyca as soon as my new SIM arrives.

geoffW

I have had 3 or 4 sims off Lycamobile over 2 years as I have had many problems understanding how they work due to the poor information off their website, call centre and texts, also payment failure. When they have failed I have just taken out another sim as no money has been lost by me and there is always a new good deal from MSE or Uswitch available.
I wouldn't use them as my main phone sim as I couldn't trust them to keep my number going, just have them for data.
Lebara (Vodafone) are a much better company to use, but for me Lyca (O2) has a better signal in the areas i visit.
 I will continue to persevere with Lycamobile as they are still good value for money.

scoobyjones1

kat19521952 said:

I have received SIM now but again telling me to sign up to plan, minimum £5 a month for 20GB data, which I don't need, and having read other peoples comments and the tortuous instructions for getting PAC code, keeping number etc etc, I have decided that life is too short, will stay where I am and go and decorate my Christmas tree instead! 
I have only paid 5p and presume as not using SIM card they will not ask me for another payment?
Thanks everyone

I did this...you just have to activate your MSE offer on your phone when you get the sim card, with the 8 digit pin they send you in their first email...you do not have to sign up to another plan. As for entering your PAC code to keep your old number...it is a bit of a faff...you need to do it on their website and you need the new sim number as well. I'm an old codger but I manged to do it! There is free help available on their helpline which I managed to use fairly easily as well.