Who uses Lebara as their main provider? 19 January at 5:24PM in Mobiles 10 replies 666 views

Downthedrain

I'm currently on BT mobile and the 'discounted' price (£5 off for being a broadband customer) is £5.70 per month, with only 1Gb data and no international calls. Moving to Lebara looks to be more economical, but what, if any, are the downsides? Who uses Lebara as their main provider and do you have any problems at all?

pallyman

I have just signed up for Lebara this month & it all went smoothly & signal for my area is good,so am pleased with them up to press.I also have a 1p sim in my phone as a back up & keep with them as they are brilliant for customer service.

KxMx

I use Lebara, locally the Vodafone signal could be better, my wifi calling kicks in a lot at home. But to be fair Vodafone don't guarantee signal quality indoors. 
Mobile is my sole phone connection and even though wifi calling only recently started working on my handset, haven't had any calling problems. 

jimjames

I've used Lebara for nearly 6 months now, switched from Voxi which was another Vodafone provider. No issues at all and would recommend. Saved me a bunch for roaming in France which Voxi would have charged for as well as less per month.

gizz_10

Been using Lebara for over a year for my main phone - keep getting the cheap deals - currently on 1p - and when the offer was up I transferred to Lyca for 1 month at 1p then transferred back on another 1p Lebara deal - no issues except the reception indoors where I live is quite weak but its a new build flat so the walls are thick - as soon as I go outside its great.  My main issue with them is that they won't use your credit to renew your bundle - and I have Airtime Rewards credit to use up.

HaroldWhistler

Downthedrain said:

I'm currently on BT mobile and the 'discounted' price (£5 off for being a broadband customer) is £5.70 per month, with only 1Gb data and no international calls. Moving to Lebara looks to be more economical, but what, if any, are the downsides? Who uses Lebara as their main provider and do you have any problems at all?

They are usually excellent when it comes to customer service. If you have a good Vodafone signal (Lebara use their network), then Lebara is a good choice. The prices on their own website (sometimes on sale) are usually extremely competitive. Certainly versus the likes of Vodafone, BT/EE, etc. Sometimes, there are also MoneySavingExpert (MSE) offers like someone else mentioned above where you actually get the product for less than a £1 a month for the offer period. If you sign up for a 30 day rolling contract, then you have maximum flexibility also. And there are no price rises mid contract with any of the "CPI + X%" nonsense. Generally speaking, I would say if you have a good Vodafone signal, go with Lebara. If you have a good O2 signal, go with Tesco. For Three, go with someone like Smarty. 

SaverRate

gizz_10 said:

Been using Lebara for over a year for my main phone - keep getting the cheap deals - currently on 1p - and when the offer was up I transferred to Lyca for 1 month at 1p then transferred back on another 1p Lebara deal - no issues except the reception indoors where I live is quite weak but its a new build flat so the walls are thick - as soon as I go outside its great.  My main issue with them is that they won't use your credit to renew your bundle - and I have Airtime Rewards credit to use up.

How do you use the credit if the bundle renew doesnt use it?

savergrant

Presumably if you stop paying for a plan but don't cancel the service you start paying payg rates

https://mobile.lebara.com/gb/en/free-sim

gizz_10

SaverRate said:

gizz_10 said:

Been using Lebara for over a year for my main phone - keep getting the cheap deals - currently on 1p - and when the offer was up I transferred to Lyca for 1 month at 1p then transferred back on another 1p Lebara deal - no issues except the reception indoors where I live is quite weak but its a new build flat so the walls are thick - as soon as I go outside its great.  My main issue with them is that they won't use your credit to renew your bundle - and I have Airtime Rewards credit to use up.

How do you use the credit if the bundle renew doesnt use it?

Once the 1p offers are over you can use the credit to buy bundles but you get measly allowances with those compared to the deals on MSE etc.  So far I have used my credit where pay by mobile is accepted.  I  now credit my Airtime rewards to an o2 PAYG instead and i use that to credit my Apple account and pay for icloud storage or any Apple app purchases.  For some reason if I try and do that with the Lebara credit it just fails.  I have £20 sitting in Lebara which i guess i will have to use on some prize draw entries or on charity donations if I can't use it for anything else.

Tinkerer

I would suggest looking elsewhere if you need a reliable customer focussed provider. I'm a big fan of Money Saving Expert and on their 'recommendation' with the big increases in cost (I was with Virgin) I switched over to Lebara and ported my number to them. Unlike other providers you can't port your own number as part of the switching process. You have to receive the new sim and then fill in a form on their website to port your number. In my case this took a total of 3 days to complete. I went through my outbound calls going through the Lebara sim and my incoming calls through my Virgin sim (good job I had two phones). I also had to contact Lebara to see what was going on and basically was told 'Virgin are taking time sending over the files'. If you look at Trust Pilot this is par for the course. Today 2 weeks after getting my number sorted I still do not have wifi calling. I called them and they told my my Pixel 7 Pro isn't compatible with wifi calling. I told them that was nonsense as I had wifi calling with Virgin on that phone and there own website shows how to set up wifi calling on the Pixel 6. They then said they would get their technical team to sort the problem. Again if you check the Trust Pilot site it is very hit and miss to get wifi calling despite the MSE listing showing wifi calling is included and one of the reasons I went for Lebara. I have had other problems and the customer service is just appalling. Several people on Trust Pilot say they only way to get problems sorted is to post on Trust Pilot which they seem to monitor. The other concern which I haven't got to year is people saying that the deals on MSE (6 months a 99p) are only taken in on signing but after that they take the full rate and then many calls to get refunds. Oh and I don't like recurring charges on my credit card but you can't set up direct debits. Is this a case of 'if seems to good to be true it probably is'! Buyer beware! 

savergrant

I can't help with the WiFi calling issue but I can tell you my January offer package renewed fine at the offer price earlier this month. The wording is confusing as it says £4.90 but then does say the offer price underneath. The issue I had was the plan not being applied to the sim when I received it (despite the letter saying your plan is attached)