My experience on Lycamobile

smellthemoney

Moved to Lyca mobile as Sim only deals starting with special discount listed on the MSE website on a rolling monthly contract. Discount conditional on auto renewal being active at all time. On the first month of renewal the payment failed for an unknown reason. Managed to get through to a human on the help line after a lot of effort and anxiety. Was told because the collection has failed i can no longer continue with the discount offer and I have to select a new bundle instead at full price via my account on their website. Wasted a lot of effort to port my old number to them. Down time and bug fix when they reboot their system to improve customer experience. Coping with their antiquated and often confusing online system etc For anyone new to this I suggest you test their sim on the phone you intend to use it on. On first installation they claim to have adjusted your phone to optimise your experience with them eg help number, top-up number etc on your phone directory.  

datz

smellthemoney said:

Moved to Lyca mobile as Sim only deals starting with special discount listed on the MSE website on a rolling monthly contract. Discount conditional on auto renewal being active at all time. On the first month of renewal the payment failed for an unknown reason. Managed to get through to a human on the help line after a lot of effort and anxiety. Was told because the collection has failed i can no longer continue with the discount offer and I have to select a new bundle instead at full price via my account on their website. Wasted a lot of effort to port my old number to them. Down time and bug fix when they reboot their system to improve customer experience. Coping with their antiquated and often confusing online system etc For anyone new to this I suggest you test their sim on the phone you intend to use it on. On first installation they claim to have adjusted your phone to optimise your experience with them eg help number, top-up number etc on your phone directory.  

Lyca's automated systems work fine for most people, most of the time. But they are well known for having terrible customer support if you have any kind of problem. Customer service is often the first thing that gets sacrificed in the race to the bottom (and you should already be expecting this if price is your main consideration).

However, some precautions you might wish to consider in the future...

• Never port your actual number over. Keep it elsewhere on a cheap (traditional) payg with a large reputable provider, meeting whatever requirements are needed to keep it active. This way, there is less chance of your number being held hostage.
• Run Lyca or Lebara (or whatever is the cheap deal of the day) as a secondary sim (Lyca also supports esim) - and route your outbound calls/texts/data through it (disable caller id for that sim if you don't want others to see the number).
• Tie this (disposable) service to something like a specially created multi-use virtual debit card (e.g. on Revolut), where you can control the monthly spend limit. This way you never have to worry about erroneous charges, or being charged the non-promotional price for your payg sim.

Then just discard and repeat...

amii91213

I ordered 2 mobile SIMs through u switch. 20 days later they hadn't arrived. I then spent over a week in some sort of chaotic loop. I have webchat Ted, called and emailed to try get any sense from "customer services" (ironic name for them!).

So webchat couldn't help me because I didn't know my lyca mobile number....but I didn't know it because the SIM/welcome letter had never arrived (but it took 5 chats to get this far - previous agents had just disconnected within a couple of minutes). On web chat advice, I rang customer service number (after being told to dial 322 from my lyca mobile!!!). Struggled to explain to the agent due to their limited English. Eventually they said they couldn't help because I didn't know my lyca mobile number. Explained I only had an order number but they said they couldn't trace the account through an order number - or my address, email, name, old mobile number or card details! So I emailed them....sending them their order confirmation email. And for days, got an email back advising me to log on to the app. But yes, you've guessed it....you can't register for the app without your mobile number!! But they couldn't cancel the account without....my lyca mobile number or an account number (the order number just will not do for cancelling) 

The SIMs finally arrived weeks after they were ordered and their delivery triggered a welcome email so hallelujah I had an account number. So I emailed again saying I still want to cancel....who would want to stay with a company who are so unhelpful!?! So far, a response saying "I understand you want to cancel" (amazing, that's the first time I have been confident they understand anything!) "I will look into it and get back to you"! I could literally scream (but I obviously wouldn't scream at anyone working their....polite at all times!)

I will stick with my Lebara SIMs which we have had without issue for over a year. The pennies we would save by moving are not worth this level of stress or the time it has taken me (so far)!