My experience with Lebara and Lyca

ARsmithy

My experience with Lebara and Lyca

I've had terrible service from Lebara and Lyca. 

To be fair to them both, they can't possibly be that bad to everyone or they would have gone bust by now. I hope I was just unlucky somehow and things work out better for you. 

LEBARA

Signed up through MSE on a discount rate for the first six months. 

Transferred number, good service, everything great. 

But at the end of the first month, they said my bank had refused payment. 

They said they'd try again later so I gave new card details. 

Somehow they still (claimed) couldn't take 

payment so blocked all my calls, texts and internet. 

I needed my phone so had no choice but pay for one of their full price bundles. 

One month at the discount rate instead of six then got cut off with no choice but to pay whatever they asked for. 

LYCA

Summary - This took a lot of effort and many conversations just to pay them money and get absolutely nothing for it. 

When I got the sim card, I put it into my phone and expected it to connect, download settings and leave me ready to go. Transferring my number should have been the next step. 

No though. I'd signed up through MSE for 3gb data a month for 45p for 6 months then £4.90 after that. But there was no data. 

The Lyca app and website both showed no data allowance. 

So, briefly (the actual conversations required took about four hours in total) 

Asked why no data. 

Told it would take 24 hours to activate. 

48 hours later, still no data so asked why not. 

Told it couldn't be activated because they didn't save my card details. 

Asked why they said 24 hours. Unexplained. 

Asked how they would have taken monthly payments. Unexplained. 

Asked to cancel, not activate the account, and not make any further payments. 

They agreed. They said they won't activate the account. They can't if they wanted to anyway because they didn't save payment details. They also can't take a payment because they didn't save card details. 

Four days later - they text me to say my account has been activated! 

A quick look at my account shows they have now suddenly found my bank card numbers from somewhere and able to renew indefinitely. 

In all the several conversations I've had to have with Lyca, I haven't once been told something that wasn't a lie. 

That's my experience of Lebara and Lyca. 

Good Luck

PHK

I would not recommend either Lebara or Lyca

Lebara - played the same trick you experienced told me that my bank refused the payment when it hadn't. Contacted them- absolutely useless. So I didn't get the discounted rate.

Lyca - without any notice they changed to from O2 to EE (which was no good to me). When I asked for a refund they said they would if sent them a copy of the email confirming payment. They don't send emails they send texts! Refused to budge.

I don't know how MSE can recommend these people.

mgfvvc

Both my daughters are on Lebara with no issues. One advantage for Lebara is the monthly contract, so if the service is poor, you are not tied in.
Is the service better with the big names? EE royally annoyed me years ago and I won't touch them.

sdduk

Been using Lebara for over 2yrs using there deals like the 1p ones and switching numbers and had no problem at all i still have a 6mth £1.99p deal for 12gb running now and had no problems.
Same with lyca never had any problems with there deals...signal is a different problem terrible but that was on O2 so hopefully a lot better now they have moved to EE.
May be i have just been lucky with them both.

datz

I have used both, several times, without any problems. However, it's no secret that their customer service is terrible if you ever need to contact them - particularly Lyca.

For me, I have always just used their SIMs as a secondary service (outgoing calls/sms/data) and never ported my actual numbers to them (so they can't be held hostage by their incompetence). And then just discard each as the cheap introductory offer expires. Just activated a 5+ month old 1p/month Lyca SIM, so seems you can hold on to them for a little while.

savergrant

"Told it couldn't be activated because they didn't save my card details....

...Four days later - they text me to say my account has been activated! 

A quick look at my account shows they have now suddenly found my bank card numbers from somewhere and able to renew indefinitely. 

In all the several conversations I've had to have with Lyca, I haven't once been told something that wasn't a lie."

There is a slight distinction between them saving your card details and them having a token for a recurring payment.  So them saying they hadn't  saved your card details but then taking a further payment may not actually be a lie.  However if you want to update your card details it is usually clear that payees have at least partially saved your card details as they usually say 'card ending in 1234'

blue5112

I would like to agree that Lycamobile's  service is terrible if you ever need to contact them. Avoid this company at all costs.