[Resolved] Intermittent payment issues - 4 August 2020

bethany_j

Service	Status
Making a payment (goodybag, top-up, phone)	✅ Available
Using a voucher	✅ Available
All other giffgaff services	✅ Available

Summary

We have been experiencing an intermittent issue with making a payment. This means that if you tried to buy a goodybag, top-up or a phone with a payment card, you may have seen an error message. Our engineers have now resolved this issue.

Most Recent Update – 13:20 10th August 2020

Good afternoon everyone,

I’m really happy to say we have now resolved this issue, so if you try to make a payment for a goodybag, top-up or a phone with a payment card, you should no longer experience this error message.

If you are still having any issues with making payments, please do pop over to our Help and Support forum where our marvellous members will be able to point you in the right direction.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused in the meantime, and thank you very much for your patience whilst we sorted this.

Cheers,
Bethany

Update History

Most Recent Update – 13:20 10th August 2020

Good afternoon everyone,

I’m really happy to say we have now resolved this issue, so if you try to make a payment for a goodybag, top-up or a phone with a payment card, you should no longer experience this error message.

If you are still having any issues with making payments, please do pop over to our Help and Support forum where our marvellous members will be able to point you in the right direction.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused in the meantime, and thank you very much for your patience whilst we sorted this.

Cheers,
Bethany

Update – 14:17 4th August 2020

Hello folks,

We are currently experiencing an intermittent issue with making a payment, which means you might see an error message when trying to buy a goodybag, top-up or a phone. If you see this error, it means no money has been taken, and you are safe to try the payment again.

Our technical team are aware of this issue and are investigating to fix it. In the meantime, you can try using another browser or a different payment card, as we’re seeing that this should allow your payment to go through.

If you’re having an issue with any other of our services, please head over to our Help and Support forum where our lovely helpers can point you in the right direction.

Thank you for your patience whilst we look into this, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Cheers,
Bethany

lmort57

bethany_j thanks for the heads up 🙂

benjamin567

Thanks for posting this bethany_j 🙂

Just so everyone is aware, the error that most members are seeing is the “oops, it’s not you, it’s us” message.

The majority of people who have had this issue is on the Chrome browser, so the first thing you should do is try using a different internet browser - Firefox would be one of your best options as it is one of very few browsers that isn’t based off of Chrome.

If not, try Edge (Chromium, I know), Safari, Opera etc…

The giffgaff app would be a good alternative too 👍️

cp3jose

bethany_j Thanks 👍

formulaone

bethany_j

Thank you for the advanced warning! 🙂

hobble

bethany_j
Is it really intermittent or just a complete breakdown ? I’ve tried to activate a sim 25 times since yesterday afternoon, on 5 different devices (desktop, laptop, 2 x phones and a tablet), using 5 different browsers Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Puffin and whatever browser iPhones use. All come up with the same childish little error message about “Gremlins” after entering the payment details. Is there another way to pay or is the service now effectively closed to new customers?

justeena1

bethany_j great information

pete2009

bethany_j
Thanks for the update.
Cheers

frugivore

Just to let you know that it happens in Firefox too.
Thank YOU.

UPDATE: Contacted the SUPPORT team. They said they had to make a manual change. After that, went back to Firefox and worked but only after I had cleared my cache. Using a Chromium-based browser did not work at all.

harrrrrry

mrjeeves This happened while activating a new SIM, which might be worth mentioning.

An unactivated sim (or indeed an activated sim with no credit and no remaining data) only has access to free-rated sites. It doesn’t have access to sites such as Verified by Visa, which means that many payments will fail if they’re not being charged to an account that’s already registered as a default payment method,

I suspect too that when you attempt a payment several times and the payment fails, giffgaff or the verification site remembers that the payment has previously failed and doesn’t try to verify it again. So, if the cause of failure is the Chrome browser, which has been having problems making payments on multiple it may not succeed even if retried from a browser that works.

That would be consistent with the feedback above:

frugivore Contacted the SUPPORT team. They said they had to make a manual change. After that, went back to Firefox and worked but only after I had cleared my cache. Using a Chromium-based browser did not work at all.

Moral: if making a payment (to any web site, not necessarily giffgaff) don’t risk doing it by chrome. Try firefox or opera from the beginning and they’re more likely to work.

But even then, a payment that requires Verified by Visa isn’t going to work from a sim with no credit and no goodybag data.

hopea47

Hi are giffgaff experiencing difficulties full stop

mrjeeves

I personally had this issue. Chrome on Android,

Oops, it’s us, not you.

I fixed it by using a different internet connection (not giffgaff data).

This happened while activating a new SIM, which might be worth mentioning.

cathe93030

Been trying to top up since yesterday can’t make calls etc this has happened before and giffgaff ended up taking £40 out my bank and I wasn’t able to get a refund. This really is the last straw for me not been able to make calls since my goody bag ran out yesterday.

zoe81warriorprincess

cathe93030 snap I’m still chasing the tenner they took yesterday …. tried goody bag once took money then got error page please try again which obviously got declined as they had taken the tenner on previous try …. bank confirmed payment 1 left payment 2 declined still no goody bag giffgaff answer delete my comments from community as you will see if you try to click the ‘comment split in 2’ link …..
I’m a critical worker worked through the last 4 month’s all I want was to top up my phone to keep in touch with family I cannot see because of my work … I’m now screwed no pay day until Friday and no credit …. not the first time I’ve had trouble with giffgaff but it will certainly be the last….myself and 12 members of my family will now also be leaving giffgaff … I’ve raised a fraud case with my bank to reclaim my money … tem pound may not be a lot to some but as a hospital carer every penny helps … x

mrjeeves

harrrrrry It doesn’t have access to sites such as Verified by Visa, which means that many payments will fail if they’re not being charged to an account

I’ve only seen the Verified page on first time purchases. In this case it’s unrelated as I was activating the SIM via my other SIM’s data connection (which I have a feeling could have contributed to the problem as the site picked up on the fact I was already using an active SIM).

I tried and failed at least 5 times (each time showing Verified by Visa, confirming my phone number, and even providing a 2FA code which is the first time I’ve ever done that when buying online!). Switching to WiFi allowed it to go through first time…

Chrome seems to have no effect in my case.

@i_am_sy I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another data issue lol

alexmgg2

harrrrrry An unactivated sim (or indeed an activated sim with no credit and no remaining data) only has access to free-rated sites. It doesn’t have access to sites such as Verified by Visa, which means that many payments will fail if they’re not being charged to an account that’s already registered as a default payment method,

Sorry, harrrrrry, but your information may be out of date. I personally used an unactivated SIM as my connection to activate the SIM a couple of weeks ago, using a VISA credit card which was verified through Verified by Visa to buy a goodybag. I later confirmed this with an ed, who told me that there had recently been a re-check of all the free rated sites.

Cheers!

alexmgg2

zoe81warriorprincess snap I’m still chasing the tenner they took yesterday …. tried goody bag once took money then got error page please try again which obviously got declined as they had taken the tenner on previous try …. bank confirmed payment 1 left payment 2 declined still no goody bag giffgaff answer delete my comments from community as you will see if you try to click the ‘comment split in 2’ link …..
I’m a critical worker worked through the last 4 month’s all I want was to top up my phone to keep in touch with family I cannot see because of my work … I’m now screwed no pay day until Friday and no credit …. not the first time I’ve had trouble with giffgaff but it will certainly be the last….myself and 12 members of my family will now also be leaving giffgaff … I’ve raised a fraud case with my bank to reclaim my money … tem pound may not be a lot to some but as a hospital carer every penny helps … x

Have you cantacted the agents about this problem? They should be able to investigate what’s happened, and arrange a refund. Use the form here to explain the problem:

https://support2.giffgaff.com/app/ask/Top-up-balances-and-goodybags/Credit-debit-card-or-PayPal-charging-issue/form/

Agents can take up to 24 hours to reply, but are usually a lot quicker. You will find their reply in the Messages from agents section at the bottom of your Dashboard page, see here:

https://www.giffgaff.com/support/questions

Good luck!

harrrrrry

alexmgg2 your information may be out of date

That’s possible, but giffgaff has never publicly stated that Verified by Visa is now a free rated site and the recent review was mainly to add some coronavirus-related sites to the free-rated list. Equally, https://labs.giffgaff.com/idea/16709244/sites-providing-payment-verification-services-should-be-reachable-without-credit hasn’t been updated to say that problem has been fixed and likewise there’s a thread about it at https://community.giffgaff.com/d/19533392-paypal-and-verify-debit-card-free-rated which was never officially answered.

alexmgg2

harrrrrry That’s possible, but giffgaff has never publicly stated that Verified by Visa is now a free rated site and the recent review was mainly to add some coronavirus-related sites to the free-rated list. Equally, https://labs.giffgaff.com/idea/16709244/sites-providing-payment-verification-services-should-be-reachable-without-credit hasn’t been updated to say that problem has been fixed and likewise there’s a thread about it at https://community.giffgaff.com/d/19533392-paypal-and-verify-debit-card-free-rated which was never officially answered.

Yes, it would certainly be helpful if giffgaff provided some clarity. However, It has worked for me on a couple of occasions, and I’m sure that it could be useful to other people, when it works. Probably best not depended on, though.

bethany_j

Update – 13:20 10th August 2020

Good afternoon everyone,

I’m really happy to say we have now resolved this issue, so if you try to make a payment for a goodybag, top-up or a phone with a payment card, you should no longer experience this error message.

If you are still having any issues with making payments, please do pop over to our Help and Support forum where our marvellous members will be able to point you in the right direction.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused in the meantime, and thank you very much for your patience whilst we sorted this.

Cheers,
Bethany