Who To Ask And Where To Post

I, an Educator, know a fair bit about settings, but the community know pretty much everything. A single Agent won't be able to know everything that the community collectively knows. The community will be able to impart all of this knowledge within minutes so you're definitely the best lot to ask about most problems.

It's important to keep personal phone numbers private and therefore not post them on the forum. Since the forum is a public place anyone can see anything placed on it, including annoying spam companies. It's just a good habit to be very careful about who you give your number to. If you see a personal number on the community make sure to report it so that an Educator can remove it.

Agents get back to members within 24 hours, so they would still have an hour to get back to them. 23 hours is cutting it fine, but there's nothing that an Educator can do if it hasn't been 24 hours. Just have faith, it's pretty rare that the Agents slip out of their 24 hour target. There's also no need to raise a new case, in fact this can sometimes even delay the time it takes for the Agents to get back to you.

It's important that members understand why they need to contact the Agents and how. If they don't know why then they may delay and try to find help elsewhere; just giving a link to the Agents won't help them find their way next time so they'll be presented with the same problem, and lastly you should include a link in case they're on their mobile and so can't follow your instructions.

Also, I tend to find fruitcake a bit heavy, I prefer a good victoria sponge.

Unfortunately the Agents aren't psychic (yet) so they won't be able to help you find your car keys. If you want to find out the status of the service in your area then check out the sticky in the Service Updates section.

The Agents will be able to look into why your goodybag is missing minutes, but in a lot of situations the community will be able to help you try to work out why they are missing, it could just be down to misunderstanding.

If a mast isn't working then O2 engineers will be on their way or even currently fixing it. If a member's data has been barred then they need to contact an Agent to explain what has happened. If a member's internet isn't working then the most likely cause is that they haven't installed their settings. The community will be able to help them work out what has happened and how to solve it.

Yep. A PAC code on it's own isn't something that can be used by anyone else, but you can never be sure who knows your number. If someone knows your number and your PAC code they could in theory steal your number.

Normally Agents reply well within 24 hours, but they only guarantee to reply within 24 hours. If someone hasn't been replied to by an Agent within 24 hours then they should contact an Educator so we can poke them to see what's up.

We all check our messages, so a PM is the best way to go. A report will go to all Educators, but it's not very personal and it's quite a roundabout way of getting our attention. The same applies to [email protected], we all check this email address, but that's reserved for people who have no other way of contacting us. If in doubt it's best to contact us through the community.

Despite our title, we're not actually teachers from a Beano comic, so no fancy hat and gown for us. We do a whole load of different duties including writing these quizzes. Having said that, there isn't any reason why we shouldn't dress up. I probably still have mine lying around somewhere.

Numbers that companies advertise such as support numbers are perfectly fine because it has already been advertised by it's owners. Personal email addresses can be targeted by spam so it's a good idea not to advertise them. Full post codes can be used to track someone physically, but the first half of a postcode is ok. IMEIs can be used maliciously in certain circumstances and PAC codes can be used to steal someone's number if they also know the number. None of these need to ever be posted on the community so it's just safest to keep them private.

While we love getting PMs (seriously, we love chatting to you guys) the best way is to fill in the form in the thread. This is a new addition so you might not have seen it. The Agents don't do anything on the community, so they won't be able to help with it.

If your internet only works on WiFi then your best bet is to ask the community, they'll help you install your settings. To report something inappropriate on the community then use the report content feature. An Educator will then come along and take a look. Agent's are the guys to talk to about getting replacement SIMs to work.

If you can't find something then the community will be able to help. You can't cancel any active goodybags so the Agents won't be able to help with that.

It can take us up to 3 days to get a badge to you. Normally it's a lot quicker, but sometimes it can take a few days. If you're still expecting your badge after 3 days then fill in the form in the "Become an Approved Helper" thread.

If the Agents are taking over 24 hours to respond to a case the Educators can chase them up, but this is very rare. Remember that Educators usually don't handle any support queries at all.

While it's not strictly a giffgaff related problem it is a problem that is preventing them from using their giffgaff service to it's full potential, so we're very happy for them to use the Help forum to get it sorted.

Educators don't have a specific time that we try to reply to PMs, we simply reply to them as soon as we can, so if you need an Educator urgently the best way to do it is to use the report content button. Normally we'll get back to you that day, often pretty quickly, but since we have lots of different duties and work varying shifts don't be offended if we don't get back to you for a few days.

While this member is asking a question about their giffgaff service, they also want to have a discussion about a change to our service, so it would go in Contribute.

We're giffgaff employees and we look after the community. We have a whole range of duties, but it's our job to make sure everything on the community is as good as possible. If you fancy a chat just send one of us a private message and we'd love to talk.

The core of this post is a genuine question about how giffgaff works, and so this thread should stay in Help. A great post would also link to the deals thread in Off-Topic and suggest that they might get a good response looking for a bargain in there.

Incidentally, a good answer to this post would note that if they did choose a Z10, because it runs on
the BB10 operating system, a BlackBerry add-on is not required, and so this member could save
themselves some money.

Educators don't usually look into problems that members are having. Only in rare circumstances where members are unable to solve their problem through the Agents or the community do we step in and even then they can only prod the Agents.

"Ask an Agent" is probably one of the least helpful technically correct responses on the forum. Members need to know why they should contact an Agent and how to do. They may not even know what an Agent is let alone how to contact one so you need to walk them through the process.


You should also not say "speak to an agent" as that implies that you can actually phone them up; "contact an agent" is a better way of saying it.

The Agents are part of giffgaff and it's their job to make sure that any problem that can't be sorted out by members is fixed. They don't work in our head office in Uxbridge though, they're over in Ireland.

If you PM an Educator then you have to wait for that Educator to read the message. If you report it then the first Educator to see it will be able to sort it out. You should never raise a case with the Agents about anything community related because they'll just pass it on to the Educators so it just wastes their time and takes longer for it to be sorted.

Educators are here to make sure that the community runs smoothly and to talk to members about giffgaff in general. We're not the best people to answer questions, the community and the Agents are far better at it than us.