PAYG users can help Children in Need: top-up at an ATM and 5p will be donated free!

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What's this about?

Throughout November, whenever a pay-as-you-go mobile's topped up via a cash machine with a 'top-up' logo, 5p will be donated to the BBC Children in Need Appeal. What's more, for every time you do it between midnight Thursday 13 and midnight Sunday 16 Nov, the donation will be increased four-fold, to 20p.

It's completely free to do (the money's donated from banks and mobile operators' coffers, not you) and could easily raise £1,000s for the good cause.

How do I do it?

• If you normally top-up using cash, cheque or debit card
  
  Next time you need credit, pop down to your local participating ATM. 50,000 offer mobile top-ups in the UK, including machines belonging to Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Clydesdale Bank, The Co-operative Bank, Coventry, First Trust, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide, Natwest, RBS, Sainsbury's Finance, Tesco Personal Finance & Yorkshire Bank.
  
  Simply pop your card in the ATM, enter your PIN, chose 'mobile top-up', select your mobile provider (either Orange, o2, Tesco Mobile, T-Mobile, Virgin or Vodafone), enter your mobile number and chose how much you want to top up. And that's it!
  
  It's a flat rate of 5p (20p on the special weekend) regardless of how much you're topping up so if you need £20, consider adding £10 first, then £10 another time to double the donation.

• If you usually get loyalty points or a discount on top-ups
  
  If you'd usually top up somewhere that gives you loyalty points or a discount, then they could well be worth much more than 5p. In which case, stick to doing it your usual way and give a donation directly to Children in Need instead.

Could this raise big cash?

Around 47 million active pay as you go mobiles are in the UK, and if each owner topped up just once via a cash machine, at just the 5p donation level, over £2 million could be generated for Children in Need. But even if just one million people did it, that's an easy £50,000.

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