Is Tesco's Pay as You Go any good?

bylromarha

JPR wrote:

Is there a minimum usage policy with Tesco? i.e. so many calls ayear/6 months etc.?

I asked this in store and they said no. It is not detailed anywhere in the literature T +Cs so I think the answers no.

mobilegossip

redux wrote:

Ok, maybe so. But many of the destinations are available for under a penny a minute on top of inclusive minutes, so it is hardly the great prospect that it was a year ago, when many European mobiles were also included. This isn't leadership; it's retreat. For someone on an O2 mobile, 0844 callthrough numbers cover most of the destinations anyway (and for payg cheaper off-peak when incl minutes have run out), so S-F is nearly redundant.

As for upfront, you haven't looked very critically at their suggestion to 3 customers to use an 0871 number to call foreign landlines, costing 10 or 15p per minute, when 18185 or Nobelcom would charge a penny or less from inclusive minutes. And then there are the mysterious posts about Orange access numbers ...

Hold on a sec.Very Skint Asks if anyone can recommend a good 07744 no he can use on Tesco Payg to save some money. I give him a sensible and factual answer.You now start talking about 02.SF recommending use of 0871 ,and mysterious Orange numbers which have absolutely nothing to do with this thread which is about Tesco PAYG.

Please dont insult my intelligence by telling me that i havent looked critically at their suggestion for 3 customers to use 0871. :cool:

redux

We'll agree to disagree then. I was only suggesting that market share was not the only indicator, that there are useful competitors, and that not all S-F products are so virtuous.

A call to a European mobile via a choice of other 07744 providers will save 15, 17 or more pence a minute but a call to a foreign landline will save as little as 0.6 pence per minute on Orange, and nil on O2. I think this is more useful than any knowledge about market share, or who started the idea.

The discussion is about the relative merits of various options, specifically Tesco and O2. People that want to call international mobiles might look at other 07744 providers. It may not be common use, but there have been plenty of enquiries in the past about whether S-F included foreign mobiles, so I didn't think it was too far off-topic for all readers to mention that they have dropped some.

mobilegossip

This thread is clearly headed "Is Tesco PAYG any Good" is it not .Its not entitled "Discuss the merits of different 07744 providers."

All i have done in this thread is suggest a money saving idea to another member which this site is all about it,and help him with his questions.

redux

mobilegossip wrote:

This thread is clearly headed "Is Tesco PAYG any Good" is it not .Its not entitled "Discuss the merits of different 07744 providers."

All i have done in this thread is suggest a money saving idea to another member which this site is all about it,and help him with his questions.

you didn't seem to answer these - apologies for not having had time earlier

very_skint wrote:

Can anyone recommend one which would be good to use with Tesco mobile. or supply a list of good ones to look into.

Just wondering now if my phone will allow me to pick a number from the phonebook and dial it whilst connected to the dial through service. (using a Motorola V620).

You could also look at other providers who include a greater range of foreign mobiles amongst their destinations, as already discussed.

Two others are Victorconnect and Yourcallworld; be wary though that some of their website comments about which networks allow use of inclusive minutes to their access numbers are rather less than clear, perhaps almost evasive.

When I was discussing European mobiles, this includes UK mobiles. If they continue their present policy, you would be able to call UK mobiles via these on weekdays at your favourite number cheaper rate, whereas as I have said already, S-F dumped this possibility months ago. Just don't count on it lasting though.

I'd also consider registering your phone number with 18185 and using their London access number as another favourite, thus weekend calls to mobiles would only add 2p per minute, and 5p weekdays if the other method dries up.


You can either save the number with a pause character in the middle, as already discussed, or you may be able to open the phone book during the call. I can't advise on the Motorola, but on a Nokia there are 2 possibilities -

1. during the call, press Options then scroll down and look for Send DTMF; either enter a number, or search the phonebook

2. even easier, save the access number with a + sign on the end - the search box for the phone book opens automatically on answer

a small amount of experimentation with your Motorola should find out whether it is possible, but on my v220 it looks a bit difficult or not hopeful - the two buttons are phonebook and speaker, and adding a + sign means that the number is not recognised by the network


However, I wouldn't be quite so fast to dump O2 for Tesco. If you make quite a few calls, you can get hundreds of minutes of use from £15 with astute use of the various bolt-ons.

If you are a light user you can still make landline calls for just over 6p per minute using their Int'l option and a calling card access. And calls to many international destinations are available for 6.3 or 7p per minute, which is cheaper than using S-F via a Tesco favourite number.

You could also look at a separate Mobile World SIM for int'l calls or calling card use, also in the same price range, but note that the MW has a shorter life if unused

insaneaxeman

Hi, I have used tesco for about a year in east london south east with no problems,I started with a payg sim ,registerd my 3 numbers @half rate then changed to value tariff by phoning cust services,now 7 to 8p a minute to these 3 numbers.
Right now you can buy a "value sim " for £6.73 includes £10 airtime and free delivery,
ttp://www.tescomobile.com/ I like many others have used them all(netorks) better than t-mobile or 3, the customer service people really do help you.

pricefighter

There is a minimum usage policy.See this from their T&C

"5.4 If you do not use your Mobile Phone for six months we will disconnect you and you will lose your Credits and Mobile Phone number. If your Mobile Phone is disconnected and you would like to reconnect it, you must call Customer Care. If we agree to reconnect you, you must pay a reconnection fee. Details of the current reconnection fee are available by calling Customer Care"

Bert_Anderson

I've been on Tesco PAYG since the summer - I was Orange but the network is essentially useless in this part of the country.

The 02 network is excellent and I have not found any signal blackspots at all in the local area...unlike Orange which required me propping the bloody phone on window sills in an attempt to receive a signal... :mad:

There is one thing that I have noticed that happens VERY regularly....

My 3 frequently called numbers are not deducted at the 5p for texts rate. On numerous occasions 10p has been deducted.

Another annoyance that I noticed when sending a reasonable length of text is that it sends it twice.....I'm still nowhere near the sending limit of the phone (Nokia 3510) so I assume this is an O2/Tesco limitation?

So other than (intermittently) wrongly charging me full price for texts I'm happy with Tesco PAYG

p.s. I did email Tesco about this and they suggested that I call them to investigate..I'm not sure if I'll be charged for this call or if it is a free "system" call though?

very_skint

Hello again all,
Your help has been brilliant so far.

My account is due to change over to tesco mobile tomorrow and I am part way through setting up and testing my phone to make use of the 3 favourite numbers trick. (also a good way of using up what little credit is left).

I have decided to use the prefix of 07744974404p (Simply-fone) before the number I am calling.
I have only just really noticed through testing that this works fine for calls to landline numbers but does not work to mobile numbers.

My question is:
Is there a similar method or number that I could add to one of my 3 favourite numbers which would allow the discounted price to mobile numbers?

EDITED:
Sorry just found out my wifes phone was turned off (derrr) thats what I was using to test. Now my mobile is out of credit and I cannot try again.
The question still stands, that is if the number above does not work for mobile numbers.

utilitybroker

When selecting a number for this exercise bear in mind that 4404 is the most popular.Nod Nod. So if they were to check on how many people had same friend.