Tesco Mobile pay-as-you-go customer? Be prepared: it may push you to buy a bundle

Detail_Merchant

PHK said:

Here is the official statement and guide to the changes. 

https://www.tescomobile.com/help/managing-your-account/change-your-tariff/payasyougochanges

You won't have to buy a bundle but the costs of out of bundle charges are going up and you'll need to use the phone more regularly. 

When you say "you'll need to use the phone more regularly" how often do you mean?
Thanks for the link - I see there it says "Your number will remain active as long as it’s used very occasionally.
If you don’t use your phone for a period of six months or more, we’ll disconnect you. If this happens, you may lose your mobile number." - this sounds pretty much like the current situation, or am I wrong about that?

Asking as my Mum uses Tesco Mobile payg (currently on the Lite tariff) but doesn't use it much, just has it in case of emergencies. She knows to use it once every few months to keep it alive.

PHK

Detail_Merchant said:

PHK said:

Here is the official statement and guide to the changes. 

https://www.tescomobile.com/help/managing-your-account/change-your-tariff/payasyougochanges

You won't have to buy a bundle but the costs of out of bundle charges are going up and you'll need to use the phone more regularly. 

When you say "you'll need to use the phone more regularly" how often do you mean?
Thanks for the link - I see there it says "Your number will remain active as long as it’s used very occasionally.
If you don’t use your phone for a period of six months or more, we’ll disconnect you. If this happens, you may lose your mobile number." - this sounds pretty much like the current situation, or am I wrong about that?

Asking as my Mum uses Tesco Mobile payg (currently on the Lite tariff) but doesn't use it much, just has it in case of emergencies. She knows to use it once every few months to keep it alive.

In the past they haven’t enforced minimum usage, some people have used the lite tariff as an emergency phone, making the credit last years. 

chrislaker

I'm on Tesco mobile Lite with a credit balance of £30 which I will loose if I move. This can't be fair.

PHK

I think this transition has been handled poorly with not enough notice. I know it's PAYG, so they don't need to give notice but people remember how they were treated. 

RL11

I've switched to Sky @£1 per month, unlimited texts and calls and 1gb data, so actually better than Tesco Lite

croaking_goat

In my family we have between us seven PAYG phones purchased over the years through Tesco Mobile. They are all on the PAYG Lite tariff.

The two old Nokia phones work on 3G or less. These will not work when O2 pulls the 3G signal in our area. They will also not work when the migration from PAYG Lite to the new "Essentials" tariff is introduced in October and November. One of these phones has £17 credit on it which will likely be lost if the number and credit balance cannot be transferred to one of the 4G phones.

We have two newer 4G phones (Alcatel and Nokia). We have already received text messages to inform us of their impending migration to "Essentials" tariff. We have an old Samsung Galaxy smartphone which Tesco website says won't work on 4G, but we have received a text to say it is compatible with the "Essentials" tariff. 

We have two newish Samsung smartphones (A14 4Gs) and have received the texts to advise that these are pending migration to the new "Essentials" tariff. So we are still waiting for the texts to advise what the options are for the two old 3G phones.

On all these texts advising us about migration to the "Essentials" tariff, as low users, we have been offered £2.50 monthly bundles for which the allowance is 100 minutes of calls, 100 texts and 100MB of data or the new higher standard charge tariff.

I have just taken out a contract on my smartphone and my existing number has been retained and my PAYG balance should be taken off my first monthly bill.

I agree that insufficient notice has been given, especially for phones that will not work on the new "Essentials" tariff and will need replacing.

croaking_goat

Something else to watch out for:

If you have a 4G phone that has voice calls over Wi-Fi capability, Tesco Mobile and O2 have not yet enabled this for PAYG customers.

O2 has said Wi-Fi calling won't be available to its PAYG customers until after the end of this year. Tesco Mobile has not yet confirmed when they will enable Wi-Fi calling for their PAYG customers.

If you are buying a new basic 4G phone for very occasional/emergency use, make sure you check the spec carefully before you buy it.

The Alcatel 3080 4G I bought a couple of years ago for my low user husband has no internet capability (which I missed at the point of purchase). The Nokia 110 4G I bought a year or so ago does have internet capability but no voice over Wi-Fi capability.

This means that the Alcatel phone cannot be used to download the Tesco Mobile app.

So once this phone has been migrated to the new Essentials tariff, I won't be able to top it up via the Tesco Mobile app. The old PAYG online platform for Lite and Rocket pack users is being pulled and so are the plastic top up cards.

For the Alcatel, that leaves toping up via an e-voucher purchased online and entered via the free top up customer number.

So ease of topping up is another reason to make sure any new phone can download the Tesco Mobile app and that you have sufficient mobile data allowance to run it. (The app itself is quite small to download but running it on the standard rate per MB tariff or on a 100MG a month data allowance bundle is a consideration.) 

If the phone numbers and credit balances on our two oldest phones that will have to be retired when Tesco Mobile migrates to the new "Essentials" tariff later this month or in November can be ported to two of our newer 4G phones it would have been helpful if Tesco could have let us know our option well ahead of the migration notification texts (which in the case of the two 3G phones have yet to be received).

With the substantial hike in the cost of standard rate PAYG calls, texts and data prices, and being nudged into using the app for managing your account top-ups etc, it does seem that Tesco are pushing people towards buying a monthly bundle or upgrading to a contract - or switching to another provider.

Because I did not require a new SIM being sent through the post, it took just 3 hours from application to make the transfer from PAYG to a monthly contract - so that went quite smoothly and no copies of documents for ID purposes were required to be uploaded apart from them running a credit check. 

croaking_goat

RL11 said:

Is there any information direct from Tesco Mobile that says this is happening? I can't find anything outside of the MSE story on it and it only says they "may" push you to buy a bundle. I've been on Lite for 13 years and have no wish to change.

If you don't usually keep your phone switched on every day, I would recommend keeping it on as you will likely receive a text between October and November alerting you to the change of tariff and what your options are.

As I've said up thread, since 11 September we've had alerts for five phones (all 4G) but not yet received alerts for the two oldest phones, which both run on 3G or less. If we can have the numbers of these phones and their credit balances ported to the two basic 4G phones we will opt for that, as we stand to lose nearly £30 across the two phones.

Nowhere have I seen Tesco clarify what will happen to the balances on the thousands of 3G phones that will become unusable once "Essentials" is introduced.

RL11

RL11 said:

I've switched to Sky @£1 per month, unlimited texts and calls and 1gb data, so actually better than Tesco Lite

FYI: The contract is 12 months @£1 per month and then it will switch to their standard rate - currently £3 per month but could be anything in 12 months time.
What's left of the 1Gb data rolls over every month and they've already credited me with another 3Gb for free!
I have 4G WiFi calling now - on a Samsung A41
I believe Sky and Tesco both use O2, so I'm expecting the same coverage
So, other than not knowing how much it will be in 12 months, it's all good for me 

MindEcho

Tesco's website is very poor as it seems inconsistently updated and contradictory. The store staff know nothing, the phone help know nothing and the complaints team are of now help (seems like AI).

I might be wrong, my understanding after a lot of research is:

Regarding the 3G switch off, if your phone supports 2G (most do) then you'll still be able to make calls/texts using the 2G network until that too is terminated in 2033. 
2G doesn't support data, so you'll loose that ability unless you use 4G or above. 

The VoLTE calling requires three things:

1. a sim card that supports it
2. a device that supports it
3. a tariff that supports it.

The classic PAYG tariff didn't, so even if you had the device and sim, it wasn't an option. Not sure this was entirely Tesco's fault as they're subject to what O2 decide, although in that respect the promise on their website of bringing it to PAYG customers is very misleading.

Regarding the Essentials tariff
You'll keep your credit and use your phone as you did before, but at the unattractive standard rates. 
In addition to that you can buy a bundle (data/mins/texts) which expires after a month.
During that month your use will come out of the bundle, unless you completely deplete part of it (i.e. use all the data)  in which case you can purchase some sort of top up or revert back to your credit at the standard rates. 
You can choose to auto-renew the bundle.

I think vouchers will be a thing still as I got one recently with "Essentials" on it, Currently not sure how you'd buy the bundle; I imagine you'd need to give some details in order to support the auto-renew.

In the unlikely event you have a 2G sim then you can't be switched, presumably because you can't have any data and Tesco will "be in touch".

Asda do a similar tariff but the standard call rate is 10p cheaper and voicemail is free.