If, like me, you use a Tesco pay-as-you-go SIM card in a USB dongle, a mini PCIe card (for example, in an APU 4D4 router), or a PCMCIA card (for example, in a Linksys WRT54 access point / router), you might wonder how to top it up with more credit without taking the SIM card out and putting it into a phone.
Fortunately (provided you know what the mobile phone number is) it's easy to do from another telephone (mobile or landline).
Dial 0345 940 0000
Enter the mobile number of the SIM card you want to top-up followed by #
Confirm with 1 (you can't interrupt the message)
Select 1 to top up with a voucher you've bought in a Tesco shop
Select 2 to top up with a credit or debit card
This takes you through a pretty tedious sequence of data entry, and then enables you to top up the account (by a minimum of £10). The data you need to enter, in addition to the mobile number of the SIM card (11 digits) is:
the number of the debit / credit card you wish to pay with (16 digits)
the expiry date of the payment card (4 digits)
the security code from the payment card (3 digits)
your house number (2 digits in my case)
the digits from your postcode (3 digits in my case)
the amount to top up by in pounds (2 digits minimum)
each item needs to be entered and terminated with a #, and also confirmed with a 1
that's a total of 56 key presses (there's a final 1 at the end to confirm the whole thing)
If you need to find out the mobile number, send a text message containing the word "NUMBER" (I've no idea if it's case sensitive or not) to 2020. You should get a text message back again telling you the number.
Most of these would have to be done from a phone, or something else which supports a voice channel.
To set up voicemail: Dial 905
The default
PIN is 8705 and can be changed to any number between 4 and 10 digits long
To disable voicemail: Dial 2915
To enable voicemail: Dial 2905
To review messages from another phone:
Dial your own mobile number, press * during the greeting, enter the PIN followed by #
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