Tesco PAYG SIM top-up

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
  • Enter the top-up voucher number (16 digits) followed by #
  • Confirm with 1
  • Hang up or get advertised at
• 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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