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Author Topic: Top-up Three PAYG SIM with a small amount - any ideas ?  (Read 16658 times)
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A1ia5
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« on: October 18, 2008, 02:46:04 AM »


Hi

Does any one know a way to add a small amount (<£1) of credit to a three PAYG SIM ?

I've spoken to three CS and no positive reply - all I get told is that £10 is the minimum top-up.

Some ideas I have, all of which received a negative response from CS are :

* Use a Credit card/debit card online
* Do a top-up in a three store
* Transfer credit from another three sim
* do something that gives a small amount of credit - ie register

Some other ideas may be

* top-up using pay-pal or some other stored credit system
* use some freely available voucher that adds a small amount of credit

The above are just ideas.

If anyone has successfully added a small amount of credit to a three PAYG sim card, please do explain here and I am sure this would be of interest to many people...

FYI, the sim card will already have had a No ported to it and qualify for the £10 credit.

« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 01:55:05 PM by mobaholic » Logged

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mike
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« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2008, 07:16:05 AM »

Hi

Does any one know a way to add a small amount (<£1) of credit to a three PAYG SIM ?

I've spoken to three CS and no positive reply - all I get told is that £10 is the minimum top-up.

Some ideas I have, all of which received a negative response from CS are :

* Use a Credit card/debit card online
* Do a top-up in a three store
* Transfer credit from another three sim
* do something that gives a small amount of credit - ie register

Some other ideas may be

* top-up using pay-pal or some other stored credit system
* use some freely available voucher that adds a small amount of credit

The above are just ideas.

If anyone has successfully added a small amount of credit to a three PAYG sim card, please do explain here and I am sure this would be of interest to many people...

FYI, the sim card will already have had a No ported to it and qualify for the £10 credit.

Most of us are quite happy with a free £10 credit for porting in a number.  I don't think that other pay & go networks are so generous!

Why should you be greedy and want yet more, or we waste our time wracking our brains to assist such greed?

« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 01:55:26 PM by mobaholic » Logged
HiPD
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« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2008, 09:33:19 AM »

Most of us are quite happy with a free £10 credit for porting in a number.  I don't think that other pay & go networks are so generous!

Why should you be greedy and want yet more, or we waste our time wracking our brains to assist such greed?

I agree with Mike.  A1ia5 ignored mobaholic's request for a reply about SIP, which I was wanting to read, and now asks what looks like a silly question.  Some people seem to be all "take, take", and no "give".
I have noticed the same thing about him on telecomforum.  Cry

When you contribute your knowledge A1ia5, we may be more inclined to share ours.  Grin

« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 01:55:46 PM by mobaholic » Logged

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mobileman
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« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2008, 09:40:42 AM »


Let me jump in here to make two points.

First, A1ia5's post may not be a silly question: he may be trying to get 12p to send a text requesting a £10 Premium text, thus wasting none of his free credit.
However, I know of no way of doing that, on 3 above all networks!

Secondly, I understand the frustration that A1ia5 can generate by being so self pre-occupied, but I do not want to see this become a thread for posting personal attacks on him.  Please respect the forum's standards, as I don't want to have to remove any posts, and would rather that discussion remained good natured please.

mm.

« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 01:56:08 PM by mobaholic » Logged
mobaholic
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« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2008, 11:05:04 AM »


I support the moderator's comments entirely, and I also agree with him that I know of no way to get a further free credit out of 3.        Shocked

The best advice that I can think of, A1ia5, is a way to topup with less than £10.        Wink

If you register your mobile through 'My 3' to be allowed to view restricted sites, 3 will deduct 99p from your credit card, and also credit your account with 99p.  You do have to pay for this unfortunately though.        Roll Eyes

The 99p will pay for your 12p text, and leave you with 87p which you can spend as you like.  You could possibly order a £10-50 premium SMS, or subscribe for a day's internet browsing for 50p, and still have 37p left over.

I regret that I cannot come up with any better suggestions for you.

« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 01:57:16 PM by mobaholic » Logged

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A1ia5
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« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2008, 11:55:15 AM »


I support the moderator's comments entirely, and I also agree with him that I know of no way to get a further free credit out of 3.        Shocked

The best advice that I can think of, A1ia5, is a way to topup with less than £10.        Wink

If you register your mobile through 'My 3' to be allowed to view restricted sites, 3 will deduct 99p from your credit card, and also credit your account with 99p.  You do have to pay for this unfortunately though.        Roll Eyes

The 99p will pay for your 12p text, and leave you with 87p which you can spend as you like.  You could possibly order a £10-50 premium SMS, or subscribe for a day's internet browsing for 50p, and still have 37p left over.

I regret that I cannot come up with any better suggestions for you.



Oo errr !  Seems my reputation precedes me - and there is no hiding from TelecomForum/Nifty as I have the same "alias"

Firstly the question here was genuine, and is for the reasons stated above.  I did very well with BT Mobile Payg sims a year ago and was able to get a £10 or 2 x £5 top-ups with the extra credit from registering online, giving me an extra £1, to use for sending the SMS.

I do have the intention to reply to MH queries on the other topic I started, in fact I started to do some background research for it and compose the reply in my head.  Trouble is I get carried away on other projects and dont get back to things...

Been working on turning a laptop into a netbook using a mini linux distro, running off flash memory and dumping the har drive, and also another project which involves the current deal from three with 2 three phones, one of which must be a current contract offering providing many skype mins and unlimited 3 to 3 mins and a broadband connected PC.  Theres quite a lot to this one and I have done very little on it - but basically it will mean that whatever services you have from your home phone, PC telephone (VoIP, or whatever) and mobile phone, will be available to you wherever you are and have your 3 phone with you.  I have also found a method of using free DID (Direct Inward Dial? (not 100% on this)) no to transfer to your skype identity - so this would mean that you could have a free UK geo no and anyone that calls, you would receive the call free on your 3 skype capable phone.  I havent tested this yet, as to be honest I have just started using some of the data features on three phones despite having them for a few months now.

One other area I have started to research is tunneling data via skype.  A while ago i use to use geoisp.co.uk on my mobile for very slow data access (9.6K).  Which was useful as I could do quite a bit with that.  The great thing was it used inclusive minutes, and as typical I have many more than I ever need or use.  Sadly geoisp seems to have died - although setting up something similar may be something Mikael could set up with "payment" via inclusive sms, I would be very interested if he did.  Anyway seeing what what is provided at the value end in large quantities makes me think what could I do with that.  So this is when I started to think, could I transfer whatever data via skype.  On a three phone it becomes a bit more tricky as it uses the customized three ISKoot application.  I'm off to a security/hackers meet tomorrow night so might ask around.  I discovered last time that the german guy who cracked GSM, a year or so ago, was in the last meeting.  In fact tomorrow meet will be of particular interest to me as there is a talk on GNU Radio.  This is particularly good for anyone that wants to decode anything that is radio based.  Anyone who is interested, the details are here :

www.dc4420.org

Thanks for the feedback so far.  MH, I dont mind paying for the extra, and ideally the smaller amount the better - whatever it costs for 1 or 2 sms.  I dont know if three have this - some other companies do - it is an overdraft system where if you go slightly over your credit the mobile co will allow this, so when you topup next time they take it from the balance.  If I were then to request a PAC and just pay off the overdraft, that would be fine.

I wonder if anyone here, could comment what happens with a three payg sim when you run out of credit and dont have an automated top-up.

One thing I did discover, was that when porting a PAYG no away from orange they have a retention dept that will make some interesting offers - I didn't push that hard as I just wanted the PAC, but I was offered free voicemail for 6 months - never heard of that before for orange payg.

You can make a bit of money too now, by using quidco and requesting orange sims and o2 sims.  With orange they pay 60p and allow 2 applications per month and o2 pay 15p per sim card and allow up to 4 sims per application - I dont know how many applications they allow.  Also, when I went to get some more sims from the local orange shop yesterday the staff seemed extra happy to help me (as all i go in there for is free sims) - the manager greeted me by asking "How many?"  Straight to the chase !  Even though I only had 1 valid voucher I got 4 sims, as they seemed to have news of the world vouchers they could use from somewhere.  I have a feeling the orange staff are getting a better kickback on "selling" free sims at the moment !

Sorry a bit of a dump here - I go quiet as I could spend all my time on forums and do little else.  When I've got the stuff on SIP together, I'll update the other thread. 
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« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2008, 02:14:37 PM »


Thanks for your reply A1ia5.  I accept your explanation - because I know how easy it is for you to have good intentions, then get distracted elsewhere !        Roll Eyes

NO, as far as I know, '3' do NOT have any equivalent to the Orange 'reserve tank' - otherwise I would have mentioned it earlier.        Wink

When a '3' Pre-Pay runs out of credit, you simply top it up.  The main options are buying a topup voucher from a '3' shop, using an ATM mobile topup service, or its equivalent in paypoint shops such as the Carphonewarehouse.  ( It takes 7 days or more to register a credit card with '3', so that's not a good option if you're in a hurry ).

I join with other members posting here in expressing keen interest in your forthcoming article about SIP matters.        Smiley

« Last Edit: October 22, 2008, 02:55:17 PM by mobaholic » Logged

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A1ia5
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« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2008, 03:36:47 PM »


Thanks for your reply A1ia5.  I accept your explanation - because I know how easy it is for you to have good intentions, then get distracted elsewhere !        Roll Eyes

NO, as far as I know, '3' do NOT have any equivalent to the Orange 'reserve tank' - otherwise I would have mentioned it earlier.        Wink

When a '3' Pre-Pay runs out of credit, you simply top it up.  The main options are buying a topup voucher from a '3' shop, using an ATM mobile topup service, or its equivalent in paypoint shops such as the Carphonewarehouse.  ( It takes 7 days or more to register a credit card with '3', so that's not a good option if you're in a hurry ).

I join with other members posting here in expressing keen interest in your forthcoming article about SIP matters.        Smiley



Thanks for this - so I guess if i had £10 credit on a three sim and I sent an sms to a short code which reverse billed for £10, I'd have the cost of sending the sms deducted and the reverse billed sms would fail, leaving me with £9.88 (if if costs 12p for an sms to a shortcode - and I'm assuming the cost of sending the sms is fixed, with the received sms deducting whatever amount the sender expects (or not as my phonepay plus emails occasionally tell me !))

FYI Three seem to be ok on providing £10 credit for mistakes.  I managed to get £10 credit for providing a PAC very close to its expiry date and three were due to port on the day of expiry, but this didn't happen.  So if your looking for more free credit, this may be a way.  But if you do do this, it may only work once or twice.  I don't know how consistent Three are at failing to port at the agreed time.  Plus if you keep doing it, it will look suspicious, and you will need to have a few PAYG sims too.  The recent send an sms to a shortcode get 2 free sims worked well for me.  They're not advertising these anymore, and I don't know if they are still working now.  You may also need several reliable identities and addresses to make the most of this.  My next plan is getting freebies from the local three shop...  Quidco also had an offer, whereby if you buy a Three PAYG sim, with £10 credit, they would give you something like £12 cashback, so this actually covered or exceeded the outlay required for the SIM.  However, my own experience on three and cashback through affiliate schemes (which quidco utilizes) is not good, and the feedback from quidco users mirrors this too.  In my case, it was probably due to the combination of incentives I was going for - still I didn't get a good explanation back - oh well I got 2 out of the 3 kickbacks, plus a nice phone...
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« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2008, 07:08:13 PM »

This is an interesting thread, as it shows how useful it could be to be able to do a premium top-up without having to pay for the text to the short code. I shall look into this further and see what the rules may allow.
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« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2008, 02:49:24 AM »

This is an interesting thread, as it shows how useful it could be to be able to do a premium top-up without having to pay for the text to the short code. I shall look into this further and see what the rules may allow.

The real title of this thread should be how to maximise PAYG credit for topups, but i'd prefer it stay as it is...

The problem is that having the cost of sending the initiating sms, reduces the credit by a small amount, thus leaving an amount that cant be utilised.  Well this got me thinking and, I'm pretty sure I have already seen some discussion of this here or else where.

Any way some possibilities may be :

* Use an alternate service to send an sms to the short code with the CLID of the sim (phone turned on).  Fineaea/betamax services come to mind to do this, but i dont think they recognise shortcodes.  Also I wonder of the mobile comapnies do any validation on a reverse billed sms being sent to a phone, where the request has not been initiated through their network.  Potentially, could be exploited, as it is not difficult to spoof CLIDs on calls and sms's.
* Use a network service to initiate the request.  I haven't seen it used in the UK that much, but on some of my other country sims, if I want to know credit left I can enter a *#xxx# command (where xxx is a number), press send and get a message back to tell me my balance.
* Use a free sms no - ie like 0800 nos when called from landlines - so there would be no cost to send the sms.  I think there are shortcodes like this, but legally, this may not be possible as I dont think this would also allow for a reverse billed sms to be sent, as this, I believe, is tied into the shortcode no.  Nevertheless, I wonder if it is possible to associate the two services.
* Have some sort of a callback "style" service, where there is a regular landline or mobile no that you call, it will then get your CLID and hang-up, hence no charge.  Then a reverse billed sms is sent to the CLID captured.
* Have a webservice, where you enter you mobile no and a verification sms is sent to it.  You then receive the sms and enter the verification code to the website.  Then a reverse billed sms can be sent.  This is the way webservices that allow you to send sms from their website verify you have access to the mobile no entered.

And thats about all I can think of at the mo...

Another question also has to be :

What ways are there of using stored payg credit to pay for topup, or indeed any, service ?

Well the ones that appear to be used here are reverse billed SMS, regular SMS, calls to premium rate nos (in this I include pretty much all 08, 070, 09?, etc nos)

Another query is - what is the most cost effective method ?  Well I guess that depends on the service, and pre-dial, as far as I am aware, is unique on this.  When I looked at reverse billed sms, they seem to be not good value, apart from the middle parties - that is the reverse billed sms provider and possible the mobile networks - the requester and the end service provider, dont get such a good deal.  The requester more than likely overpays and the end service provider doesn't get that good cut of the charge made to the requester.  I'm no expert here, but this would explain why Finarea/Betamax topup reverse billed sms, charge say £5 and only give you something like Euro 4 credit - of course there are exchange rates to consider as sterling (GBP) hasn't done so well over the past year and is tanking right now...
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« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2008, 11:34:29 AM »

I really am starting to lose track of what you're on about. All the digressions about balance queries and callbacks seems to be nothing to do with that I thought the subject was.

I don't think there are any ways to maximise the credit from top-ups, which is one thing you say, if you mean to multiply up and get more than you've added (except 3 WePay, but its call rates are higher, and it's no longer available).

What do you actually want to do? Are you trying to design your own service, or make cheap calls using an existing SIM, or what? If the main issue is how to get a £10 sms from £10 credit, then why not try what mobaholic suggests?

« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 12:22:32 PM by andy » Logged
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« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2008, 02:44:37 PM »

* Use a network service to initiate the request.  I haven't seen it used in the UK that much, but on some of my other country sims, if I want to know credit left I can enter a *#xxx# command (where xxx is a number), press send and get a message back to tell me my balance.

Haven't you come across the O2 pay & go *#10# comand, or the Vodafone PAYG *#1345# one ?        Undecided
They are very useful for getting your balance for free when abroad.        Wink
I used to know a *# command for topping up for free abroad on O2 pay & go also.
( The PCNs are useless here, in forcing you to call 453, 150, 789 etc. at roaming rates !        Huh
'3' is unique - in that you can use WAP for free abroad to view My3 and see your balance, or even buy an Add On ).

What ways are there of using stored payg credit to pay for topup, or indeed any, service ?

The pre-dial Premium TopUp service is designed for just this purpose !  See this thread.        Wink  Smiley  Grin

« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 02:55:45 PM by mobaholic » Logged

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« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2008, 09:35:04 AM »

Well my nos have been ported to three and I got 2 txts 1 to say the no will be ported and another letting me know £10 has been credited.  Interestingly on the one sim where 3 made a c*ck up on an earlier port and gave me £10, the additinal £10 credit is only valid till 1/1/09.  Well I've used most of that up now, but I still have an awkwardly large amount left.  Which leads me to :

Sending an sms to a shortcode from Finarea/Betamax - short answer - doesn't work for me !  Result :

Network Failure (CODE:4)
There has been a network problem. Please check your connections. (CODE:4)
   
I set up and verified the no with the Fin/Beta service and then used +44xxxxx, where xxxxxx  is the shortcode of the service.  No joy, boyo !  Cest la vie !  I'll keep thinking and trying.  In the meantime I will be porting my flotilla of nos to Mr Li Ka Shan's (?) network.

On a tangent, I met the guy who cracked GSM last night.  His own words were "GSM is not secure".  So some body with the right equipment (easy to get hold of and not excessively expensive) can listen to what you are saying on your GSM mobile !  UMTS, however, is not so easy to crack.  This is logical as GSM is getting on now !  Still, with many things, it is just a matter of time and having enough people sufficiently determined, that the perceived impossible can become possible !

Mikael, it would be good to hear what you have found may be possible for initiating top-ups...

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