OT. Sim for 93 year old with sporadic use

Yes, you've reminded me! Indeed, true to form Tesco will continuously=20 try to "monetise" their customer base.

You've probably realised that I got the PAYG SIM from them some years=20 ago as the "Value SIM" package which was superseded by their new and=20 renamed offerings some while later. I had to request a downgrade to the =

new "lite" package after it was introduced, otherwise I would have been=20 paying significantly higher calling costs given my very low use. I=20 would have been unaware of the change had I not checked their website=20 very carefully when I was asked to top-up with 10 pounds per month in=20 order to get the "best" prices. They didn't exactly tell me about the=20 change of packaging, they simply offered the "best" prices if I agreed=20 to regular top-ups.

It wasn't an easy process to downgrade to what I had been getting=20 previously and my request was queried at every stage, complete with=20 apparent misunderstandings, by their customer service rep. who wanted to =

satisfy himself that I really was getting the best deal!

If you register your SIM via their web site it won't show you what=20 package you are on and is geared solely to enabling you to pay them some =

money for top-ups. The only way to check is to calculate the price from =

the cost and timing of each telephone call. If you don't register your=20 SIM, any change will happen without you ever knowing. A description of=20 "sleight of hand" is entirely appropriate and presumably taking=20 advantage of the fact that many (most?) purchasers of their SIM-only=20 packages don't register.

Although it can be cheap to start with, Tesco do always look for the=20 opportunity to increase their revenue by re-packaging and re-marketing=20 something without actually changing the service other than increasing=20 their prices. They achieve this by abolishing the previous packages and =

substituting their "new and improved" offerings. As you noted, if they=20 keep the old packages (presumably only because of some sort of=20 regulatory or contractual requirement) they will rename them and bury=20 them so deep that only the most persistent of searches can find them.

Perhaps I should also check out the IKEA offering. :)

--=20 Dave N

Many thanks for all your ideas and advice. Incredible place this.

I need to be able to pick up the sim in the very near future so will get= =

one I can physically collect.

Tescos are being difficult about their Light tariff and the 3 for 1 top = =

ups on the other tariff only last a month.

Giff Gaff and some of the other cheap ones with strange names might be a= =

bit much for Mum.

The Doro is not 3G so 3 is out.

ASDA is ahead by a nose at the moment. Can pay =A310 for a 200 min call = =

bundle that should last her few days in hospital. After that normal top = =

ups do not expire providing 1 call is made every 3 months. If I keep =

reminding her to charge it hopefully she will be able to call a cab when= =

she walks too far and can't get back home.

ASDA's normal calls are 10p per min and the Doro 332 allegedly has up to= =

Desire but then again I will be using that as a sat nav to get Mum to =

hospital 2 hours drive from here.

Quite a lot of posts for a thread with no reference (yet) to angle =

grinders, WD40 etc and the usual suspects not hurling abuse at each othe= r.

Dave N :

Chances are it will be a self-assembly SIM kit with a few bits missing.

To be fair, their new package was ok for moderate level users - the double credit in effect made their data charge half the price. But for low users its not as good.

Only down side for some may be that they are a MVNO running on top of the TMobile/Orange network.

ISTR 50ppm but I did not often phone her. My Mum was in the hospital next to the hotel that I was rewiring and I used to pass the hour between finishing work and start of visiting hours in room 42 of the hotel with one of the waitresses.

I was rather disappointed when the hospital decided my Mum was fit to return home:-)

And may I offer your mother a fast recovery whatever SIM you get.

Charge it from what? they will probably not allow her to have a mains charger or will charge her for an expensive PAT test.

You may need a spare battery and charger so you can swap it when you visit.

F*ck me. dennis is wrong again.

All he has to do to now to make me happy is give me the 43 numbers that will not appear on Saturdays lottery draw.

I had no problem using my phone charger or mobile phone in more than one cardiac unit.

Colin Bignell

When she was in a different hospital earlier in the year there was no =

problem charging from the mains. Just needed someone to plug it in and =

remove it for her.

Stay is expected to be 3-4 nights including some time under a general =

anaesthetic. Phone has 27 days standby or 4 hours talking so it may not = =

need a charge.

Lycamobile is only 5p/min to UK landlines, free SIM, £2 credit for registering SIM, etc.

For a company that appears to concentrate on the overseas call market, they're consistently the cheapest for UK calls that I've come across.

Easily fixed in 2 mins with a printer and a sticky label.

That by the way, is now the standard approach after a volunteer group were prevented a few years ago from using their brand new mains multiway sockets, and nearly new extension leads at a function to which they were one of the invited guests.

Now they go equipped with freshly printed PAT labels.

"Of course it has been tested, just last week, here look at the label"

Having just had to recover from my phone going though the washing machine I'd say make sure numbers are stored on both sim and phone.

Mine were on the phone, but I did manage to recover most from an old backup on the computer, and an even older phone.

I would agree, but I'm on a low user tarif at 8p/min for phone and 4p for texts. I don't think this is still available, but network availability is good, and 3g is also usable where it is available.

I believe voda and 02 have some weird thing where a call has to be made to a pay number every couple of months or so, or the system swallows the credit and stops the sim. Brian

Indeed. My wife once had her phone pinched and over the years I have trashed 2 hard drives at work and a Seagate Barracuda at home.

I am giving up our domain because we will be moving about following retirement. Now use Gmail and Hotmail and save offline.

Back ups go to an old PC and an external hard drive on alternate weeks. Important stuff including photos is backed up off site daily.

I despair of people at work who kept stuff on their local drive and relatives who have all their photos on one standalone computer.

For Voda I did see somewhere 1 chargeable event every 99 days

Oh, I don't know. They were very upfront in telling me about the Lite package and offering to switch me over. But only AFTER I had phoned to request a PAC in order to transfer my number.

In room 69, presumably.

I have a relative who had over 2-years-worth of photos just on her camera (including 2 weddings), I asked what she would do when the memory card was full; she said "buy another one".