Dont forget your Punting Phone

[Bogof60]

Just a reminder during this punting hiatus

My punting phone needs to make a call every so often ( I think 3 months ) to retain it as active and not lose my number and any credit.

[casio]

It's usually 6 months (180 days), but yea. I'd be thoroughly pissed off if my punting phone ends up gathering dust that long though.

The money being saved more than makes up for an expired sim card though of course.

[Beamer]

It's usually 6 months (180 days), but yea. I'd be thoroughly pissed off if my punting phone ends up gathering dust that long though.

The money being saved more than makes up for an expired sim card though of course.

It was.......for my Dual SIM phone.

[The_Don]

Just a reminder during this punting hiatus

My punting phone needs to make a call every so often ( I think 3 months ) to retain it as active and not lose my number and any credit.

At the end of the day I see punting phone/sim/credit as burners that can be replaced for less than, the cost of a punt (for me) if required.     


I have several punting phones and sim's. Sending a few text's and making some calls, every now and then can limit deactivation.


As for the phone numbers (punting related or not) that may have been deactivated, some operators recycle them. I've had people use my old numbers and speak to the new owner. Then at a later point in time, ask me who had my phone or number   

[RogerBoner]

Good reminder. I wanted to make an anonymous call but my number had expired and the small credit lost. Lycamobile sent me a free sim but it had no credit. Rather than risking a trip to a corner shop I obtained a £5 voucher code from PayPal's own website. There are some websites that charge for a virtual topup voucher but they could be scams. If you want to topup using the Lycamobile website you must give a name and an email address. This method worked well for me.
 

[David1970]

Just a reminder during this punting hiatus

My punting phone needs to make a call every so often ( I think 3 months ) to retain it as active and not lose my number and any credit.

Thanks for the reminder, I phoned a fax number I know at night so answered by the fax.

[snaitram99]

This seems to be the most appropriate recent thread to post in about Vodafone top-up. My punting phone is an old one that only does text and calls, which I normally top up by buying a voucher from a small shop for cash. They seem to e making it more and more difficult to just enter the voucher number into the phone. Endless menus, trying to get you to buy bundles, not recognising the number whether spoken or typed.
In the end I managed to get it sorted by using online chat on my laptop, as the website Activate voucher option also didn't work.

I didn't give an email address and input a false name for the agent to say Hi Dave or whatever. Am I being paranoid in thinking there is now a link, although pretty tenuous, between my punting phone number and my laptop?

[lostandfound]

Probably, although IMO they already "linked" your punting phone to your other mobile phone(s) by triangulating position from the masts.

[Clitheroelad]

Just checked my punting phone and besides the battery being dead, my sim no longer works. Probably because its been over 6 months since I turned it on ! Ordered a new free sim from o2 so must remember  to keep switching it on until I can use it again in a punt.

[latecomer]

This seems to be the most appropriate recent thread to post in about Vodafone top-up. My punting phone is an old one that only does text and calls, which I normally top up by buying a voucher from a small shop for cash. They seem to e making it more and more difficult to just enter the voucher number into the phone. Endless menus, trying to get you to buy bundles, not recognising the number whether spoken or typed.
In the end I managed to get it sorted by using online chat on my laptop, as the website Activate voucher option also didn't work.

I didn't give an email address and input a false name for the agent to say Hi Dave or whatever. Am I being paranoid in thinking there is now a link, although pretty tenuous, between my punting phone number and my laptop?

I bought my current punting phone in Tesco for £20 and I think it had £10 of credit on the SIM card.  With the phone they supply a card which you take along to any Tesco/Tesco Express when you want to top up.  I pay cash and I'm handed a receipt with a long number showing that my phone has already been topped up.  Easy, no hassle and it's worked every time.

[Waterhouse]

I’ve just inherited an iPhone SE (not the 2020 model) so thought it would be good to upgrade my current Nokia 6300 handset.  This way I can use WhatsApp anonymously and away from my personal phone as more and more SPs seem to be doing their comms via WhatsApp nowadays.  I currently have an older O2 sim in the Nokia - serves it’s purpose fine for calls and texts, but not great value if I were to start using it for data also.

Can anyone recommend a good value “traditional” PAYG sim?  Currently I’m considering 1p Mobile and Asda. Each has their downside though, data is 5p per Mb on Asda, so any pics an SP sends could end up chewing a lot of data and leading to having to pay out to top up more often.

The 1p Mobile gotcha is the requirement to top up £10 every four months so works out to be £2.50 a month regardless of whether or not you’ve used any credit.

Anyone have any experience of these PAYG sims, or better suggestions?

Cheers.

[lostandfound]

I use 3 for PAYG. Haven't checked for a while, but last time I did you don't have to use the phone to keep your time / account active and 3-2-1 penny charges for the different modes of use.

[george r]

my punting phone uses a o2 classic payg sim, talk 3p a min texts 2 p and data 1p ,i dont think they sell it anymore  but a tenner goes a very long way...
3 mobile used to do similar.

[sanchez]

I forgot mine. SIM card became inactive so had the faff of getting a new one.

[londonroad]

I’ve just inherited an iPhone SE (not the 2020 model) so thought it would be good to upgrade my current Nokia 6300 handset.  This way I can use WhatsApp anonymously and away from my personal phone as more and more SPs seem to be doing their comms via WhatsApp nowadays.  I currently have an older O2 sim in the Nokia - serves it’s purpose fine for calls and texts, but not great value if I were to start using it for data also.

Can anyone recommend a good value “traditional” PAYG sim?  Currently I’m considering 1p Mobile and Asda. Each has their downside though, data is 5p per Mb on Asda, so any pics an SP sends could end up chewing a lot of data and leading to having to pay out to top up more often.

The 1p Mobile gotcha is the requirement to top up £10 every four months so works out to be £2.50 a month regardless of whether or not you’ve used any credit.

Anyone have any experience of these PAYG sims, or better suggestions?

Cheers.

Have a look at Giffgaff. It runs on the O2 network.

[WelshClipper]

Left my tesco mobile phone from March 15 to August 15 and absolutely no problem.

So I guess it must be six months at least.

 

[Spacecowb0y]

Switched the burner phone on to check and the SIM has expired 
It's unlocked, so choice of carriers,but which one 

[Waterhouse]

Thanks for the replies.  Three no longer offer their old 321 sims/ tarif... however, from what I’ve read, if you can find one from a supermarket or online retailer, then you can activate it, top it up and it “should” default/offer the old 321 tarif if you top up online.

I’ve just purchased one from Amazon for 48p. 

External Link/Members Only

Will report back if it does indeed use the old 321 tarif still.  If not then I’’ve wasted 48p    and will sign up to 1p mobile - not ideal as it costs a tenner every 4 months (£2.50 a month) in credit top ups to keep the sim active, but it’s still the cheapest deal out there that I can find otherwise.

[Waterhouse]

Happy to report back that the Three 321 sim does indeed work as it should.  Installed the sim, signed up to a My 3 account and was able to top-up with a tenner (minimum is a fiver), clicked the 321 PAYG tariff (not bundles or add-ons) and all was golden.  3p per minute calls, 2p per text, 1p per Mb of data.  They even give you a free 150mb data for the first 24 hours to get every thing set up (i.e. removing adult website blocks which has to be done via 3G/4G and without using Wi-Fi).

Much better deal than 1p Mobile as you don’t need to top-up with a tenner every 4 months and the PAYG credit never expires.  I suspect the only caveat is that need to make a call or send a text at least once every 6 months in order to keep the sim and the account active.

[Marmalade]

It's very individual. The big bugbear is if one is going to need data whlle going to a punt (e.g. for maps).

Three do a plan with unlimited data but of course it's not cheap and leaves a paper trail if your o/h is reading your bills.

"Burner phone" on the other hand can imply more extreme than needed.

This is the standard 'Snowden' rule:
What do you want to protect?
From whom?
What would be the consequences if those person(s) found out?

Whatapp is owned by Facebook.
If you see their profile picture means they have saved your number in their contact list and if you don't see any pic that means they haven't saved your number. UNLESS they don't have a contact pic (which you shouldn't either of course). Better still, don't enable it to see your contact list at all. Whatsapp also syncs to certin other apps automatically 'for you'. That includes Instagram, Google Plus and a host of barge-pole apps. And remember to switch off Whatapp cloud backups.

As far as I know, blocking all messages from unknown numbers is not possible on WhatsApp. But if you receive a message from an unknown number and want no more messages from that number, you can open that particular chat window and block the contact from there.

Jeff Bezos’s phone was compromised by a malicious video sent via WhatsApp, which is probably not a common concern unless you have upset a cyberwarrior p4p (there are a few and they are dangerous). I trust seasoned punters, especially travelling abroad, know not to fall for whatsapp scams (less frequently pictures I think, more like links ti websites or 'upgrades' that then mean you get charged premium rates for incoming calls.

A small but relevant thing about using Google maps is that it will try to save everywhere you've been unless you disable that feature (in which case it probably saves it without telling you but at least you've reduced). The more things you search for, the more Google will suggest such things to you when you start searching – or when somebody else starts searching on your browser.

Some countries have the right to search your phone at customs. Some of those same countries consider seeing a prostitute an illegal activity. DuckDuckGo is your friend!

Oh, and remember to turn off previews in your SMS messages.     

[Spacecowb0y]

  They even give you a free 150mb data for the first 24 hours to get every thing set up (i.e. removing adult website blocks which has to be done via 3G/4G and without using Wi-Fi).

how exactly did you remove the adult block?

[Waterhouse]

how exactly did you remove the adult block?

External Link/Members Only)

Just followed the instructions and made a zero charge to a credit card to verify I was over 18.  All done automatically.

[Spacecowb0y]

Cheers for the reply,but the link to a credit card means the number can be traced back to me. Not comfortable with that. Back to the drawing board ....

[hrnybob]

i have never removed an adult block on my phone i just use a vpn app to get around it

[Spacecowb0y]

Bought a new sim card with a tenner preloaded last week. That's gone down the lockdown swanny!

[Marmalade]

i have never removed an adult block on my phone i just use a vpn app to get around it

That would be an idea for browser privacy. But the phone still tracks location and calls. And for AW I imagine it could be quite an inconvenience

[jeanphillipe]

I dont think thats true marm, i can see hoors watsapp pics when i save their numbers, pretty sure they dont have me saved prior to this.

[Marmalade]

I dont think thats true marm, i can see hoors watsapp pics when i save their numbers, pretty sure they dont have me saved prior to this.

I'm happy to obtain clarification on whatsapp stuff. I can't remember off hand the specific sites I was looking at when I made the post about whatsapp. I know Snowden hates it, but that might be that it is so vulnerable to spyware. I'm also not completely convinced about what 'saving' a number means; I know the difference between a user saving and not saving it, but that doesn't tell me whether whatsapp is saving it anyway. Next time I get an unwanted whatsapp call I'll put through some basic hoops if I remember.