Dave wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 7:41pm:


Thats a good start. They actually only publish 0345 numbers for bigger shops, convenience type stores etc are still listed with 0345 numbers. They havent got around to altering till reciepts yet , my local extra store number is on the store list with an 0345 number but still shows 0845 on its recent  till receipts.

Is that because the number hasn't yet changed, or because the entry on the website hasn't been updated?

There's a number of smaller stores listed with 03 numbers. There's no pattern to what has changed and what has not.

What's the evil-corporation conspiracy theory on this one then?
Just waiting for someone to say that if they really wanted to do this, it would all have been done in one day...

Good Morning All!

Following my previous post I have now checked ALL my local Tesco store's including the Express and Metro store's and they ALL now have 0345 numbers!

It would now be worth others on here checking if their local store's inc Express and Metro have also changed.

Well done to Tesco Store's so far!



A further update: It would appear that the "contact us" page has also been update for "most" of the Tesco divisions including Store Customer Service and Tesco Direct with 0800 numbers for land-line and 0330 numbers for Mobiles.

So far excluded are: Tesco Phone Shop (0844) and Tesco Mobile (0845)

More info: http://www.tesco.com/help/contact/

Just to confirm I have just looked up the number for the very newly opened Tesco Express store in Dorking (Dorking has been virtually unique up to now in being a completely Tesco free town only served by Sainsbury, Waitrose + a tiny M&S) and it is an 0345 number.  I then checked all my other nearby stores that have been open much longer and they are also all now showing 0345 contact numbers.

I suppose Tesco realised the writing was on the wall with the forthcoming EU Directive's implementation and that they would have to change by next year anyway so why not do it now and get some credit it for it rather than wait till the end and start to get unwelcome media attention as one of the UK's largest retailers.

So there does seem some hope that the big names will simply change all their numbers rather than try to get clever and bring in 0345 for customer service but keep 084 for any other form of telephone enquiry.  I expect their legal advice is you can't differentiate where customer service ends and technical support or similar starts.

Of course Tesco may actually have decided to change for marketing reasons given that their sales are now falling and one of the reasons for this is I think that they have become very complacent about offering good customer service and/or value for money on many of their food lines.

I also feel sure that their customer care statistics cannot have been at all short of regular customer complaints about the high cost of telephoning them.

NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 16^th, 2014 at 4:26pm:

Tesco Mobile is a 50:50 joint venture between Tesco and O2.

NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 16^th, 2014 at 4:47pm:

Both 0845 610 2872 and 0345 610 2872 return unobtainable when called from a BT landline.

Yesterday evening I needed to call Tesco in a hurry about an Online Grocery order that I was possibly not going to be able to at home for when it arrived.  I was only able to call from a mobile (Tesco as it so happens) phone and the call was urgent as I had to decide whether or not I could cancel the delivery rather than make a 2 hour drive home to be there in time.

On the main web page for Tesco Online Grocery shopping at http://www.tesco.com/groceries/ the only phone number listed at the bottom of the page is 0800 323 4040.   I was concerned that even though I have a contract mobile with 750 minutes of calls that the conniving mobile bandits might find a way to not let me use these minutes to a free 0800 number.  This is even though these minutes include all normally payable 01/02/03 numbers.  I do understand that calls to 0800 numbers on mobiles are not currently free.

I therefore visted this website's (www.saynoto0870.com) home page at www.saynoto0870.com and entered the Tesco Grocery number of 0800 323 4040 in the Search To Find Alternative Number box.    On doing so the only single Verified entry returned was for "Tesco.com" and showed both the 0800 number I had entered and an 0845 alternative.  There was no listing at all of either an 01/02 or an 03 geographic number that I could be sure was in my call package.

In a hurry and desperation I called this 0800 number and discovered if I was not at home Tesco simply took my shopping back to base and did not charge me for either the goods or the delivery fee.  Their only comment was one should not do this too often or Tesco might refuse to make future grocery deliveries.

Today I had more time to think about the call charges and so checked my Tesco Mobile online account only to find to my horror I had incurred charged of £0.17 and £1.32 for calls that were respectively 50 and 396 seconds long to the 0800 number.  This suggests a 20p per minute call rate for calling 0800 numbers on my call package compared to approximately 1p per minute for the bundled 750 inclusive landline/mobile minutes (if we assume 1p per minute for those calls and £2.50 per Gb in my 2Gb monthly data allowance).  I found this totally unacceptable given that when I called the 0800 number with Tesco Mobile there was only a warning that the call was not free and that I needed to recall it removing the initial zero.  There was no warning at all that 0800 calls were not even covered by my call bundle for chargeable calls.

I rang Tesco customers services and told them I thought it was despicable to charge for calls to 0800 at 20p per minute when these were cheaper than 01/02/03 to call (i.e. always free) on a landline and therefore surely also cheaper for Tesco Mobile to originate as the called party paid for a part of the call.  I asked not that the 0800 calls be free but only that they be covered by my 750 inlclusive minutes.  Grudgingly they agree to refund the charge on the basis of the misleading announcement about pricing not mentioning that 0800 calls were excluded from call bundles and me never having called an 0800 number with them before.

However on visiting the Tesco Contact Us page at www.tesco.com/help/contact/ just now I discover that they do actually have an 03 alternative number there  for the 0800 number for Tesco Groceries of 0330 123 4040

Can I therefore please request as a matter of urgency that the Verified entry on this site for Tesco.Com is updated to include the 0330 123 4040 number that will be covered by any inclusive calls package on a landline or a mobile.  The current entry is very unhelpful to mobile users by encouraging them to call either an 0800 or an 0845 number when neither of these numbers is likely to covered by a mobile phone inclusive minutes calling package.

bigjohn wrote on Feb 11^th, 2014 at 8:25pm:


I have only recently (as in two weeks ago) switched to having a contract mobile phone (one month contract SIM Only) with Tesco Mobile so I am not in the habit of having lots of free minutes that can be used to call 0800 numbers in this needlessly circuitous manner.

As I thought I made clear I was in a hurry and had very little time left to decide whether or not to stay where I was for another day and cancel the delivery from Tesco (if it was possible) or to drive home in order to be be there for the arrival of the delivery driver.

I went to the main page for Tesco online shopping.  I annoyingly only found the 0800 number there and I consulted this website (which is well aware of the problems with 0800 numbers and being chargeable from mobiles) who still only listed an 0845 alternative for the Tesco Online 0800 grocery number.

In then feeling I had no alternative but to call the 0800 number I was surely in no different a position to the one that 99% of ordinary mobile phone users would be in rather than the 1% of expert money saving geeks who inhabit this website and go to endless handsprings to avoid the normal telco ripoff that most ordinary phone users suffer every day.

We all know why 0800 numbers have not historically been free to call from mobiles (i.e. their own high call rates on pay as you go could then be circumvented) but not to make them inclusive calls in a bundled minutes package when they are cheaper to connect for the mobile network than 01/02/03 numbers is surely inexcusable.

EDIT:-  I have added the 03 number for 0800 buster to my mobile phone address book but life should not have to be this devious or complicated in order for the customer to get a fair deal.  Especially as Tesco has now switched to 03 numbers so should be directing any of their customers who need to call them from a mobile to use the 0330 instead.  Not least because this will also save Tesco money........