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Mobile customer's £200 boost in 10 minutes after texting Martin Lewis' 5-digit number
Reach Daily Express | January 30, 2026 11:41 PM CST

Money expert Martin Lewis has shared a 'win' from a mobile phone customer who saved £200 in 10 minutes after texting a number shared by the money saving expert.

On the latest episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1 on Tuesday, January 27, Martin heard from a viewer who had success with a tip shared in the previous week's episode.

Martin had taken his audience through some key tips for slashing your mobile phone bills, and one mobile phone customer managed to slash £200 a year off his costs in just 10 minutes by following Martin's tips.

Co-host Jeanette Kwayke read out the message the customer sent into the show, which said: "I just asked for my PAC code and within 10 minutes I got a phone call from them and my bill dropped from £31.50 to £14, could have gone lower but kept the EU roaming on, also still have three months of contract left, win win."

Martin replied: "That's £200 a year. If you watch back last week you'll see I went through three steps, some people getting their bills down to £3. The key to that one, though, is literally, all he did is text PAC to 65075, which is the way of getting the code you need to leave. And because they thought he was leaving they gave him a much cheaper deal. It's a good shortcut."

To take advantage of this tip, step one is find out if you're free to switch. Text INFO to 85075 - this will tell you if you're in contract or out of contract and how much it will cost to switch. With Three, Smarty or ID Mobile you also need to reply with your date of birth.

Second, find the best deals by doing a price comparison 'by finding the cheapest SIM that fits your needs', says Martin. Generally, the best deals come from price comparison websites with promotional deals on top of the tariffs.

Step three is to find a virtual network and find a cheaper price on the same signal. This is because many mobile firms actually piggyback off a larger network. There are only four real networks, and two of them have just merged. Vodafone, Three, O2 and EE. Every other network just piggybacks off the big four's signals. But firms like Smarty (uses Three) and Tesco Mobile (uses O2) are the same signal and network, just at a cheaper price.

But you can skip the first three steps in many cases and just use ask for your PAC code with a three-letter text: PAC.

Martin added in a previous episode: "The last step in the process once you know where you want to shift your mobile phone custom to is to text PAC to 65075. It's free. What that does is request your porting authorisation code from your existing mobile phone provider, that you can give to the new one, so you can move your number across."

The Martin Lewis Money Show Live episode from Tuesday, January 27 is still available to watch on ITVX.


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