Just found this on www.vodafone.co.uk/iou

Need to call home? Need to text back? Need one more download?

Vodafone IOU gives you an extra £2 when you run out of credit. You can use it for everything from calls and texts to browsing the web. You can even use it when you’re abroad.

£2 IOU in case your credit runs out
Use it for calls, texts and web browsing
Pay back the IOU when you top up
Set up your IOU in seconds

In other words they nicked the lend a quid thing from O2 but made it 2 quid.

And orange reserve credit apart from orange never made you pay it back

Which was nicked from Orange wasn't it?

Yes. Orange Reserve Tank.

So, by your reasoning, every other UK mobile company copied Voda in the first place as they were the first network in this country?

What a strange thing to say. Its good that Vodafone customers now have a service that other networks have offered for a while. Hopefully, the remaining networks will do the same thing.

No, by his reasoning, Vodafone were one of the last carriers to offer this service. I don't think O2 charge for it as long as you top up within 7 days or something like that, I can't remember. I think all carriers should offer this, the days of the phone box are over. BT aren't building them anymore, I don't feel safe in them even being a well-built guy and the only way to make a free call is reverse charges.