Greggs SMS VERIFICATION Receive the Greggs code on a rented number.

Greggs, the UK bakery chain, runs its rewards and ordering through its own app, and an account there can ask for a mobile number to confirm who you are. The app is built for UK customers, so the number it expects is a UK mobile in the +44 7 range. A rented UK number answers that one confirmation without adding your personal line to another retailer's customer list.

A coffee-and-sausage-roll app does not need your real number for much after sign-up. Offers and receipts arrive in the app and by email, and the phone field mostly feeds marketing texts and account checks. Keeping that field separate from the number your bank and your family use is ordinary privacy hygiene.

What a UK retail app does with your number

Retail apps in the UK collect a mobile number for two jobs. One is confirming the account belongs to a real person with a phone, which is what the SMS code does. The other is marketing, and under UK rules that part needs your consent, which you can decline or withdraw in the app's settings.

Once the account is confirmed, sign-in usually runs on the email and password. Check the app's profile screen for which details it holds, and make sure the email is one you read, since that is where password resets go.

Why the number has to be a UK mobile

A UK mobile number starts 07 at home and +44 7 from abroad, and the app's form is built around that shape. Numbers from free SMS websites are shared by hundreds of visitors and often come from internet telephony ranges, which retailers' SMS providers refuse or never deliver to. The numbers rented here come from real UK mobile ranges.

Enter the number without the leading 0 when the form already shows +44. If it has a single field, the full +44 7 version usually works. For other UK food apps, the same approach covers Deliveroo.

Keeping to the scheme's rules

Loyalty schemes are written for one account per person, and most retailers state in their terms that they can close accounts opened to collect extra welcome offers. A rented number does not change that, and our acceptable use policy asks the same. Use it to keep your own number private, or to test how the sign-up behaves if you build for UK retail.

Rewards live on the account, so they do not disappear when the rented number returns to the pool. What you would lose is the ability to receive a code on that number again, so keep the email on the account current.