[roryirvine]

There's no such service, and it's very unlikely that there ever would be given the attitude of the UK telecoms regulator.

There are things like premium rate phone lines (which you can dial for entering competitions) and special SMS short codes that allow you to send small amounts which get charged to your phone bill (typically used for charity campaigns - eg. "Text 'GIVE £5' to 71234").

But both of those systems require you to take specific action - there's nothing that would allow someone else to apply a charge to your bill on your behalf without your direct involvement. OfCom would have kittens if anyone were ever to suggest setting up something like that.

It's likely that the restaurants in this case were simply confused by a number starting with a + rather than a digit.