Domestic Calling card(s) for cheap.

[ironk]

I thought the following was a pretty good deal:

LiNK

Their legal info:

Super Quick All sales prices are in US Dollars. Local or regional phone company charges may apply. No connection fees. No maintentance fee applies. Toll free access from a payphone will incur a 50.0¢ per call surcharge. Calls to International cellular phones may be billed at a different rate. Rates and fees are subject to change without notice, except where prohibited by law. An extra 1¢ per min charge will apply when calling from outside of the contiguous 48 states. Usage rounded to full minutes. Total per-call charge rounded to nearest whole cent. Card expires 12 months from first use or 2 years from purchase. No cash value. Service provided by IDT

I guess what sets this apart is that there aren't any hidden fees as i could tell. Anyhow, do you guys have anything better for domestic calling?

Also found some faq's for calling cards:

All about phone cards and calling cards

 

[emjem]

Is this a hidden charge?: "Local or regional phone company charges may apply."

 

[shmuelraigs]

beware i'm not sure about this one but most cards by idt have a $.69 service fee so you would have to look into it or some other card but i do know of a card called one world that has no extra charges and it's 1.7 cents a minute to anywhere in the us and canada using the local access number

 

[ironk]

The only bad thing i found out about it is this:

Rates and fees are subject to change without notice, except where prohibited by law.

And thats not even that bad..other than that, i don't see any other hidden charges.

Also, where is this one world card? Links please? thx.

 

[ironk]

bump

 

[puppyfriend]

Cold. Arctic frozen waste cold. At 99 cent only stores, www.99only.com, you can get 99 minutes for 99 cents. I've been buying these cards for months for my parent's. Works like a charm. 1 penny a minute in the US. 5-8 cents a minute for the rest of the world.

 

[PagannagaP]

I might just look into that 99cent store. Could do with a cheap way to call the UK. Thx.

 

[mscdex0]

Originally posted by: puppyfriend
Cold. Arctic frozen waste cold. At 99 cent only stores, www.99only.com, you can get 99 minutes for 99 cents. I've been buying these cards for months for my parent's. Works like a charm. 1 penny a minute in the US. 5-8 cents a minute for the rest of the world.

Only good if you live in California, Arizona, Nevada, or Texas.

 

[Stoerm]

I've used www.justphonecards.com for years for good deals on internation phone cards too. Check them out if you need to call overseas. Good service from those folks.

 

[zemel]

Try looking at the MCI calling cards sold at Costco.

 

[dchakrab]

I've actually used this company before...they're ok, and cheap (to call india, for me) but there IS a hidden fee...they charge a tax or something that works out an extra couple of cents per minute. It comes to about 12 cents per minute to India, for me, on a 10 cent a minute card.

Still, not a bad deal. I can get better ones in the small indian groceries up on Devon Ave, Chicago, when i can be bothered to head up there, but for an online deal, this one seems ok so far.

-D.

 

[junthin]

A good reliable phone card (maybe not the cheapest around) is the AT&T phone cards available at Sam's Club. No hidden fees, doesn't cancel on you after X amount of time. Btw, all phone cards charge a surcharge when the phone card is used on a pay phone. The "surcharge" varies. Some of the cheaper calling cards, tend to charge a lot for these surcharges, so beware.

If you are interested in cheap phone cards, try your local "Chinatown", a lot of stores carry cheap cards. Look for ones that are backed by semi-decent companies like Qwest or what not.

 

[RossMAN]

BigZoo.com rocks despite their low $0.75 per month fee.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
BigZoo.com rocks despite their low $0.75 per month fee.

BigZoo or OneSuite are the way to go.

I used them for quite some time.

Viper GTS

 

[ironk]

Onesuite looks good, but they don't seem to say their fees for cards up front. I think one has to sign up to see them. Bigzoo looks like is only international...

 

[INXSible]

Originally posted by: ironk
Onesuite looks good, but they don't seem to say their fees for cards up front. I think one has to sign up to see them. Bigzoo looks like is only international...

BigZoo.com Domestic rate is 3.9¢ when connecting w/Toll-Free and 2.9¢ when connecting w/Local Number. 75¢ monthly fee will be deducted automatically from your account.

INDIA : 13.9¢ average
VIETNAM: 40.9¢ average

OneSuite.com Domestic rate is 2.9¢ when connecting w/Toll-Free Number and 2.5¢ when connecting w/Local Number. NO Monthly fee, NO connection charges.

INDIA : 20¢ average
VIETNAM: 38¢ average

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: ironk
Onesuite looks good, but they don't seem to say their fees for cards up front. I think one has to sign up to see them. Bigzoo looks like is only international...

They are the same and BigZoo.com does BOTH domestic and international.

I should know as I have been a happy customer for 3+ years.

 

[dchakrab]

Update on uniontelecard.com:

I ordered, got my confirmation email with my pin number. Then i got another one, for two more cards, total $10. UnionTelecard doesn't answer their phones for three hours. Their website email form sends me three bounces per email, no responses till now (a week later)...and I'm still waiting.

So i try calling again, and this time i get through, and talk to Noelia. She tells me they're not responsible if i let someone else use my computer and buy phone cards as me, etc, so it's not their headache...they can only refund the unused card, and i'm liable for the one someone else's been using all this time. So i get her to confirm that the IP address was different from the one i used when i was ordering (which she said was normal, since i'm using a Mac and not a Windows machine(!) ) and that the phone number the calls were made from was different from mine. Then she gets scared because she's not supposed to give me that number, so she refuses to repeat it for me to write down (damn)...now it looks way too hard to pin this on me as a mistake on my end, since I'm telling her i have software and hardware firewalls and am behind two routers. Too many big words. Then she said she can't transfer me to a superviser, no one's there...after some more questions, she transfers me to a superviser, who tells me to call my credit card and dispute the charges if i want to, but they're not going to refund jack.

AVOID this company like the plague. I'm going to be jumping through a lot of hoops for my $10 back, and since they won't let me delete my information on their site without putting in ANOTHER valid credit card, there's absolutely no guarantee that i'm not going to be facing any number of charges from them from now on.

Comments, suggestions, advice appreciated. This company had great prices, but sucks crusty (i'll censor the rest of this sentence)...wasn't there a convenient thread for reporting rude / terrible CSR experiences somewhere?

-D.

 

[RossMAN]

dchakrab - I've NEVER had a problem with BigZoo.com

 

[dchakrab]

Man, Rossman, now i've got webhosting recommended by you (HostPC) and phone cards recommended by you...you got any idea what classes i should take? Or where i can find a job?

BigZoo looks good, india advertised from 8 cents a minute, 12 cents to the part of india i normally call (Calcutta) and for cell phones there. Time to switch, as soon as Amex sends me my new card to keep UnionTelecard from screwing me over some more when the BBB contacts them...

Thanks!

Dave.

 

[ironk]

ordered, got my confirmation email with my pin number. Then i got another one, for two more cards, total $10. UnionTelecard doesn't answer their phones for three hours. Their website email form sends me three bounces per email, no responses till now (a week later)...and I'm still waiting. So i try calling again, and this time i get through, and talk to Noelia. She tells me they're not responsible if i let someone else use my computer and buy phone cards as me, etc, so it's not their headache...they can only refund the unused card, and i'm liable for the one someone else's been using all this time.

Huh? What exactly happened and why were you trying to contact them? It looks like part of the story is missing in there.

 

[Hsam]

I haven't had any problem with uniontelecard.com and I used that company for a long time till they stateded that they would be charging 20% service fee at the completion of a card which I used to use all the time. So I moved on to the starphonecard.com who had better price. (actually to good to be true price - 1.52cent per min to cellphone in south korea which is like only 1/4-1/5 of the cheapest price I have seen or used) And of course that was NOT true but as usual, they always have the fine print saying "rate can change anytime". Price came out to be about 7cents per min which sucked.

They do have pretty good rate however since they deal with lot of different companies and you can pick and choose. You just gotta find the right one with correct price which is a bit of pain. One of the better one I have found so far is Silver Star which offers local access number when available and gives you extra minutes for using that number instead of 800 number.

Avoid Garuda since if offers the cheapest rate on paper but you will get inflated rate when you actually use it. Then again you might want to buy the cheapest card ($5) and try out the destination you call the most just in case the rate for korea was the only rate that got changed. Happy calling~

 

[Hsam]

dchakrab, cheapest rate to India (Calcutta) was 7.41 cents per min with no connection fee from starphonecard.com. The Silver Star which I use mostly now days have 11cent per min charge but you might get quite a bit more minutes if you live in an area where they have local access number. If I were you I would buy 4 different card with $5 limit and try them out yourself and sticking with one card that has best connection quality and best "current" rate.

 

[ironk]

Looks like onesuite beats them all domestic wise.

 

[dchakrab]

Originally posted by: ironk

ordered, got my confirmation email with my pin number. Then i got another one, for two more cards, total $10. UnionTelecard doesn't answer their phones for three hours. Their website email form sends me three bounces per email, no responses till now (a week later)...and I'm still waiting. So i try calling again, and this time i get through, and talk to Noelia. She tells me they're not responsible if i let someone else use my computer and buy phone cards as me, etc, so it's not their headache...they can only refund the unused card, and i'm liable for the one someone else's been using all this time.

Huh? What exactly happened and why were you trying to contact them? It looks like part of the story is missing in there.

Uh...I was calling them because I got a second confirmation email, totalling an extra $10, for cards I didn't order.

Incidentally, Rossman, I tried bigzoo...their rates to India are decent, but call quality on a local number is absolutely terrible, and even drops connections sometimes (Hyde Park, Chicago). Spent most of my first $10 there asking the other person to repeat what they were saying 4-5 times so I could understand them.

-Dave.