Disadvantages of Phone Cards

Every one who has ever used phone cards hates them, and for very good reasons. Here are the
Top Ten Reasons Why Everyone Hates Phone Cards:

1. No quality guarantees.
   Phone cards carry the stigma of fly-by-night scam companies with unreliable call quality and false advertised minutes. Once these phone card companies disappear, so will your prepaid minutes.

2. Poor or non-existent customer services.
   If  you think the call quality is not what you expected, don't assume you would be able to get a hold of their customer service representatives on the phone or email anytime soon.

3. Unadvertised or ambiguous expiry dates.
   Like milk in your refrigerator, once your card expires, you'd have to dispose of it together with your unused minutes.

4. Undisclosed or confusing hidden charges.
   Sure, many phone cards will claim they have the lowest rates around. But for them to lower the per-minute rate means to take a cut in profit, hence the extra fees.

   These extra fees such as monthly changes, activation charges, connection fees, maintenance fees, service charges, surcharges all eat away at the total dollar value of the card. That 120 minutes you think you're getting will actually be a lot, lot less.

5. Minute usage beginning as soon as you dial.
   Logically, you would think it would begin when a connection is made. Think again. Many phone cards debit minutes or units even when you don't connect with the party you're calling.

6. Rounding charge.
   Calls are billed in blocks of three minutes, sometimes even as high as five minutes.
   This means that even calls under one minute use five minutes of the card's value. Any call less than 10 minutes, but more than five minutes, uses 10 minutes of the card's value.

7. A phone card is like cash. If lost, stolen or destroyed, it's gone.
   Once you've used a card, it's yours. There's no way to cancel or close a phone card if you lose it.

8. Delivery charges.
   You may also be charged a delivery fee if you order your phone card from the Internet or another source. There's also the chance you won't receive your card or get a valid PIN.

9. Busy access numbers.
   If you can't connect to the access number, you'll never get through to make the call in the first place.

10. No accountability.
    Many companies and their shady salesmen drop their scam phone cards in convenience stores, gasoline stations, etc. at rock bottom prices. But if you find the quality is not what you had expected, store owners will refuse giving refunds because they feel they are not solely responsible or liable for defective products.