SIFA Calling Card

SIFA Calling Card was added to our inventory last week due to several requests from our customers. SIFA has exceptionally low rates, however its only downfall is that it has a 25cent per week maintenance fee.

The weekly maintenance fee timer only begins once you activate this prepaid phone card. The card is manufactured by the same company that brings you First Choice calling card, so it is best used if you live in an area with a local access number, rather than one that is only supported by 800 number access. 800-access incurs an 8 cent/min premium, which is expensive.

View SIFA local access numbers.

Regards,

Tavis McKenzie
Phonecarddepot.com
"Your Path of Least Resistance to Long Distance"

Tags: sifa calling card, maintenance fee, phone card depot, prepaid phone card

Toronto Calling Card Information Site

If you are a Toronto resident looking for reviews and information on various Toronto calling cards, a new site has launched to provide comparisons and rankings of this cities finest prepaid phone cards.

The site was launched two weeks ago and includes many calling cards that we carry, including cici calling card, bita, jia, 20/20, First Choice and SIFA.

In summary, torontocallingcards.ca ranks the cards in this order:

1. First Choice
2. CiCi
3. Gold
4. Fone Buster

Phonecarddepot.com is proud to carry the top 3 cards on this list.

Regards,

Tavis McKenzie
Phonecarddepot.com
"Your path of least resistance to long distance"

Tags: toronto calling cards, cici calling card, jia, sifa, first choice, phone card depot, prepaid phone card, gold calling card

What is UK Premium Service?

You may see "UK Premium Service" as a calling destination when buying a prepaid phone card. UK Premium Services are services that you dial-in to at a higher rate (i.e. your landline or mobile will be billed more for that call). A more technical definition can be found at the bottom of this post.

UK Premium Services Include

• Customer Help Lines
  
• Fax Backs
• Competitions
• Sports Tipster
• Live Information
• also data, customer enquiry, information, Tarot, Horoscopes, Psychic lines & many, many more uses

*What's a "Fax Back": Great question, the owner of the premium service actually makes money for every fax that's sent to that number. i.e. -- Fax your contest entry to 090-xxx-xxx --

UK PREMIUM SERVICE: In the U.K., Premium Rate Service (PRS) is a telephone service that provides recorded information or live conversation for callers similar to 1-900 number service in the U.S. Callers are charged a higher rate on their phone bill, which is then split between the service provider and the network operator who leases the PRS number to the provider. PRS is a subcategory of Number Translation Service (NTS), Premium Rate Service (PRS) is a telephone service that provides recorded information or live conversation for callers similar to 1-900 number service in the U.S. Callers are charged a higher rate on their phone bill, which is then split between the service provider and the network operator who leases the PRS number to the provider. PRS is a subcategory of Number Translation Service (NTS), and all PRS numbers begin with 090 with 0909 reserved exclusively for adult content services.


Regards,

Tavis McKenzie
Phonecarddepot.com
"Your Path of Least Resistance to Low Long Distance"

Tags: UK Premium Service, prepaid phone card, calling card, calling card fees, phone card, PRS, NTS, Phone Card Depot

Q&A: My Calling Card Doesn't Work

Q: I bought 2 calling cards for the Caribbean, at my variety store and THEY DON'T WORK. What happened? Have they expired? Did the variety store that I bought them at rip me off? They are Can/Carrib cards.

-Jane

A: On Nov. 11., 2006, Phone Card Depot wrote:

Jane,

I've never heard of that card. There are several reasons why the card may not work. Here's a link to a post I made a while back about what to do if the card doesn't work: Prepaid Phone Card Doesn't Work: Steps to Take

LOCAL ACCESS DOES NOT WORK
If the local access number does not work, it could be for 2 reasons.
a) the card issuer has gone out of business
b) they are having temporary technical difficulties.

LOCAL ACCESS WORKS: "INVALID PIN"
a) Expired: Most calling cards have expiry dates of 6 months after you first enter your PIN number. I have seen 3 months, but this is rare.
b) Used by someone else: If the voice prompt says "You have 0.21 cents remaining" (or some other very low balance), it may mean that the card you have was used by someone else.

DID THE VARIETY STORE RIP YOU OFF?
It depends whether or not they knew that they were selling you an inoperable product. If you suspect that the variety store did rip you off, then It would be interesting to see if you went back there and asked to buy another one of those cards from them. When they put it on the counter ask "does this work?". They will say yes, then say "okay I'll take it, but only if I can try it here and now on my cell phone in front of you".


Regards,





Tavis McKenzie
GM, Phonecarddepot.com

Tags: calling card doesn't work, cici calling card, calling card fraud, fraud, calling card, prepaid phone card

Why Do Calling Card Companies Go Out of Business

Calling card manufacturers are typically anonymous businesses that create products that can be sold now and used later. So many of them go out of business because they have sold their inventory and and they now want to avoid the carrier rates that they will be charged once consumers start to use their card.

===== potential transcript from an illegal calling card operation

Shady Supplier/Broker A: "Let's make 10,000 $5 calling cards with insanely low long distance rates and sell them to local variety stores for $3... they will in turn, sell it to consumers at $5"

Shady Supplier/Broker B: "... but we can't find a carrier to route these calls at such low rates"

Shady Supplier/Broker A: "Don't worry, we'll sell all 10,000 cards, and in one month's time, only about 5% of those cards will have been used by consumers...so we'll take a loss on the carrier rates on that small 5%, the rest will still be sitting at the variety stores".

Shady Supplier/Broker B: "Then what?"

Shady Supplier/Broker A: "Ha, simple, we just cancel our carrier services, and make off with our $30,000 that we got when we sold the cards to the stores.

Shady Supplier/Broker B: "You're smart"

Shady Supplier/Broker A: "Yeah, I am."

==================================================

What can the savvy consumer do about this?
a) Avoid the Top 5 Calling Card Purchase Mistakes
b) Buy CiCi, First Choice and Global Papa (USA) Calling Cards from a reputable retailer.

Regards,

Tavis McKenzie
GM, Phone Card Depot

Tags: calling card fraud, cici calling card, global papa calling card, first choice calling card, phone card depot, calling card, phone card