Saturday, July 26, 2008

Stealth Fees will kill you

Why do calling cards do this? The following is from French Fries, a great card on the surface:

On a $2 card:
$0.89 fee 24 hours after the first use
$0.89 fee every 5 days after that.
Upto 60% disconnect fee for each call.


So lets say you buy this card, which promises 150 minutes to China and spend 40 cents. Tack on the disconnect fee, and you have spent, instead of 40 cents, 24 more cents for a total of 64 cents. Next day you wake up and dial again, and the available balance is now 47 cents. Remember the 89 cent fee? Guess that explains the 47 cents balance

For this, I like InTouchCard (www.intouchcard.com): no hidden fees, no maintenance fees. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Go check it out.