CTA Is bogus

[outwest77]

[This message has been edited by outwest77]

The last PHone CARD i posted, CTA worldcard, 10 bucks for 95 mins
to a cell phone in the phils is bogus.

I kept wondering why my minutes never added up to what i thought they were supposed to be. My last 10 bucks call i called twice, which was supposed to add up to 95 minutes. first call 46 min second call 16 mins which adds up to 62 minutes, Thats all i used. So i should have 33 minutes left on that card. How many does it say i have left when i call again. ? FOUR MINUTES

Called customer service, oh sir you have to remember the one time 50cents fee that applies after the first use. Ok , i said that still does not account for all my lost minutes. Oh Sir what about the 20% tax which applies to each Call, Its in the fine print, she says. I checked their
website and its NOT in the fine print, the only thing it talks about is the 50 cent maintenance fee. I am on hold for customer service now
to give them a piece of mind.

Jesus. What a ripoff, I have never had another phone card not give me the minutes it promised, but to all the other guys who are buying this card , next time count your minutes and watch how much they deduct , they DONT give you the minutes they promise.

Sigh, i thought i found a great deal. Sory to anyone who bought the card because of my recommendation, I feel duped also. I am at a loss as to what to do to report these guys, probably wont do much good, i think i will call the BBB in that state.

[shadow]

... in response to CTA Is bogus, posted by outwest77 on Dec 20, 2002

10 bucks for 62 minutes isn't exactly a ripoff.

Most of the cards I have used didn't quite add up the way they led a person to believe. I've used many that didn't come anywhere near the value you are complaining about.

Larry.

[outwest77]

... in response to Still,..., posted by shadow on Dec 21, 2002

[This message has been edited by outwest77]

Hi Shadow

Yes 62 minutes is not  a terrible price for 10 bucks
but when they shave 33% of your minutes from the 95 minutes they quoted you, thats a scam, pure and simple,  I told the guy at customer service , if you want to add a fat tax on it, add it on the card price before i buy it, whatever you do, put it upfront, If you quote me this many minutes on the card, I should get that many minutes.

I know a lot of cards end up playing games but i hate when im on the other end of the game, i have better things to do than play games with phone cards.

[Ray]

... in response to CTA Is bogus, posted by outwest77 on Dec 20, 2002

Outwest on CTA card: “If you can beat that with lucky sea I will eat my hat”. It’s a good thing that you didn’t say you would eat Dave H’s purple G-string. LOL!

You’re right though. There are a whole bunch of fly-by-night outfits selling prepaid phone cards and there is a lot of competition in the business. That’s how they sell the cards, by claiming more minutes than anyone else. But there are often all kinds of hidden costs. You should go to one of the local Filipino markets here in San Diego and see all the phone card posters plastered all over the windows. If you move the shopping carts out of the way and get up real close, you can read the fine print with all the restrictions and “hidden” charges. Hell, a lot of those outfits go out of business overnight and then you’re SOL, so it’s important not to buy too many at one time.

I’ve found that the well-established companies usually give the best, honest rates and service. We have been using mostly Lucky Sea because we’ve never had any problems with them and the connections are quick and reliable. Any well-known card sold in your area with a local access discount is probably the best way to go in the long run. It seems that EVERYBODY sells phone cards for the Philippines around here, so there are almost always special promos going on. Even my dentist sells them (O.K., give me an appointment for a Friday morning and I’ll take two of those phone cards…). The local Filipino bakery gives a 10% discount on all phone cards every Friday and another local Filipino supermarket has been selling $10 phone cards for $8, so the number of minutes per card isn’t always the best deal in town.

Sometimes the cards with connection fees are the best deal if you make long calls to a landline and use it up all at once. I wouldn’t use anything with a connect fee though if you’re calling a cell phone because of the frequent disconnect problems on the other end. We’ve been using Barkada and Tipid Pinoy recently because of the $8 price for a $10 card. I’ll let you know how they work out over time.

Ray

[The Walker]

... in response to Re: CTA Is bogus, posted by Ray on Dec 20, 2002


I just use my regular long-distance company. No connect fees, no taxes. Flat $0.25 a minute ($0.28 to a cell phone), and with our call volume to the Philippines, we generally qualify for a discount most months that brings it down to $0.18 a minute after the first 750 minutes. Six second increment billing, no worrying that you only have 4 minutes or 7 minutes left on a card or anything. I tried all the cards and gave them up, because no matter how cheap they claimed to be, we always spent more on cards than using our regular service. And when we spend upwards of $220 per month on calls just to the Philippines now, you can imagine what it used to cost us. Our total long distance bill, adding in business, averages $350/month, and on US calls we get it at 3.9-4.5 cents per minute, depending on whether or not it is interstate or intralata.

Yeah, she gabs to momma and sisters and aunties a lot, but she's worth it. Keeps her happy and cuddly, so it is cheap at the price.

OBTW, Niece is doing well now. Her old boyfriend (that the family sent her to the US to break up) has gone elsewhere and she has a nice suitor now. Good lad with a decent government job. Too bad she didn't cast her fate here in the US as she would have made some Yankee a happy man.

If you want to see what she sort of looks like, there is a girl on a Philippine dating service that looks a good deal like her.

http://www.afilipinabride.com/member13/31322.html

Except that Niece's cleavage starts about where the pearls end on this girl. The women in Vicky's family tend to run busty, with quite narrow waists. No, I don't cruise the Filipina dating services, a local boy who took out Niece a couple of times (after a rather stern interview with me, I was, after all, in-loco-parentis) and who has been bitten with the Filipina bug, emailed me with the URL.

You can bet that the few boys who did date Niece had to pass muster. I let them know that I was responsible for her, and that I would be extremely depressed if she came back in any condition other than as she left the house. There were no problems. But you should have seen the looks Niece and Vicky got when they were in town together in the summer, wearing skirts and blouses.

Don

[Ray]

... in response to Re: Re: CTA Is bogus, posted by The Walker on Dec 20, 2002

After the first 750 minutes? That's a lot of talking! It sounds like you’re getting a pretty good deal on your long distance company. That beats Costco’s long distance service. Remember the days of ATT's monopoly when it cost $3/min to call home from overseas with a $9 minimum? You could easily spend a week's pay (military) for one call home.

The big problem with using your regular long distance service is that it’s extremely hard to budget the phone costs for those that need to. I have seen many Fil-Am marriages get off to a rocky start because of money issues and long distance charges for calling home often cause some big conflicts. Phone cards are really great for the guys who want to keep their phone bills in check. If a couple wants to budget $50/month for calling home, they can simply buy $50 in phone cards every month. That way the wife can keep track of her calls easier and they avoid the bad feelings when the husband jumps all over her after they get that surprise $500 phone bill at the end of the month. But one of the worst things a guy can do to is cut off her long distance calls altogether because of the cost. The important thing is to discourage the relatives from calling collect from the Phils because that’s where the huge charges can come in. Because it costs so much more to call from over there, they call us first from their cell phone and then she calls them right back with a phone card. Works good for us.

Ray

[The Walker]

... in response to Long distance costs, posted by Ray on Dec 21, 2002

As I said, if talking to her mom and female relatives keeps her happy and cuddly, it is cheap at the price. She calls back every other day or so and yaks for an hour or more. My Tagalog is getting better and I get the gist of it all but whatever they are talking about is fine with me. Together we can easily afford the cost, so I look on it as an investment in the mariage. And with my regular service there are no "connection fees" or special taxes or suspicious timing or other fees or fine print or anything else. Just the time, the cost per minute and the regular sales tax. Besides, Vicky was really good about the time thing at first, when we were still getting our finances straight and had just expanded the livestock count and were cash strapped for a few months. She would get an oven timer and use it religiously. But now, well, she could talk more than she does and I would not sweat it.

Yeah, I remember calling long distance back in the 1970's, and the amazing costs. I usually called MARS when I could from overseas. It was tons cheaper. You had to say "over" and such but that was not a problem for me as I was used to radio talk. For the folks back home it was confusing sometimes and funny. And you forgot to mention what a time it was finding an operator who could speak English if you weren't in an area near an American military base. I could usually speak the lingua franka, but connecting to an operator in the US could be an amazing thing when they were from Georgia and all you operator could speak was Farsi or Thai or Greek or something.

Don

[Michael B]

... in response to Re: Re: CTA Is bogus, posted by The Walker on Dec 20, 2002

First, a line from the movie "Clueless" (father talking to the daughter's date) "Hey, YOU! Anything happens, I've got a .45 and a shovel....and I doubt anybody will miss you"

Hey, Walker, by my math, you're spending $130 a month on US long distance. Buy a cell phone (actually, most of them are FREE after rebate). You can get a service plan with 1000 minutes a month for $40.00, (maybe about $45-47 with the taxes), use THAT for your within the USA long distance.

[The Walker]

... in response to Buy a cell phone, posted by Michael B on Dec 20, 2002


A lot of mine is from my toll-free numbers. I have a personal toll free (that my kids and grandson and other family use to call me) and a business toll-free. You would be surprised at the total number of minutes of long distance I accumulate. I am starting to do a lot of business in Europe and Australia and Argentina and I am starting to work up contacts in Russia. Frozen bull semen is big business and pays dividends year round. Collecting it can be adventuresome. And good breeding stock is valuable almost anyhwere. The internet helps a lot, but people still want to hear your voice. In fact, we may be flying to Argentina after New Years. You can imagine Vicky is going to just love that. Going from the US to Argentina in January? Swapping seasons? She'll be in hog heaven. She is already shopping. I'll melt.

Fortunately we will not have to fly commercial. An old friend from Texas, who happens to be filthy rich, an oil man who's hobby is cattle, is going too and will pick us up in his Gulfstream 550 extended range jet and we'll fly direct from here to Buenos Aries. Nothing like traveling in luxury, I say. Flying at 41,000 feet at mach 0.8 is the only way to go. Vicky has never been in a private luxury jet and this will open her eyes.

Don

[outwest77]

... in response to Re: CTA Is bogus, posted by Ray on Dec 20, 2002

I tried tipid Pinoy but we have very few locals selling them and the lady ran out and only had 5 left and kept them for herself lol.

Ya im so mad at that CTA worldcard i threatened them and told them they are scammers , checked the BBB in new jersey and no complaints, im shocked,

I think many people just dont watch their minutes or they are like me and think, hmm i guess i talked longer than i thought, oh well live and learn, no biggee.