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Consumer Information on Prepaid Phone Cards

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Prepaid phone cards are valued in either dollars or units. For example, you could purchase a prepaid phone card with a $20 value (a prepaid phone card that is valued in dollars), or you could purchase a prepaid phone card with 60 units (a prepaid phone card that is valued in units). Typically for calls within the United States, 1 unit = 1 minute of calling within the United States (domestic calling).

However, even from the same phone company, prepaid phone card rates can vary drastically.

Similar cards from the same phone company in the same store can also have drastically different rates for the same calls, and so please check the following about each prepaid phone card before you purchase it. To help you, typically there is a customer service number on the prepaid phone card that you can call to get answers to these questions.

Can you call where you want to call with the prepaid phone card? Some cards limit you to specific geographic areas.
How much will it cost per minute for each call you want to make?
Are there any minimum call charges? For example, if you call and get an answering machine, how much will that call cost you?
If you are planning on calling from a payphone, how much is the payphone surcharge?
Are there any other surcharges based on where you are calling from?
Is there a per call surcharge? If so, how much is it for each state or country you want to call? Surcharges can vary by country, and so please check for each country you want to call.
Does the prepaid phone card have a recurring periodic fee? There are calling cards that will charge you a recurring fee every week, every month, or every year.
Prepaid Phone Card Toll-Free Access Number: Busy Signal Issue
How often do consumers in your area get busy signals when attempting to dial the prepaid phone card's toll-free access phone number to place phone calls? This can become a serious issue, and so it is wise to carry prepaid phone cards from at least two different major phone companies.
How much confidence do you have that the prepaid phone card’s phone company will stay in business long enough for you to completely use the prepaid phone card? Many consumers have purchased prepaid phone cards only to have the company that provides the phone service go out-of-business, which made their cards worthless. That is why we focus on prepaid phone cards from the major phone companies.
Is the prepaid phone card rechargeable? If not, what happens if you have a prepaid phone card balance that is less than the call you want to make? Can the card balance be transferred to another prepaid phone card with the same toll free access number? For example, several of MCI’s non-rechargeable prepaid phone cards allow these balance transfers.
If the prepaid phone card is rechargeable, what is the per minute rate to recharge the card? Is the recharge rate less than the prepaid phone card’s original rate? Are there any fees for recharging the card? A benefit of a rechargeable card is that you typically can call a customer service number and add credits to the card before using it.
Is there a sign-up or activation fee?
When will the prepaid phone card expire? For example, most cards expire six months after first use. Most of MCI’s prepaid phone cards can only be used for at most up to 1 year from the time they are activated. This varies by MCI prepaid phone card, and so please direct this question to the MCI customer service number that you find on the card you purchase.
Can you dial the prepaid phone card's toll free number from your phone? Typically this is only an issue if you have a small local phone company that does not yet handle the 1.888 toll free numbers.
Does the prepaid phone card have a 24 hour customer service number? This can be extremely important if you have a rechargeable prepaid phone card that you are keeping in your wallet for calls away from home. For example, you may need to call customer service to
- recharge a rechargeable prepaid phone card
- determine why your prepaid phone card doesn't work
- determine how much it will cost to make a specific call
- determine the current value of your prepaid phone card
- determine when your prepaid phone card will expire
- verify that your prepaid phone card was properly debited for a specific phone call
- ask other questions about your prepaid phone card...
Chain-call dialing. Can you in one phone card usage make multiple phone calls with the phone card without having to reenter your phone card information for each phone call? We refer to this feature as chain-call dialing. For example, with the MCI WorldCom prepaid phone card that was sold by Costco, you could press the # key twice to disconnect the current call and place a new phone call without having to reenter your prepaid phone card information. With the AT&T prepaid phone cards, you can press the * key three times to chain-call dial.
- Depending upon how the specific prepaid phone card handles this feature, you may not want this feature because it may actually make it impossible for you to use some automated phone systems, such as voice mail systems. For more information on this potential problem, please see the section at the end of this web page on # key problems.
- You may be able to save money with this feature if you tend to make multiple phone calls from a payphone in the same time period: call person A, and then immediately call person B, and then immediately call person C...
- If the prepaid phone card phone supports chain-call dialing
  - does the phone card charge you 1 payphone surcharge despite how many calls you may actually chain-call dial together?
  - or, does it charge a payphone surcharge for each and every call you make from a payphone regardless of whether or not you chain-call dialed the calls?

Buying

The best prepaid phone card rates appear to be with the prepaid phone cards sold by Costco and SAM's Club. For example, in December 2000 we found prepaid phone cards at Costco and at SAM's Club that were 4.2 cents per minute or 4.16 cents per minute for state-to-state and in-state calls with no hidden fees or gotchas.

If you do not live, breath, and sleep prepaid phone cards, we would recommend initially buying prepaid calling cards from a well known phone company or a wholesale store: Costco, SAM's Club, AT&T, MCI, Sprint… Also, please review this section before actually purchasing and using a prepaid phone card. Most prepaid phone cards do expire, with or without actual usage, and so you need to thoroughly understand each prepaid phone card before you purchase it.

Because prepaid phone card companies do not want to compete with the stores that also sell their prepaid phone cards, such as 7-Eleven selling AT&T’s prepaid phone cards, they sometimes will charge you the highest rates for their prepaid phone cards if you purchase the cards directly from them. For example, if you called MCI in November 1999, the best rate they would have offered you over the phone was $0.25 per minute, but at the time there were major stores that were selling MCI prepaid phone cards for less than $0.10 per domestic minute.

If you want the current list of major stores that resell a phone company’s prepaid phone cards, please call that phone company’s sales number.

$0.06 Per Minute or Less for Domestic Calling

If you cannot find a rechargeable prepaid phone card that offers domestic calling for $0.06 per minute or less, please let us know by completing the form at

http://www.callsense.com/tellus/prepaid_phonecards.htm

If you know of major stores that offer prepaid phone cards with a domestic calling rate that is $0.06 per minute or less, please let us know by completing the form at

http://www.callsense.com/tellus/prepaid_phonecards.htm

Online Planet Store

When possible and feasible, we will attempt to offer for sale the best prepaid phone card(s) we find from Online Planet Store.

Rechargeable versus Non-Rechargeable

Many of the prepaid phone card companies will offer different prepaid phone cards that can and cannot be recharged. For example, if you visited AT&T’s web site in November 1999, most of their prepaid phone cards could not be recharged.

Rechargeable

A rechargeable prepaid phone card allows you to add credit to the prepaid phone card at any time by calling a toll free number. Typically you can add credit at a cheaper rate than the card’s initial value.

Rechargeable prepaid phone cards have three primary benefits.

You do not have to purchase a new prepaid phone card when you have used up the credits on your existing card.
If you have a partial value left on your prepaid phone card, such as $0.75, you can add credit to the card to make it $10.75, $50.75, … With prepaid phone cards that you cannot recharge, your next call can only be for $0.75 and then you will need to use a different prepaid phone card.
When you recharge your prepaid phone card, the cost per minute for recharging is typically less than the cost per minute for the initial units that came with the card.

Non-Rechargeable

Once a non-rechargeable card has no more credits, it is worthless, you cannot add any additional credits to it.

Special Key Problems: Voice Mail...

There are prepaid phone cards that will allow you to press the # key twice to hang-up the existing call and dial a new phone call without having to redial your phone card's toll free number and access code. A problem that sometimes occurs with these cards is that depending upon how the card handles the # key, you may have your call terminated if you press the # key twice when accessing your voice mail system or any other system that requires you to use the # key.

How bad can this problem be? If the # key is poorly handled by your prepaid phone card, it may be impossible for you to check your voice mail with that card if your voice mail system requires that you press the # key at least twice for the entire duration of your phone call. For example, if you pressed the # key once at the start of the call and then 30 seconds later you pressed the # key again, your call would be terminated because the prepaid phone card thought you wanted to terminate the call and dial another phone number. This was a problem with the MCI prepaid phone card that was sold at Costco, but MCI appears to have finally addressed this problem. However, that MCI phone card still will not allow you to quickly press the # key twice during a phone call because it still interprets that as a request to hang up your phone call.

Our advice would be to look at the back of the prepaid phone card and see if there are any special instructions on the card that indicate that you can press the # or * keys to perform special phone card functions after you have placed a phone call. If you find such instructions, think through how these functions could potentially interfere with your planned usage of the card.

In January 2001, we tested the AT&T prepaid phone cards, and their special key is the * key. If you quickly press the * key three times, the call will be hung-up.