Cloncom.com is one of the 10 biggest calling card companies according to our most recent website traffic rankings data.
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Cloncom.com Website Screenshot
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Cloncom.com is a reseller that markets prepaid phonecards for several 3rd party telecom carriers, including IDT, NobelTel, Primus, and Vectone. As with most calling card resellers, these carriers are lesser known 2nd and 3rd tier providers and/or international VoIP carriers. Such carriers generally provide perfectly good voice calling service while charging much less than Tier 1 carriers such as AT&T or BT.
In additional to calling cards, Cloncom offers virtual local phone numbers for selected countries, PC-to-phone calling (a type of VoIP service), and mobile prepaid plans for selected mobile carriers.
In light of changes at the company, we are in process of updating our Cloncom.com review. In the meantime, we recommend that you consider other companies, such as Pingo.com or Comfi.com.
Cloncom.com Company Information
| Company |
Cloncom.com |
| URL |
www.Cloncom.com |
| Type of company |
reseller / distributor |
| Sales channels |
online |
| Description |
Cloncom.com is a reseller of prepaid calling cards, and other products, on behalf of several 3rd party telephone companies. They are one of the 10 biggest calling card companies according to Alexa.com. |
| Carriers represented |
IDT, NobelTel, Primus, Vectone |
| Other products & services |
virtual telephone numbers, PC-to-phone VoIP internet calling, mobile prepaid plans (for selected mobile carriers) |
| Parent Company |
Clon Communications, Inc. |
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Cloncom.com Ratings
| Key Factors |
Rating |
Comments |
| Competitive prices |
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During our most recent price check (06 Aug 09), we found that Cloncom rates have not fallen as much as other vendors. Whereas previously they had consistently low rates, now it is more spotty - some rates remain very low, but others have not kept pace with the market. |
| Wide selection of cards |
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Not the biggest selection, but plenty to choose from. |
| Full disclosure of rates & fees |
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Good rate table showing all applicable rates and fees |
| No fees hidden in Terms & Conditions or elsewhere |
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Does not have any legal documentation, so nowhere to hide fees |
| Website usability |
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Good website, nice display of search results, shows prices in multiple languages. |
| Privacy and security |
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Thorough policy supervised by TRUSTe |
| Live customer support |
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Cloncom no longer seems to offer live phone support - only 24hr email support. |
| Access numbers are working |
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Toll-free and local access numbers working for 2 different cards we tried |
| Carriers are disclosed and appear reputable and accessible |
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Carriers are not specifically identified for each card, but Cloncom customer service will tell you and they directly assist with any carrier-related issues. Their carriers appear solid. |
| Good reputation / complaint history |
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Generally positive reviews, but, as with any calling card company, a few complaints here and there. |
| Offers advanced dialing & billing features |
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Depends on the card, but we didn't find any that support speed dial |
| Fair return, exchange, and balance transfer policies |
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Allows transfer of unused balances, refunds on 100% unused cards only. |
| Referral incentives and/or rewards program |
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Yes, US$5.00 for each referral, plus $5.00 for your friend, too |
Cloncom.com Highlights
| Pros |
Cons |
- Very strong overall ratings
- Good disclosure of rates and fees
- Well designed and easy to use website
- Nice rewards program
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- Rates are not as competitive as they once were
- Somewhat limited advanced dialing features - e.g., speed dial
- Don't name carriers for each card
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Cloncom.com Review Recap
Overall, we give Cloncom.com a 'recommended' rating, but are disappointed to see that their rates have not kept pace with the market and are now higher for some cards than you can find elsewhere.
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Cloncom is a wrought and should be removed or investigated. On 31/01/10 I paid Cloncom NZ$20 for a Kiwi card so I could call from New Zealand to my son in UK - advertised as 170 minutes airtime. I made 3 calls & got my son's answerphone each time - he was out. Ringing/answerphone time totalled no more than 5 mins for the 3 calls. On 3rd call got told I had 11 minutes remaining and tried a 4th time last week and got message that my "calling time had expired"! Additionally no customer support as advertised. They do not respond to enquiries or act upon them. They even invite you to email their "CEO" - am still waiting for his/her response. Keep clear of them I suggest - I have found another provider with far better rates and customer support. As I live in NZ, I do not know of BBB, but someone should initiate an investigation into their organistion which can only be at best described as corrupt.
yup, you are probably right. we've tentatively changed as such.
we are in the process of revising this review based on your input and our own follow ups with the company which have been disappointing.
but we've got a tiny staff though, so we will rework more fully as soon as we can. hopefully this week.
in the meantime, we recommend folks consider other alternatives.
I contacted the Better Business Bureau, with my case www.la.bbb.org because Cloncom.com is in L.A. and this must have prompted Cloncom to finally respond to me. Within hours of filing my complaint with BBB, I finally after weeks got an email from Cloncom saying that the destination phone number in Brazil that I am trying to call is not a working number. My immediate response back to them and also to BBB is that my destination number is absolutely a working number for years now, just not with Cloncom any more. I let them know that they are lying because when I call my destination number using an ATT phone card, or Skype, or using several other international phone card providers, I reach my number every time with no problem. It is Cloncom that is not providing the service to make my call and to make matters worse, instead of admitting it, they are blaming the phone number which works using other providers other than Cloncom.
Cloncom.com Product not working & NO RESPONSE from Customer Service
I use to recommend cloncom.com to the 75 members of our Brazil club, but not anymore.
I have used Cloncom.com for several years now but something has gone wrong this summer 09 I think the company might be out of business or something. My most recent purchase in April, 09, a card that is now not working this summer even though it is a clean card with no expiration and still has a 27 dollar balance on it. The 1-877-606-2675 number that I have called before is not working, the 213.210.2400 number only has a recording saying to send complaints to questions@cloncom.com which I have contacted three times and have had no response. I also have submitted the same complaint using the contact page of the cloncom.com wehsite 3 times and which promises to respond within 24 hours, but I have had no response this month.
The review on this page says updated Aug, 09, but I have searched and found many complaints similar to mine about "no customer service". This website may be promoting the cards as its first priority?
Thanks for your comment. We will check into the customer service issues further this week.
Re: our Aug 09 update. At that time, we added comments about how Cloncom prices had not fallen in line with other calling cards we track, so they went from 'green' to 'yellow' on prices.
At that time we were not aware of any significant change in their customer service. This is the first we've heard that their customer support phone numbers are no longer in service. They were working until not too long ago. But we did check their site just now and can confirm that they no longer post live support numbers. That's a change from the recent past and means we can't give them a 'green' on 'live customer support'. Since we generally recommend only companies that do provide live phone support, we may need to downgrade them again.
To clarify our policies a bit: the fact that there are complaints on our site and/or elsewhere on the web about a company's customer service is, of itself, not enough to stop us from recommending a company. If there are a ridiculous number of complaints, then of course, we'd nuke them, but if we only recommended calling card companies that had zero complaints, there would be zero companies to recommend.
Outstanding customer service and cheap calling cards is not a combination that happens in the real world. You want gold plated service, then you've got to pay for that with higher rates. Premium carriers like AT&T offer rates that can easily be 10x or 20x what you get through companies like Cloncom or VoIP calling cards like Pingo. It is simply not possible to get both super cheap rates and great customer support from one company.
So, for us, it's a given that calling card companies with are going to get complaints. Our goal is to find the companies that are able to offer very low prices, good call quality, and 'decent enough' customer service - where 'decent enough' includes, among other things, live phone support.
I advise future costumers to not purchase this.
I had my office purchase this card in case needed. We only needed it about 4 times in the past year, it DID NOT WORK, NOT EVEN ONCE.
I say, be choose carefully, Cloncom is not recommended.
Sorry to hear about your experience. Sounds unfortunate.
We would suggest that 'buy and hold' is not a good strategy with calling cards. Most all calling cards have weekly or monthly 'maintenance fees' that can quickly eat up card value.
If you do plan to hold onto a card for a while, look for a card with very low monthly maintenance fees. Or alternatively consider buying smaller value cards right when you need them and burn through them before the maintenance fee kicks in.
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