PhoneCardSmile.com Review

PhoneCardSmile.com is a popular calling card company, but we don't understand why.

Topics

Company information
Ratings legend
Ratings
Recap
Comments

Bottom line: PhoneCardSmile is the worst calling card company we have reviewed. The problems are many and we strongly recommend that you look elsewhere for your calling cards.

Where to begin? There are so many issues, but let's start with two major ones. You can read more in the detailed ratings below.

Pricing - PhoneCardSmile has questionable price disclosure practices. They advertise very low per minute rates for their cards, but they bury heavy extra fees and surcharges in their Terms & Conditions. As a result, your actual costs are likely to be much higher than the advertised rates.

Plus, these buried fees aren't even precisely stated. In many cases, they provide simply a range or a general indication of a fee you might be charged.

Here is an actual example taken from the Terms & Conditions for one of their cards (Star One International card from TCI) on 21 Oct 2008. We've underlined some of the fees.

Example of PhoneCardSmile Hidden Fees

"BY PURCHASING THIS CARD YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS ON THE RELATED ADVERTISEMENTS. ADVERTISED MINUTES ARE FOR SINGLE CALL MADE BEFORE THE EXPIRATION DATE OF THE ADVERTISEMENT AND MAY REDUCED BY FEES DESCRIBED HEREIN. AFTER THE APPLICABLE EXPIRATION DATE, RATE CHANGES WILL REDUCE ADVERTISED MINUTES BY UP 50% AND BY MORE IF COSTS TO CARRIERX CHANGE SUBSTANTIALLY. RATES AND FEES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. FOR INTERNATIONAL CALLS, FEES MAY INCLUDE A DISCONNECT FEE UP TO 50% OF CALL VALUE; A WEEKLY MAINTENANCE FEE UP TO 99 CENTS COMMENCING AFTER FIRST CALL; A DAILY MAINTENANCE FEE UP TO 15 CENTS COMMENCING AFTER FIRST CALL, A FEE UP TO 99 CENTS FOR ANY CALLS FROM PAYPHONES; AND A POST-CALL FEE UP TO $1.99. FOE DOMESTIC CALLS, FEES WILL BE THE UPPER LIMIT OF THE FEES DESCRIBED ABOVE. CALLS MADE ON HOLIDAYS AND BETWEEN FRIDAY AT 6PM EST AND MONDAY AT 6AM EST MAY BE CHARGED UP 5 CENTS PER MINUTE. CALLS THROUGH TOLL FREE ACCESS NUMBERS MAY BE CHARGED UP TO AN ADDITIONAL 5 CENTS PER MINUTE. CALLS ORIGINATING FROM OUTSIDE OF THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES MAY BE CHARGED UP TO AN ADDITIONAL 25 CENTS PER MINUTE. CALLS TO INTERNATIONAL CELLULAR NUMBERS MAY HAVE HIGHER RATES. CALLS MAY BE ROUNDED UP TO THE NEAREST INCREMENTS NOT TO EXCEED 6 MINUTES. THIS CARD EXPIRES 60 DAYS AFTER FIRST USE. MAINTENANCE FEES AND SERVICE FEES MAY APPLY, FOR MORE DETAIL ON RATES AND OTHER CHARGES, PLEASE CONSULT THE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Quite frankly, this is ridiculous. There are so many clauses and loopholes in this statement that you really can have no idea what any given call is going to cost.

Carriers - Like other companies we have reviewed, PhoneCardSmile is a reseller that markets prepaid phonecards for 3rd party telecom carriers - perhaps more carriers than any other firm we've seen.

But there are a few issues. First, their 'Trusted Vendors' list includes several brand name carriers such as AT&T and Sprint. But after looking at 20+ cards, we found no cards from any of these 1st tier carriers. They may be there somewhere, but don't be fooled into thinking that one of these premium carriers is providing your service, unless you specifically verify this.

In addition, we found cards from lots of vendors not shown on their list - we're not sure what that indicates, but we don't like it.

We also find it troubling that several of their carriers are companies that have recently been involved in calling card fraud lawsuits. In particular, the following companies on PhoneCardSmile.com's published list of carriers were part of a fraudulent marketing settlement reached by the Florida Attorney General in 2008:

BlackStone Calling Card, Inc.
CTA (Clifton Telecard Alliance)
Cristel Telecom, Inc.
IDT
STi Prepaid, LLC
TCI (Total Call International)
Touch Tell Communication
UTA (Union Telecard Alliance LLC)

That's 8 of the 11 calling card companies settling in that case!

Plus, one of the carrier technical support numbers we called did not work, even after 4 attempts at different times. This is not encouraging.

Overall, we really don't like the way PhoneCardSmile does business and do not recommend them.

PhoneCardSmile.com Company Information

Company	PhoneCardSmile.com
URL	www.PhoneCardSmile.com
Type of company	reseller / distributor
Sales channel	online
Description	PhoneCardSmile.com is a reseller of prepaid calling cards. They are one of the top 12 calling card companies according to Alexa.com.
Carriers represented	TCI, SCI, TWU, EXC, DPE, and many, many others (most of which we've never heard of)
Other products & services	none
Parent Company	unknown

Ratings Legend

Rating	What It Means
	Company performs at or above industry norms in this area
	Company has some issues in this area
	Company has serious issues in this area

PhoneCardSmile.com Ratings

Key Factors	Rating	Comments
Competitive prices		advertised per minute rates are the lowest we've found, but heavy fees hidden in Terms & Conditions will drive prices much higher for most callers
Wide selection of cards		very wide selection of cards
Full disclosure of rates & fees		not all applicable fees are shown in their rate table
No fees hidden in Terms & Conditions or elsewhere		very heavy extra fees & surcharges in Terms & Conditions for all cards we examined; in many cases, these fees were very open ended and could imply surcharges that could easily double or triple base rates
Website usability		site looks nice, but it has poor navigation, slow page loads, minimal help/FAQ support, etc.
Privacy and security		they verify identity during sign-up, including a live phone call to confirm your information
Live customer support		we had no luck reaching them. we asked to leave a message on each of 3 calls on 2 different days to their toll-free number. and we were disconnected from their live chat line after a 5 minute wait with a note saying no operators were available
Access numbers are working		toll-free and local access numbers working for 3 different cards we tried
Carriers are disclosed and appear reputable and accessible		carriers are identified for each card, but 1 of 2 technical support numbers we tried was not working despite 4 attempts. and many of their carriers have been involved with fraudulent marketing lawsuits (see above)
Good reputation / complaint history		not as many bad reviews out there as we would expect, but what's there isn't good
Offers advanced dialing & billing features		none offered as far as we can tell
Fair return, exchange, and balance transfer policies		very restrictive policies
Offers referral incentive and/or rewards program		you get 10% commission on referrals, but US$100 minimum payout means you'll never see the money

Click here for details on how we review calling card vendors
* BBB is Better Business Bureau