6 Devious Calling Card Tricks (plus 6 MO-Call Treats!)

Just in time for Halloween, we’d like to share with you some tales of outrageously wicked tricks that some of the dodgier (but not all) calling card companies have played on their unsuspecting customers. According to non profit advocacy group The Hispanic Institute, most calling cards only deliver 60% of the calling time advertised. Read on for examples of typical horror stories unsuspecting victims are tricked into and how we at MO-Call treat you guys.

Trick 1: Connection Charges

This is one of the most common “dodgy” practices. You may get an amazing rate advertised for the card but in the micro print, you may find that you’ll get a charge added to your call for every single connection. These connection charges are rarely openly advertised and you’ll need to put on your reading glasses to find out exactly how much a connection charge is in the small print. Another way some calling card companies dupe their customers is by disconnecting calls after an allotted time, forcing customers to dial again and pay another connection fee. It’s not only calling card companies that like to play down their connection charges in Advertising rates. Some well known global brands in the Voice Industry still apply connection fees. Check this Global Brand’s rates page. Notice the connection fee advertised? Try looking again and this time scroll right down to the bottom and comb the fine print to find their connection fees.

How do we like to treat our customers?

At MO-Call we believe that connection fees for making a call are dishonest way of advertising prices. Great prices lure in eager savers but neglect to openly state the true cost of calls. At MO-Call we hate connection fees so we don’t use them at all. In fact we go one further and give you your first 20 seconds of every call completely free before billing even begins.

Trick 2: Hang up charges

This trick is similar to the connection fee trick, except this time calling cards will charge you for ending your call. Some of the more unscrupulous calling card companies out there will charge the hang up fee along with a connection fee. On some of the popular $2 and $5 calling cards, the connection fee and the hang up fee could use up most of the credit on a single card.

How do we like to treat our customers?

MO-Call does not use any kind of termination fees or any other kind of junk charges. We proudly display all of our rates on one page, The rates you see are the rates that get charged. No connection fees, hidden charges or any other junk fees.

Trick 3: Activation Fees

Activation fees are another form of “junk” fee that some calling card companies will add onto a tariff. This is a one off fee that some calling card companies will add for using the card for the first time. Sometimes these are kinds of fees are turned into weekly “maintenance” fees that delete the credit every week with little or no warning.

How do we like to treat our customers?

So how do we treat our first time users? Before even topping up we give everybody from a home country some free credit to give us a whirl before topping up. Users outside of the MO-Call Home countries will get a bonus on first top up. Not only do we have no activation fee but we actually give you free calls before you make your first top up or when you top-up for the first time.

Trick 4: Rates that go up with no warning

Another nasty trick that some calling card scammers pull is advertising an insanely low rate but when it comes to using the card, the advertised rate might go up significantly without warning after the first minute or two.

How do we like to treat our customers?

At MO-Call we’re all about driving our rates down. Since our humble beginnings, we’ve made honest rates one of our biggest priorities and are committed to 100% transparency in the rates you see. The rate you see advertised is the rate you get. We very rarely increase any of our rates and are committed to continually working hard in making regular rate reductions.

Trick five: Ridiculous increments

Another little crafty trick you should be wary of is the increments that rates are billed in. Sometimes you’ll find that you get an advertised rate but it is billed in 3, 4 or even 5 minute increments. So this means that you could make a call for just 10 seconds and be billed for 5 minutes worth of calls!

How do we like to treat our customers?

MO-Call bills calls in 1 minute increments. We display our rates per minute and we match it in our billing increments. If you talk for 1 minute, we bill you one minute. Our 20 seconds of free calls also means you won’t be billed for extremely short calls. If you talk for 10 seconds, we’ll bill you absolutely nothing.

Trick six: Quick Expiration Dates

Some other tricks some of the slyer calling card companies’ have up their sleeves are to have a short expiration dates on their cards. Sometimes they may be a month or two or in some really bad cases, just a couple of weeks! If you don’t use the credit in time then you’ll lose all the money on that card.

How do we like to treat our customers?

All MO-Call accounts will keep their credit for at least 6 months. As long as an account is being used, we will never close an account and take away credit. We will never impose a limit for you to use any credit in your MO-Call account. As long as you use your account at least once every six months your credit will always remain yours.