IDT has been selling phone cards in Walgreens stores for years but this month IDT announced that they have an agreement to sell IDT Phone Cards in Rite Aid stores across the country. The cards will be available in approximately 4700 retail locations in 31 states and will be co-branded with the Rite Aid logo. The cards will feature minutes ranging from as low as 150 per card all the way up to 2000 minutes per card and range in price from $5 to $50.
"IDT has been an industry leader for over 15 years and brings to Rite Aid a wealth of experience providing practical, prepaid communication solutions that we believe our Rite Aid customers will use and appreciate," said Bill Renz, Rite Aid vice president, consumables. "As an added incentive, customers who recharge an existing card with new minutes from a Rite Aid store will receive 10 percent additional minutes for free."
The deal probably means more in name than it does in terms of added revenue, but it still is a significant accomplishment especially in the declining hard card market. The deal also helps IDT push it's services to the mainstream as most of the companies success with hard cards has come from the recent immigrant consumers and not the mainstream.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
IDT Inks a Deal to Sell Calling Cards in Rite Aid Stores
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Harvard University Students Set the Record for the Longest Phone Call!
A Harvard university group called "The Harvard Generalist" have teamed up with Ibasis and their rechargeable calling card program called Pingo to attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World records for what would be the "Longest Phone Call."
The rules, according to their website dictate that the students must keep the call going and actively talk in real conversations (no gibberish or yes no type exchanges) and taking no more than 10 second pauses between comments. The time to beat: 43 hours, 8 minutes, 55 seconds. That is one long call!!! Good thing they have Pingo flipping the bill ;)
In the end they managed to do it, talking for Congrats Guys & Gals on one of the weirdest achievements I have ever heard about!
Check out the following article from their Harvard Student Newspaper, The Crimson... it appears they had a lot of fun with this world record attempt!
>Picture above from The Harvard Crimson Newspaper shows one of the students on the active call and it seems the students decorated the room quite nicely with lots of blankets and other items to keep the participants comfy!
FTC Reaches Settlement with NJ Based Millennium Telecard, Inc.
Just wanted to follow up on an earlier post about Millennium Telecard who had run a foul of the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising practices. It seems as if both sides have reached an agreement where Fadi Salim, the principal of this company and two others also under investigation, has agreed to hand over 2.3 million dollars to settle this accusation of wrong doing (without acknowledging that they did anything wrong of course). The money will be paid over a 10 year period and the settlement will ultimately stop Mr Salim from misrepresenting the amount of minutes on a phone card in any of it's advertising campaigns.
The settlement is the biggest of it's kind and is sure to signal the end of what has been a dark period of prepaid calling, where the fees in many cases would out-bill the actual minutes on a card. It is important to note that they will still be allowed to have fees on their cards but they all must be clearly displayed on all printed materials and be easy to understand (better than nothing I guess).
I wonder if this government crackdown is at the beginning, the middle or the end?
To read the full article go to the Star Ledger Article here!
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Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Making Money with PINless - Vox Call Agent Program
In a follow up to last months post, I wanted to fill in my readers on Vox Call’s latest offering that now allows for distributors and retailers to benefit and start making money with the popular Vox Call PINless calling service. Vox Call just about sells itself with great low rates, ZERO additional fees, clear connections, no contracts or bills, complete recharge functionality, 100% satisfaction guarantee and much much more!
One of the most appealing aspects of the agent program is that the retailer/distributor no longer needs to worry about stocking or running out of physical inventory since the service is completely virtual! It removes the hassle and problems associated with supply change management” says Vox Call’s Director, Eric Itzkowitz. All you need is a computer or Internet-ready device and internet access as the purchase and management process is conveniently done online via the unique Vox Call agent portal. Once a customer has been turned up by you online they can either recharge via your store (cash or credit card) or online at VoxCall.com and no matter which way they top up, you will always receive commission.
Wireless/Mobile phone store owners, convenience store owners and the like are ideal Vox Call agents, especially those looking to add a superior quality prepaid international calling service to their product lineup. As long as you can have access to an Internet connection, you too can sell Vox Call PINless calling service.
Also for those agents/distributors who need their own look and feel for the product, Vox Call also offers a white label program which allows the service to be customized with your very own url, logos, custom prompts, rates and more.
* DID Mapping - Your customer receives a local access number to call an international phone number. The person/people they call get a local international access number to call them.
* International Access - Vox Call service can be used within the USA, Canada, Mexico and other select countries throughout the world.
* International Prepaid Mobile Top-up - Your customers can pay to top-up (recharge) an international prepaid cell phone.
* and more...
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
SpeedyPin Introduces VoxCall Pinless Calling Service
The latest news on the war to win the PINLess dialing battle, online phone card giant SpeedyPin recently announced the release of their new PINLess international calling service called VoxCall.
The service, offered directly online or through an extensive agent network, offers super low rates which they claim can help customers save up to 95% on their international calling costs (versus calling with traditional long distance plans). Some of the other great features of this product include:
- No-PIN Dialing from any Phone (home, office or mobile)
- Online Account Management
- No Added Fees
- No Contracts
- Toll Free & Local Access
- & and much more.
Calls are billed in one minute increments and complete CDRs are available to the end users at anytime via their super convenient online account center. VoxCall is so confident that you will like their service that they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee to each and every customer. They also maintain full accreditation with the Better Business Bureau with an A rating.
Later this year VoxCall has additional plans to offer:
- International access numbers
- A Spanish version of the website
- Direct calling via a phone number mapping feature
If you are a consumer who would like to try their service for free just visit their site at http://www.voxcall.com for a free trial.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Temporary Restraining Order Issued Aginst Millennium Telecard, Inc.
Based on the findings of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a federal court order was issued on May 2nd (but only made public this week) against Millennium Telecard, Inc. and it's principal owner Fadi Salim. The court order is aimed at getting the company to immediately halt its misleading practice of advertising a certain number of minutes but only delivering a portion of those promised (in some cases they are being accused of delivering less than 50% of the advertised minutes).
Monday, June 06, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Dollar Phone Enters The Pinless Agent Space
Not to be outdone, Dollar Phone has finally entered the pinless phone card agent/dtc game. Joining IDT (Boss Revolution), CallDirek, Inc. (Call Direk Pinless) and many others already in this space. The product will be called Dollar Phone Pinless and will be sold on their website directly to consumers and will also be available to agents/retailers.
While the offer is nothing new, Dollar Phone and their strong market presence in the prepaid space, should end up making some significant inroads with a product like this!
To read the full press release go to: http://www.pr.com/press-release/313039
