Get Your Own Online Phone Card Store - Little to No Experience Required!

For many phone card distributors, selling online is an impossible task! You need to get a hosting server, register a domain, hire a web designer, purchase and install a shopping cart software, register for a merchant account and then hire customer service agents to handle all of the issues. Most likely some of you have though about opening up an online store but get scared away by all of the work! Well don't worry, I have a quick and easy solution for you to get your very own online phone card store up an running with none of the headaches and very little work!

Vtel Phone Cards offers a virtual phone card store where you can register your own domain and start selling phone cards with your brand and your name. How it works is simple:

1) Register at Vtel Phone Cards
2) Choose your stores name and register your own domain name
3) Pick from one of over a dozen off the shelf store templates or customize with your own HTML (requires some web design experience).
4) Drive customers to your site
5) Earn a commission on every sale for the life of that customer (ranges from 8 to 13%)

Best of all you don't have to worry about any of the day to day management issues like order fulfilment, credit card processing, fraud control or customer service... it's all done for you! All you do is drive traffic to your site to get sales and watch the money roll in!

Once you reach $50 in earnings you can request payment by either a check or via PayPal! I know of some people making well over $2,500 a month with this program!

Check it out now and be sure to sign up!

Goool Calling Card Commerical - IDT

Here is a commercial for the Goool phone card from IDT.

IDT Corporation Chairman Howard Jonas Addresses Shareholders

With all of the recent bad news and rapidly declining stock prices, IDT Chairman Howard Jonas decided to have a conference call on Thursday to address many of the issues and declare that the company is poised to be profitable in the near future, a feat that they have not been able to accomplish in more than 14 years. The call itself seemed to have two purposes, one explain how and why they were heading towards being in the "black" and two allowing the Chairman to tout his new and prized possession, the Shale oil company AMSO.

The companies Telecom unit is in the process of performing a lot of cost cutting measures which should help it reflect the smaller pie which is the phone card business. This was the first time that I know of that IDT admitted that the phone card business decline was not just a temporary thing but an overall shift downwards in the market. They still blamed the unfair practices a little but seemed to imply that they feel the business is now close to stabilized and should not be declining any further... Being that IDT was the lead on the "cleaning up the phone card business" maybe this means that we will see a reduction in state and federal government investigations into these businesses??

Jonas also sounded optimistic that a key deal with "one of the largest telecom providers" could be likely and if that deal goes through should make IDT into one of "the leading terminator of international calls and leading seller prepaid products" in the world. While Jonas stressed that this deal was in no way certain, just by them talking about it, might suggest that the company feels strongly that the deal has a good possibility (otherwise why get people's hopes up...).

Other topics of the call included Zedge, their food company, and of course AMSO Shale Oil... a subject that dominated the call but being that this is a telecom blog, I will leave this topic alone. If you would like to read the unofficial transcript to this call you can view it on the Silicon Investor blog.

Online Calling Card Pingo Lowers Rates to Over 70 Destinations

The popular online only rechargeable calling card Pingo provided by Ibasis announced this week that they have lowered rates to both mobile and fixed lines on over 70 locations by as much as 59%. The rate reduction is facilitated by new efficiencies and streamlined carrier relationships at Ibasis and is geared at trying to be more competitive than it's other online rivals such as pennytalk.com and pinzoo.com.

Some highlights of the the rate reductions include:

Jordan - Lowered by 58%
Bangladesh - Lowered by 57%
Iraq - Lowered by 59%
Iraq Baghdad - Lowered by 48%

The complete list of rate reductions can be seen here

Phone Card Commercial Web Site

Ever since I started this blog years ago, I have been posting phone card tv commercials and I have always received a tremendous response. As a result of all of your feedback requesting more of these videos, I have decided to create a web page with all of the phone card tv commercials I could find.

I didn't want to place them all here on the blog as it would ruin the readability of the site so I created a squidoo page with all of the videos. In total there are close to 60 phone card commercials on the new site, mostly Spanish language ones and mostly US commercials with a few international ones sprinkled in where I saw fit.

So for all you phone card marketing people... enjoy the new site:
http://www.squidoo.com/phonecardcommercials

Los Temerarios Calling Card Commercial - CVT

Here is a Spanish language TV commercial for the Los Tererarios phone card by CVT.

Florida Attorney General and Phone Card Companies Reach a Settlement

I reported back in August of last year that the Florida Attorney General's office was investigating numerous prepaid phone card providers for false and deceptive advertising. Well the issue has finally been settled, with the companies involved (IDT, UTA, Total Call, Dollar Phone, CVT Prepaid, Cristel, and Alternatel) all agreeing to stop the deceptive practices.

As part of the settlement, the phone card companies will be required to deliver the minutes advertised on their cards and fully disclose any fees in the language of which the product is advertised. They also have to make the fee disclosure more prominent on the store point of sale materials and will be subject to close monitoring for the next 3 years. Also as part of the agreement the companies will need to repay the Florida Attorney General's office the more than 1 million dollars it cost them to investigate this issue. Not sure how the payments will be divided up between the companies but it will most likely be an even split.

While their have been many investigations launched recently by government agencies, this is the first one that I know of that has been settled!

You can read the full article here

CVT Pushing Los Temerarios Phone Card

Just got an email from CVT yesterday pushing their new phone card featuring Adolfo and Gustavo Angel from Los Temerarios the popular Mexican musical group. Here is the ad:

Cordia Communications Aquires Phone Card Distributor TSI Prepaid LLC

Cordia Communications (OTCBB: CORG), a company I have never heard of before in my life, announced last week that its subsidiary, Cordia Prepaid Corp., has completed an asset purchase agreement of Florida based TSI Prepaid LLC. Details of the deal were not made available but Cordia hopes that this acquisition will lead them to being a major player in the retail telecommunications distribution business. Revenues of TSI Prepaid are said to have been in the area of $90,000,000 annually reaching over 7,000 retail outlets. TSI president Mohammed Markatia will join as the President and CEO of its new business unit, Cordia Prepaid Corp. and be joined by former PT1 founder and president Peter M. Vita who will head up the Cordia Advanced Product Services division.

Being that this is more of an asset aquisition it leads me to think that this deal might be more related to poor finances on one of the companies part, with one company owing the other monies that it could in no way pay back... Kind of like the Telstar aquisition of Clifton Digital years back. I am hoping it is not because TSI Prepaid has been around a long time and has always been a market leader and a straight up operator. I wish them all the best of luck!

Cordia Communications currently offers VOIP, international DIDs and wireline communications solutions through it's numerous subsidiaries here in the US and abroad. More info on Cordia Communications can be found on it's web site: http://www.cordiacorp.com/ and more on TSI Prepaid LLC can be found on their web site http://www.tsiprepaid.com/.

Ketchup Phone Card Pruebala Ya!

In keeping with the food theme of phone cards here is a Spanish language prepaid phone card commercial for the Ketchup phone card! Just like the Hamburger phone card this one is diecut in the shape of a Ketchup bottle.

Verizon Wireless to Acquire Alltel

I know this is not exactly prepaid news but it is a big enough deal in the overall US telecom world to deserve mention here!

Verzion Wireless, after 2 years of toying around with the idea, has agreed to acquire Alltel for $5.9 billion in cash as well as assuming $22.2 billion of their debt. This deal, when closed, will make Verizon Wireless the largest mobile provider in the US overtaking the current top spot from at&t. Alltel currently has 13.2 million customers and Verizon has about 66.8 million which will bring the total to 80 million subs just slightly ahead of at&ts 72 million subscribers. The merger should not yield the same problems that the Sprint/Nextel deal did since both companies use the CDMA (code division multiple access) cellular technology, so integrating the networks should not be a huge issue.

Regulators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission will still need to review and approve this deal and if approved the deal should mostly complete by December of this year.

Boost Mobile Introduces New Rugged Phone - i335

Motorola i335 Phone with Walkie Talkie

Boost mobile, Sprint's prepaid cellular phone division, has just introduced a cool new phone into their product line that can take a huge licking and keep on ticking! The phone is the Motorola I335 walkie talkie phone that is called"military grade." In one of their promo videos for the new device, they show this phone being dropped off a roof, run over by a car, kicked and thrown. It is sure to be a hit with Boost's typical male 25 and under market segment who always seem to abuse their phones the most. It is a phone for an active person on the go and accident prone!

The phone is now available at all retail outlets that sell Boost mobile and online at http://www.boostmobile.com/. The i335 retails for $59.99 online and is only available in the color pictured to the left. This phone is now expected to become one of Boost's biggest sellers!

IDT Announces Third Quarter Results and They Are Not Good!

Prepaid phone card giant IDT made public their third quarter results yesterday and the news was not good, an 82 million dollar loss for the quarter, up from last quarters 60 million dollar loss. To get an idea of how bad this really is, last years third quarter results only had losses of around 15 million. Revenue also fell a more modest 7% to $453.2 million from $485.4 million.

From the transcript of the earnings call you can see that IDT has a clear strategic goal of reducing company overhead (which usually means layoffs), dumping many of their unprofitable businesses either through sale or through plain discontinuation and finally pursuing their recent investment opportunities in business like Zedge, Shale Oil and a few others which they believe are going to be viable entities. Here is a quote from Jim Courter:

"The direction of that line is functional with and consists of four basic strategies: one, selling, spinning off, or shutting down nearly all businesses that won’t help us meet our goal; two, reducing our corporate overhead; three, streamlining our core businesses; and four, making modest investments in very limited number of closely managed opportunities."

As far as calling cards go, IDT continued to blame their shortcomings in this field on the unfair practices of many of their competitors but hinted that they are closer to a level playing field now with all of the recent actions taken by the FTC.

The biggest kicker on the whole earnings statement was the 10 million that contributed to the loss for Executive severance packages. IDT was recently cited in some online circles for having instituted some of the most excessively high severance packages in recent years for a business of it's size.

Golden parachutes aside, the results from this quarter can't get much worse! In the coming months I am sure that many layoffs will come, operational improvements will be made and some assets sold off. So in all I am labeling this as the ultimate crossroads for IDT, they either turn the corner now or risk being too far gone to right the ship! It will be a challenge but 100% possible.

Here is a link to the IDT earnings call transcript and the financial statement for Q3 08.

Hamburger Phone Card Commercial

Here is a commercial for the Hamburger phone card. The card is even die cut in the shape of a hamburger!

FTC Stikes Again: Ordering More Companies to Halt Deceptive Advertising

The FTC got the US District Court of Miami to issue a temporary injunction against the deceptive advertising used by Alternatel, G.FG. Enterprises (d/b/a Mystic Prepaid), Voice Prepaid, Voice Distributors, and Telecom Express. The FTC alleges that these companies advertise more minutes than they deliver and knowingly rip off the consumers.

The FTC tested a total of 83 cards from the above mentioned companies and on average delivered only 50% of the advertised minutes. Some of the cards named in this case are “Aló Mamá,” “Coffee Time,” “Rey de Florida,” “Tree Monkey,” and “Voz do Brasil.” One of the cards tested only delivered 23 minutes to Panama out of an advertised 360 minutes.

The agency is also seeking for the companies to provide restitution to those consumers who were ripped off or at least be forced to give up some of their gains received due to these practices. The matter will be brought to trial some time in the near future.

Judging by the slew of recent movement against prepaid cards by various government agencies, I think this business is high on the radar screen and we will be seeing a lot more actions country wide. Don't be surprised if your company is targeted next! The mandate is clear... clean up your business or you will be in for a tough ride!

To read the full details of the FTC ruling got to the FTC Website.

Current Telecom Job Openings - June 2nd 2008

In an effort to help out those in the Telecom industry I thought I would start a new service by posting current job openings at various US prepaid Telecom companies:

IDT Current Openings:

Patent Attorney - Newark NJ (posted May 6th)
Account Manager/Outside Sales - Newark NJ (posted April 25th)
Financial Analyst - Newark NJ (posted April 15th)
Senior Product Manager - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Graphic Designer - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
GUI Developer - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Site Manager - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Jr. Product Specialist - Newark NJ (posted March 12th)

Locus Telecommunications, Inc. Current Openings:

Customer Service Rep - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 9th)
Sales Manager - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 6th)
Graphic Designer - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 9th)
Web Services Coordinator - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 5th)

Virgin Mobile, USA Current Openings:

Handset Test Engineer - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Mobile Device Manager - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Service Performance Analyst - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Chargeback Analyst - Warren, NJ (posted May 13th)
Program Manager - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Product Manager Voice Offers - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Director, Business Financial Planning - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Tier II customer Care Advisor - Warren, NJ (posted May 6th)
Marketing Writer - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Senior Accountant - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Interactive Marketing Manager - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Project Manager Customer Care Systems - Warren, NJ (posted April 21st)
Customer Care Specialist - Warren, NJ (posted May 23rd)
Inventory Accountant - Warren, NJ (posted May 30th)

Boost Mobile Current Openings:

Operations Release Program/Project Manager - Irvine, CA (posted May 5th)
Sr. Project Manager Operations Management - Irvine, CA (posted May 5th)

Ibasis Current Openings:

Senior staff Accountant - Burlington, MA (posted May 28th)

Nobeltel Current Openings

Collections Representative - Unkown Location
Web Marketing Specialist - Uknown Location
Customer Service Representative - Unknown Location
Routing Operator - Unkown Location
Senior Software Engineer Java - Unkown Location
Junior Accountant - Unkown Location

STI Prepaid Current Openings:

Product Manager - New York, NY (posted May 28th)

I tried to find job openings in other companies like 9278, Blackstone, Total Call International, Excite Telecom, and more but those companies do not seem to actively promote their openings on their web sites or through online Job engines like Monster or HotJobs. If anyone know of a job opening or company they would like to include in the future please drop me an email or post a comment below.