International Mobile Top Up Presentation from iPayStation

In following with the previous post I came across another company who is doing this type of service. This presentation is by iPayStation on their international mobile top up business.

International Mobile Top Up Presentation From The Prepaid Press Expo Aug 20 2009

View more presentations from iPayStation.

C&W Lime Phones Now Rechargeable Through US Western Union Locations

C&W Lime mobile phone throughout the Caribbean can now be topped up at authorized Western Union locations in the United States. A patron with family and/or friends in the Lime Caribbean countries now can top up their friends and/or families Lime mobile phones just like they were wiring them money.

The process goes through MoreMagic Solutions IRR Global Hub, and is initiated just like a Western Union MoneyGram transfer, with a customer filling in the paper work with desired money amount and mobile phone number of the person's phone whom they wish to recharge. Once the funds are deposited to the account, the Lime subscriber receives an SMS message notifying them of the top up transaction.

This solution seems to be coming to market at just the right time since the poor economy is hitting quite hard in the Caribbean region (mostly due to the large decline in tourism revenues).

Individuals in the US can also purchase Lime top-up services online at https://www.etopuponline.com/lime/

Turbo Talk Calling Card from STI

Somewhat of a cheesy commercial but you can't beat the combination of a good looking girl and a fast motorcycle.

Total Call International Settles Class Action Lawsuit

Total Call International announced last week that they had reached a settlement in the class action lawsuit recently brought against them by plaintiffs nationwide. The class action suit alleged that Total Call International sold prepaid phone cards without properly disclosing all of the fees and charges on their products. While Total Call admits to no wrongdoings they have agreed to the settlement to keep from having to pay further dollars in legal fees defending this mater.

While the settlement is not completely finalized yet (still requires court approval), it will give any customer who purchased a card from them between January 1st 1999 to July 28th 2009 a replacement pin valued at $0.50 to customers calling domestically (with a $0.10 a minute rate) or a pin valued at $0.25 to those calling internationally (with an undisclosed rate).

To qualify to receive a replacement pin, customers must submit a PIN number from an eligible Total Call International calling card or submit a notarized, written statement declaring that they were the purchaser of an eligible Total Call International calling card. Seems like a big process to get a $.50 PIN especially if you don't still have the pin from one of your cards in the past!

For customers to file a claim they should visit Total Call's website at http://www.totalcallusa.com/news

Just one interesting point of note, the law firm that orchestrated this whole class action lawsuit is Freed & Weiss LLC, the same one that brought the class action suit against Locus Telecommunication last year.

Vonage Expands Its Unlimited Plan to Include Calling to Over 60 Countries

Vonage, who is desperate to turn the tide against it's churn, has announced that it has expanded it's $24.99 unlimited calling plan to include additional countries. When they first started, the plan only included unlimited calling to the US, Canada and Puerto Rico but about a year ago they added the UK and a few other cheap international destinations into the plan. Well now they have upped the number of countries, adding destinations like:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Bahamas
• China
• Colombia
• Czech Republic
• Dominican Republic
• China
• Poland
• Russia
• Romania
• Thailand
• Turkey
• & Many More!

There is no way that Vonage will be able to make money on these plans with some of these countries they included (some countries costs our well more than 2 cents a minute)! Their fraud department is going to have to triple in size to deal with all of the customers signing up and sending these devices worldwide. Heck, even if they manage to restrict the ip addresses to just US customers, they are still going to have a lot of customers with huge amounts of minutes used. If the call shops get a hold of these they could easily blow this plan up!

Their terms of service list anything above 5,000 minutes as more than normal residential use but 5,000 minutes to Turkey, if you figure a cost of roughly 2 cents a minute, will cost Vonage almost $100 a month... a huge loss!

Anyway you cut it, this desperate move by Vonage is a bad thing for the international calling card business! Our sales are most assuredly going to decline... how could they not... Vonage is basically giving away the call time! How is someone who wants to make a profit and not play any games supposed to compete? This probably goes down as one of the dumbest most desperate moves in the long distance business! Thanks Vonage... hope you take a huge bath with this new plan!

La Doña Phone Card TV Commercial

Here is a cute commercial for the La Dona phone card from SDI.

FTC Crack Down Continues - Diamond Phone Card the Latest Target

The Federal Trade Commission has once again cracked down on phone card distributors, this time going against Diamond Phone Card, Inc. a Elmhurst NY based distributor. The FTC is claiming that Diamond has been misleading consumers with false advertising practices (the same claims as with the ones from before) which stated more minutes on posters than the cards actually delivered. They are also accused of not adequately disclosing all terms and fees on their products and marketing materials.

The FTC has brought the mater to the district court and is seeking an immediate halt order to be issued to stop these deceptive practices. They are also seeking punitive damages, most likely in the millions if you use the Clifton Telecard Suit as a benchmark.

One of the examples given by the FTC was that one Mexico product from Diamond advertised 400 minutes to Mexico but only delivered 106 minutes of calling time.

This most likely will not be last case we see against phone card distributors. It just shows that all of the distributors and service providers need to clean up their act or else it could end up costing them millions.

Read the full article here: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/08/ftc_callingcard_scam.html

Sprint Makes It Official - Buys Out Remaining Stake in Virgin Mobile USA

For those of you doubters all I have to say is I told you so ;)

Sprint finally made it official last week, announcing that they had acquired the remaining shares of Virgin Mobile USA (they previously owned 13% of the company) for $483 million in equity. This resulted in Sprint paying $5.50 a share a big premium considering the stock had been selling for less than a $1 earlier in the year.

Considering Sprint just reported a loss of over$388 million in it's last quarter and a loss of about 257,000 subscribers, this deal is a must for the carrier struggling to make ends meet. The one downside to the new subs Sprint is inheriting from Virgin, is that they are much less profitable ones than the post paid customers. On the plus side, removing Virgin as a competitor, helps Boost/Virgin solidify it's space in the price war ridden and fast growing pre-paid space.

Time will tell how this deal actually plays out but on the surface it seems like it could be a smart move for Sprint.

Tanto Phone Card Commercial

Here is a commercial for the Tanto phone card from Nextcarrier Telecom Inc.

Virgin Mobile Sprint Buyout - Update

About a week ago I blogged about a rumored buyout by Sprint of Virgin Mobile USA. For those of you wondering if this rumor is true... all I can say is I am fairly certain it is going to happen! Maybe not as fast as I originally stated but it is coming and soon. If I was a betting man I would go with this week or next.

Sprint is desperate and are struggling to add new subs... so the only way they can solidify their position is to get more subs through acquisitions (yes I know that Sprint is the underlying carrier for Virgin but the subs are not technically theirs).

Keep checking back as I will post any updates as soon as they happen!

Ibasis Posts 2nd Quarter 09 Earnings - Not Too Bad!

Ibasis released their Q2 earning numbers yesterday and addressed their shareholders. Overall their revenues were down over last quarter coming in at $241.3 million down from $255.5 million in the previous quarter. However, the good news is that they have managed to significantly reduce their operating expenses through vigorous operational efficiency programs and a salary freeze that they implemented earlier in the year. Total operating expenses in this quarter were $21.8 million down from $22.7 million in the previous quarter. They also had significant gains in net Cash available from the first quarter leading to a somewhat more optimistic view by many shareholders.

As for their phone card division, which includes their disposable bodega cards and their e commerce business pingo.com, they stated that they had experienced a 9% growth in revenue and a 12% increase in gross margin (their 4th consecutive quarter with growth in this area). In the second quarter for retail, "gross profit was $31.8 million or 13.2% of revenue compared to gross profit of $37.5 million or 10.4% of revenue in the second quarter of 2008 and $31 million or 12.1% of revenue in the first quarter of 2009 (Seeking-Alpha)."

Overall it looks like Ibasis is keeping pace in this difficult economy and putting a much greater emphasis into generating their own minutes via phone cards as evidenced in their phone card growth numbers.

Feliz Phone Card commercial From IDT

This is a commercial for the brand new card series from IDT called Feliz. The rates on these cards are fantastic!

Sprint Possibly Working On A Deal To Buy Virgin Mobile USA

I heard it from the rumor mill today that Sprint might be working on a deal to acquire controlling interest in Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. I don't know any of the details of the potential acquisition nor do I know exactly when and if this deal will actually go through but it sounds like a deal that would make sense. While I can't site any immediate proof, today Virgin Mobile just executed an amendment letter with Virgin (VEL) granting the company exclusive rights to the names "Virgin Mobile," "Virgin Mobile USA" and "Virgin Mobile Broadband to Go." This move would be of no importance if Virgin Mobile USA was continuing with business as usual!

Sprint is currently the underlying carrier for Virgin Mobile, so integrating their customers into the Sprint systems should be relatively easy. Also with the growth in wireless subscriber count only coming through mergers and acquisitions for the big 4 providers, this deal would certainly be a welcome surprise for Sprint shareholders. The addition of roughly 5 million subscribers to Sprint's true subscriber counts would be a huge move.

This deal, if true, would also remove one of the largest single MVNO competitors in the US marketplace, thus cutting down the competitive landscape. It would be interesting to see if they continue with Virgin Mobile brand name or roll everything into their Boost Mobile prepaid brand name.

So stay tuned to see what happens!

MetroPCS Adds Unlimited International Calling for $5 a Month

Well the phone card business just had yet another big shot across the bow! MetroPCS is now offering unlimited international calling to over 1,000 destinations worldwide for just an additional $5 a month (you must be using either their $40, $45 or $50 plan to qualify). The destinations are mostly those in the 1 cent per minute category like most European land lines, Argentina, Hong Kong and many others. They have been very careful not to advertise the locations and do not post them on their web site. In order to see if the destination you need is included, you must enter in the complete telephone number you want to call in a look up tool they provide.

Prepaid Mobile has probably been the biggest contributor to the decline in the phone card market, with seemingly better attention paid to the international caller, a market for which the post paid companies still refuse to address. Not only has prepaid cellular helped to get recent credit challenged immigrants cell phones, it is now becoming one of the preferred methods to make international calls. I can't say I blame somebody either, straight dialing is much easier than having to worry about buying a phone card and then entering in all of those pin numbers before every call.

I wonder if Boost Mobile, who has seen great success with their $50 a month unlimited package (700,000 new subs in one quarter since announcing the plan), will counter this MetroPCS with a similar international calling add on package? If they do, they can easily negate any market advantage gained by MetroPCS's international plan.

Clifton Telecard Settles Suit With FTC

It was announced today that Clifton Telecard Alliance One, LLC has agreed to a settlement with the FTC in the amount of $1.3 million dollars. The lawsuit was brought against Clifton Telecard back in March 2008 and alleged that CTA had been falsely advertising the amount of minutes available on the prepaid phone cards.

The settlement is to be paid within 5 days and the funds will be wired into a unique bank account for the FTC set up to use for Consumer redress. Any remaining funds will be deposited into the United States Treasury.

The settlement came as no surprise as it is hard to fight the government and win especially when it comes to prepaid phone cards which, let's face it, were engaging in a large abuse of false advertising as a whole over the last few years. However, the amount of the settlement is not much more than a slap on the wrist for a company that produces over 4 billion dollars worth of calling card sales per year.

Source for data in this article = Examiner.com

Happy Phone Card TV Ad

Here is a Spanish language phone card tv ad for the Happy phone card from SDI.

IDT Buys out Carlos Gomez's Stake in UTA

Well the long and successful partnership of over 15 years between IDT and Carlos Gomez is now over. IDT has bought out Carlos Gomez's 49% share in the Jointly owned Union Telecard Alliance for $6.9 million in cash and other assets.

No one is exactly sure what prompted the transaction, but there is no doubt that this is a good deal for Mr. Gomez, whose UTA business has been declining rapidly over the last few years (just look at their quarterly earning statements over the last few years). Getting 6 million plus to get out of a business that has a rough future is something all of us prepaid distributors would love to be presented with!

IDT seems to be exited about the transaction with IDT CEO remarking "This deal will not only enhance IDT's operational capabilities, but is also in keeping with management's commitment to restructure and simplify our business..."

This is a toss up at this point with the potential for the company to go either way. Only time will tell who got the better deal.

To view the full article click here

Phone Card Mania Launches New Look and Cash Back

PhoneCardMania.com has a new look and feel this week, with the same great selection of phone cards and an easier to navigate interface. Along with the new design, phonecardmania.com has launched a loyalty program that rewards their frequent buyers with 3% cash back on all orders. "Our regular customers are our bread and butter and we needed to implement a program that treats them special" said Emma Lee President of marketing. The site also now included a live chat feature to help answer customer questions quicker and more effectively. "Our goal is to convert every visitor into a sale and we felt Live Chat was a valuable tool to help do that" said Mrs. Lee.

According to Mrs. Lee the redesign of the site has been a long time in the making "it has been a big undertaking to introduce the new look and features but is long overdue and it was designed with the customer in mind."

Visit the new look site at http://www.phonecardmania.com/

TouchTell Communications Store in Texas Robbed - Video of Supspects on YouTube

Texas Phone Card distributor Touchtell had one of their stores robbed on May 30th by two suspects in an attempt to steal thousands of dollars worth of prepaid phone cards. To help the police catch these suspects, Touchtell has posted the video from their security camera, showing the two suspects, up on YouTube. From the looks of the video it didn't look like they were having much luck finding anything of interest to them.

The suspects are described as two black men in their mid to late 20’s, both with medium builds. They appear to be somewhere between 5’7” and 6’0”. Anyone with information regarding this offense or the suspects in the video is asked to contact Detective Amy Smith at (214) 670-6179.

Colorvision Phone Card

Color Vision Phone Card commercial by SDI. This phone card mainly targets Dominicans in the United States.