STI Black Phone Card - Commercial

We are back!

After months of absence, I am proud to announce we are back and plan to be bigger and better than before. In the coming weeks and months, we plan to do posts on the competitive prepaid land scape, information on the new players, new trends and many other international phone cards related items.

Stay tuned!

Diamond Phone Card Reaches Settlement With FTC

In a follow up to an earlier post from 2009 regarding Diamond Phone Cards alleged misleading of customers, the Federal Trade Commission has announced that they have reached a settlement with Diamond Phone Cards in which Diamond will pay the amount of $500,000 (not legaly labeled a fine but we all know what it really is) and agree to stop misleading consumers about talk time provided by providing all fee details in the language for which the product is being marketed.

This brings the total settlement pot up to 4 million dollars for the FTC in it's war against the corrupt practices of phone card companies. Companies who have contributed to this number include: Total Call (300K), Clifton Telecard (1.3M), and a handful of Florida companies (2.25M). The 4 million amount only includes what the FTC has levied and does not include the additional cases brought by many State's Attorney Generals.

All Right Phone Card Commercial SDI

There are some very happy people in this commercial!

Boss Revolution Pin-Less Phone Card

IDT has been promoting their fantastic new product Boss Revolution very heavily over the last few months with ads in the Prepaid-Press, Craigslist, email blasts, and lots of local point of purchase material. The product is basically a standard pin-less rechargeable calling card like Pingo and PennyTalk but with much lower rates and a unique distribution program which allows anyone with access to the internet to become a reseller of the product.

Much like the Avon model, Boss revolution allows everyday people to sell the service to their friends, family and anyone else who could benefit from cheap international calling. Some people online are even reporting profits of up to thousands of dollars a month. If reselling is not your interest and you just want to enjoy great low rates you can visit a local store or go online to purchase one of the lowest priced calling cards out there... and to make it even better, they offer a try before you buy program which gives $1 free for first time customers.

To purchase, become a reseller, or to learn more visit them at http://www.bossrevolution.com

New Year Same Old Trend - Phone Card Sales Declining

Well we are now into the new year and I started to reflect on the past year and the year ahead. For the most part 2009 saw a substantial decline in overall phone card sales and I'm afraid we will continue to see the same trend throughout 2010. Prepaid Mobile phones with competitive international rates are only going to get more aggressive this year and with increased penetration of broadband in recent immigrant households, VOIP services like Skype and Vonage will also continue to errode the phone card market share.

Nobody beats phone card rates, but drop dead lowest rates is not always the most important factor, the convienience of these other services along with decent (and clean) rates seems to be the deciding factor in most purchases.

I don't want to be all gloom and doom here so I will point out that there are some positive trends that I have noticed:

1. Prepaid Mobile sales have been growing (lower margin and higher risk)
2. These new International Mobile Top-Up products have delivered a nice volume of sales (lower margin)
3. Prepaid cash cards have seen a slight increase in demand

While the above have certainly helped, they have not replaced the amount of traditional phone card sales volume lost. If we could just get another product like International Mobile Top-Up, I think we would all be able to return to our business levels of years past!

Here's to hoping for something new and revolutionary will come in 2010!

Cheers!

Publish Post

Ninel Conde Phone Card Commercial

Ninel Conde the famous Mexican actress, model, singer now has her very own phone card.

Government Crack Down On Phone Cards Goes North of The Border

While we here in the US have been undergoing a legal and governmental crack down on the phone card industry over the last couple of years, Canada has until recently enjoyed a care free business as usual environment. Well that all changed this month when one of Canada's largest prepaid phone card companies Phonetime Inc. was fined $300,000 by the Canadian Competition Bureau, a government agency in charge of business oversight, for misleading consumers. Phonetime will also need to offer 78% refund to any customer who returns a Bravo or Bravo Atlantic card to the company (a $10 card would yield a $7.80 return amount). However, most agree that it is highly unlikely that many will be able to return old cards as most phone cards as disposed of after being used.

Also required of Phonetime by the bureau will be a corrective statement to be placed in a national newspaper clarifying their cards fees and notifying the general public about the 78% return settlement on all old Bravo cards.

The settlement is final and Phonetime has been quoted as being very cooperative in this matter.

STI Launches A Sweepstakes To Help Boost Sales

Much like IDT did last year with it's Boss Card sweepstakes, STI has launched their own sweepstakes this year right in time for the important holiday sales season, it's called "Connect The World Sweepstakes." The sweepstakes offers a grand prize of $1,000 Cash and 1 year of free calling. Their are also other prizes: 2nd Prize of an LG 225 camera phone with $20 of calling time and a third place prize of a $20 phone card as well as other calling card prizes.

The sweepstakes officially began on 10/15/09 and will continue into the new year ending on 1/3/10. There are two ways to enter with the first involving entering in your phone card pin online along with your contact information or you can enter online by testing STISWEEPS to 878787. No purchase is technically needed to play and free codes can be obtained online or by SMS by following the instructions provided.

Full rules can be found here: http://www.stisweeps.com/STIOfficialRules.pdf

La Que Ta Phone Card TV Ad

Here is the latest phone card advertisement I found

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!