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“We've been using the UnionTelecard site for at least a...”

written by TXLady on 05/09/2006

Good Points
Some cards are great, once you learn to shop for yourself.
Ease of re-purchasing online after you're an established customer.
Legal information ("fine print") always available (though you have to click on it).
Many cards have PIN-less dialing.

Bad Points
The "find the best card" feature consistently steers you to cards with low per-minute rates while ignoring hefty fees (often multiple!)
Getting started or establishing an additional credit card is cumbersome and involves initial phone calls from them to verify.

General Comments
We've been using the UnionTelecard site for at least a year, maybe two, to buy cards to call El Salvador. My experience has been generally good. It's been convenient not having to go find a store and compare legal info and rates from outdated paper posters. I've had virtually no problems since maybe the second card, and we're on probably our 20th, minimum.



You do have to do a lot of your own "homework." Never, never just take the recommendation of their automated system. You'll get cards with great-looking rates, but they charge weekly maintenance fees, connect fees, or worse yet, say "no connect fee" but have a fee at hang-up, which obviously is a connect fee in disguise.



Always, always click the "More legal information" link ... that's where the fee information is. I will say in their favor that I always find full disclosure once I click on that link, but I do think it would be more ethical to put the fine print at the bottom of the page and not leave it to the consumer to click on the link and get the bad news.



My good experience may relate in part to the fact that we almost always buy IDT cards, which is the company whose cards we had best success with back when we bought cards in the store. We've used Super Clean, Super Quick (when it's on sale), Happy Call (ditto), and most recently, we bought a Mega Clean and Stable card, which I don't think I'll buy again. Ten more minutes isn't worth my spouse having to keep up with the pin.



Also always click on the link that tells you the per-minute rates for your specific country and, if applicable, calling cell phones in the the other country. In much of the developing world, for example, land-line phones aren't an option, and most cards charge at least 2 cents more per minute to call a cell phone, (often more than that). But the site does always have this information once you look at the page for a specific card.



Last piece of advice: If you have a particular card in mind, try searching the site by using Google Advanced Search. It will take you straight to the page for that card. You might also try doing that with the country name to find more cards for that country.