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its kinda interesting
My in laws are from Russia, my wife like talking to her family. It is very important to me that she be able to communicate with them on a regular basis since it helps with her overall sence of well being.
Many months ago I saw CNN do a story on the top 10 next big companies and one was rebtel, they even show you how to make free international calls. So I looked into. I went to their website and looked at the posted rates, which were 1.9 for Russia. I thought wow this is great. So I signed up and told my wife the great news, she could call even more often now because these rates are awesome. Fast forward approximately 4 months. First thing I notice is that all my contacts went from being labled Russia to Kazahkstan, now my inlaws do not live in Kazahkstan they live in Russia, on of the older cities in Russia. At first I thought well computers are not perfect so maybe it was just a glitch, until my wife made a call and we were charged quadruple (a new rate of 7.9 cents a minute) what we had been on previous calls. Apparently Rebtel now designated my Russian inlaws as living in Kazahkstan even though they live in Russia, neat trick. So I did what any one would do I contacted them and asked what happen and why were my in laws being listed as Kazahkstan when they live in Russia. I didn't get an answer to my Kazahkstan question but the politely told me that they are constantly buying time from different vendors and sometimes the rates change, when this happens it is just too monumental to try and notify every user. The customer service rep also pointed out that the TOS state that rates can change with no advanced warning.
Now I thought ok I dont like it but yes they can change any time without advance notice and their TOS state this. So I look into this a bit further and find that the advertised rate for Kazahkstan is 4.8 cents a minute and Russia is still listed as 1.9 cents a minute yet my inlaws who are listed as kazahkstan have a rate of 7.8 cents a minute. WOW is this what you call a bait and switch, where I come from this gets your business license pulled and everyone filiing law suits.
Nice comparison. I think you should have a look into our solution: www.manifone.com. In a few words, it compares to Jajah Direct or Rebtel but solves one of the major issues both companies have and that you haven't mentioned: calls that don't get connected to the foreign party will still get charged on the Pay-as-you-go SIM card you have purchased. T-Mobile will consider your call as started as soon as you're connected to Jajah's or Rebtel's servers and you hear the destination phone ring, and therefore start debiting your prepaid account. Silly, right?
Our solution is 100% transparent to our clients and they don't get charged during ringing time or if the remote phone rings busy. Which seems quite normal behaviour to me at least.
I hope you will post on this important point and therefore show that there are solutions out there that are technically more advanced than the stars JAJAH or REBTEL.
Sincerely,
Lounis
Dai luca...
Saluti
Who knows me well is also aware everything I write on this blog is based on my personal opinion and I write both good and bad (if any) things about this or that service/company regardless of whether I know someone working/involved in those companies. If I have any kind of complain, I just manifest it privately or publicly on this blog.
That said, if you think I could have ever written a post to get whatever profit, you can simply ignore this blog :-)
[ITA] ...e mi spiace abbia perso tempo a scrivere un commento che e' tutto fuorche' costruttivo ;-) ciao
Thanks,
Luca