Fone Forum

Hi All,

I have encountered a problem with access to most of the betamax and dellmont clones since yesterday evening. has anyone else had this problem? I have never had a problem like this which has lasted 24 hours +. They don't have a good customer service, so any feedback on this interruption would be highly appreciated.

thanks
sean

No problem for me! Made quite a few calls today via Rynga and have logged onto 12voip. Which one are you having trouble with?

Having problems with rynga, 12voip, voipgain, call easy. Pretty much with all my accounts. Wonder why.

Usually an accounts problem on one is related to them all. Make sure you have not accidentally blocked a credit card payment, or have an expired card on file on one of the clones. In any case an alert should flash up when you login via the website. If you still have credit and freedays available, and can see these when you log on via the web interface, check if you can make phone2phone calls triggered from the website (i.e. not using the softphone client) or see if you can make calls via their access numbers.

I'm not able to make calls via their access numbers. Nor am i able to log onto my account on the website, it just keeps saying user name error (error -4). this is the error on website access:

"Username and/or password incorrect (error 4).
Please double-check and re-enter. Switch off capslock.

Click here to go back to the login page"

So i cannot even log onto the accounts. i never have AUto topup so don't keep any credit cards on file.

are they targeting me?

I take it you have tried from another computer as well. Not to be able to log on, means your accounts have been blocked. I don't think they are targeting you, but they do strange things without explanation from time to time, when they think they detect some fraud or misuse. Sometimes this is down to a simple error on their side. Unfortunately, they are hopeless to get a hold of, and any level of threatening letters doesn't escalate the problem solving. After all, at the moment they hold your prepaid credits, which you are not able to access. Simply put, they are in breach of contract. They either need to refund you your credits, or allow you to keep using the service as planned. 
I don't either, but they do remember credit card details by default I have noticed. This is a bad practice of theirs (and potentially dangerous)
I doubt it though ask yourself if they would have a reason to do so?

I presume this is unrelated but I also noticed that their own forum seems to be unavailable for non-registered users to view. I don't think this used to be the case in the past. See: https://forum.voipbuster.com

Just out of interest... had you been using them to call Mikaels 03 service before all this happened? I have just noticed some problems on one of my accounts with them where I was doing just that. I am at least able to log on, but am unable to make calls as it says I am out of credit. However, I have actually been out of credit for several weeks, but until now I have still been able to make calls to free destinations as I still have freedays remaining. ??? 

Not sure if my problem and yours are related!

i am registerd with the voipbuster forum. have raised this there also. no response. have tried to raise a ticket wity rynga. i have got a ticket acknowlegement. hope they can help.
i have not been using mikael's 03 service. just calling direct from phone using access numbers.

Also, i guess if they don't reply back, I will have to start a dispute with my credit card company right? as all payments were made via card, and I'm not sure how much credit i have across my accounts, though they could be quite a bit though, as to avoid paying the transaction fee each time, i just used to purchase in 25 euro amounts.

I think that one of the issues which perhaps doesn't help you is using the same credit or debit card to pay a number of accounts, especially if they aren't all in the same domicile.

Of course their algorithms shouldn't block accounts which are in credit and no fraud has been detected or payment failed, so try to get them to look at this

Although you're tempted by credit card chargebacks, I'd say resist this as long as possible, as they'll never accept you again as a customer after that.

If it gets resolved, think of a reseller account and fund only that, and do occasional transfers to your others

Which one do you recommend for this Andy? And what is the minimum topup required these days onto the reseller account. 

I'm not sure what the amount is. It used to be about €15 but was increased, possibly to 50 but may have decreased again
 
If you log in to your account and look for how to apply, it will say it requires a bank transfer or a couple of other methods, and may mention the amount

Thanks. It looks like 15 Euros, but of course they want to see that you have topped up by at least 15 euros one of their chosen methods first. If doing it by bank transfer, they will do this for 10 euros, or 25 euros but not 15! How nice of them!

So Am I right in saying that once you are a reseller you can shift credit from that account to any one of their brands, and to any chosen username?

ok. i will definitely use a reseller account from now. so is that like that bestvoipreselling software, or what? not clear as to where to get these details from. they have about 70 euros of my money. hope this will not be a loss.

When you are finally able to log on to the website of your your brand, in the menu options that run down the LHS of the main page you will see an option which says "Local Agents" and below it something which says "Become a local Agent".

petkow, have you used local agents before? is that the best way to resell? so do we pay them in pounds and they credit us in euros?
have you heard about the BESTVOIPRESELLLING option, do you know if this is feasbile? are their customer service as bad as Betamax.
still no luck with any response from them. only problem now is i cannot create a new account as the old phone numbers used for dialling are mapped onto the defunct accounts and so if i use the same numbers again, it will recognise as being linked to these accounts.
so my only solution is to get new phone numbers?
what do you think?

No I am not a local agent nor have I used them. That is why I myself was asking Andy those questions above. You still buy in Euros, though if this is coming off a UK bank account you will see it as sterling, with nasty bank charges attached. If you later resell credits, you do not get commission on the credits from Betamax, but you are free to sell at whatever commission you want. e.g. you can tell your customers I will sell you 10 Euros of credit for £9.50 plus a £2 handling charge. In some cases that may work out cheaper for them than for them to buy credits off Betamax
Yes we have discussed them before here on the forum. Is their customer service as bad as Betamax? They are Betamax!
I would suggest wait for a few more days until you finally get a response from them. Something will eventually come though it can take a week or more.
This is from their faq's (see: http://www.betamax.com/press.php?language=)

They have a UK bank, so you aren't going to have bank charges on international transactions

i now have a reply from 12voip with a help ticket acknowledgement saying that it has been forwarded to the engineers. so hope for good news.

I think i'm starting to see some light. These are the transactions that have just appeared on my credit card statement:

03May   05May   10026251   www.keycollect.com/ask keycollect CHE   22.71-   
 05May   05May   99790110   AN ADJUSTMENT TO YOUR ACCOUNT   22.71-   
 05May   05May   99790120   AN ADJUSTMENT TO YOUR ACCOUNT   22.71

Looks like my bank has done something fishy. -22.71 indicates that betamax paid me. then they paid me again. and then i paid them? my one credit card expired on the 30th of april and i guess like you said earlier, an expired card must have been used instead of the new card (even though as we discussed, i do not keep my cards under Auto topup). guess i'll have to be a bit more patient for things to sort itself out.

what do you think?

i just had a wink at my other credit card accounts, and lo and behold, i have received a plethora of credits from Betamax, not sure what is happening. but it looks like almost 6 months worth of transaction payments i have made have been refunded back to my card.

I AM RICH , I AM RICH. so don't really care anymore if they can unblock my accounts, as i've got most of my money back.

Are Betamax initiating these refunds, or did you instruct the banks to reclaim them?

i have not asked the banks to do anything. i just saw these transactions appear on my online credit card statement.

This is all rather interesting Seanjoe. I suspect that they are having a few billing troubles on their systems. Giving money back to a customer is not normally anything they would do. Think of them like Ryanair! ;)

Have they responded to your ticket yet?

12 voip said it would be passed to the technical team. Still no response from them. I cannot raise a ticket from rynga as I cannot get into that account. So I raised a ticket from another rynga ticket. I have gained about £160 from Betamax across all my credit cards so quite ok even if they don't unblock my accounts. My one credit card did expire and I had not updated my paypal account linked to that card on time and am just wondering if that is what has caused these errors. I have tried forgot password to see if they can email me my password but to no avail.

i have tried opening a completely new account with rynga and used bank transfer this time (which i have used before, but this time, i decided not to use any credit cards). top up went through, but same message has come up saying that a fault has occurred. so they seem to be honing in on me, and i'd rather drop using betamax for good, or else they will start taking all the money that they have credited to me.
this is like gambling in the casino. you're not sure if you going to win.

Remember that they will match you with your registered numbers as well as your payment methods. Therefore I think just changing the payment method does not make much difference. Anyhow, thanks for sharing your experiences Seanjoe. You have highlighted some interesting issues of doing business with this company.

I was actually wanting to switch over some high-volume SIP routings for a business switchboard so that they go via Betamax, but after this experience of yours I now think twice about doing business with a company that does not have a helpdesk, nor seems capable of fixing accounting errors in a hurry. When the shit hits the fan with these guys (as it looks like has happened in your case... for no clear reason), it could mean several days of service outages. This is OK if you are using them for personal use, but in a working environment it could be a disaster. However, I suppose it could still be done if you have a good backup operator that you could route SIP traffic through if there are problems.

Whilst the pricing is very attractive, I would suggest that you don't use them for business purposes at all. I am not taking any more chances in topping up or creating new accounts. Guess they have locked onto my phone numbers that I use for the initial text for verification purposes. I think just drop them and use other methods, like Mikael's excellent text top up service; which I think is the best.

hunting for calls to uae and it looks like betamax is still the best. so i think i will open an account and pay with paypal. this way if they block my account, paypal can refund my money back right?
any thoughts? this would be safer than paying via credit card or bank transfer right?

hello
today i have the same problem and i don t what i must doing?

thanks