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Rival services => New services discovered by members => Topic started by: baz on December 27, 2010, 10:00:38 PM



Title: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on December 27, 2010, 10:00:38 PM
Hi,

Do you mind if I bring to the attention of the forum the brand new service from Calling Cards Direct where you can make unlimited calls to India from your mobile for a monthly payment of £10 from your mobile. The site link is http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/Story/CCD-Unlimited (http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/Story/CCD-Unlimited).

40 countries in total are available using this service.

Many thanks and Regards
Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: ganjbakhash on December 27, 2010, 10:58:52 PM
Hi,

Do you mind if I bring to the attention of the forum the brand new service from Calling Cards Direct where you can make unlimited calls to India from your mobile for a monthly payment of £10 from your mobile. The site link is http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/Story/CCD-Unlimited (http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/Story/CCD-Unlimited).

40 countries in total are available using this service.

Many thanks and Regards
Baz

Good rates but not too low for other destinations like Pakistan!


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: BJ on December 28, 2010, 06:20:58 AM
As  Baz is promoting his own website i would have thought at the very least he would have declared an interest,or seeked admin,s ok before promoting the card here.

Worth noting  

•Call duration is restricted to 60 minutes per call.

•Calls are subject to a fair usage policy.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on December 28, 2010, 10:24:43 AM
Though it may be obvious to most, it is also worth noting that you must make calls from the mobile that you registered on, and that you should ideally have plenty of free UK landline calls in order to dial their access number. The access number is an 0345.

Overall, it seems like quite a good deal, but you really need to be using the service a lot for it to be worth your while. At that point, the completely unknown FUP limit (Fair useage) may well kick in. The FUP for destinations like India may well be quite low. If it is anywhere close to 1000 mins, this deal is not worth it.  1p/min is what you can get with most non-subscription services anyhow.

Where have I heard of Story Telecom before?


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: HiPD on December 28, 2010, 10:30:21 AM
Where have I heard of Story Telecom before?

Maybe petkow you are thinking of your old friend piptaps IIRC?   :-\



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on December 28, 2010, 11:15:13 AM
I do apologize for my transgression. I do have an interest in the service. I framed my post as a request to the forum for permission to hightlight this as a new service.

I appreciate the excellent work that the very knowledgeable members of this forum are doing.

Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on December 28, 2010, 11:19:43 AM
Hi Baz. Since you are linked with the product, can you let us know what the FUP on calls to popular destinations is? (e.g. India)

Maybe petkow you are thinking of your old friend piptaps IIRC?   :-\
Ah.. yes! I now remember it being discussed in the old niftylist/telecomforum days. (...Talking of which, I noticed it has magically resurrected).

I think Storytelecom is a Simplyfone product.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: BJ on December 28, 2010, 11:41:46 AM
I think Storytelecom is a Simplyfone product.

No they are owned by Xfone Inc, a US publicly traded (AMEX: XFN) international telecom company.

I believe SF are/were agents of Storytelecom .

Baz runs Callingcardsdirect.  :)



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on December 28, 2010, 12:07:42 PM
OK Thanks!
Baz runs Callingcardsdirect.  :)
Makes sense now! I wonder if he doesn't know the answer to the question about FUP? Seems strange to post here and highlight the word "unlimited", considering it is not really unlimited at all.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on December 28, 2010, 01:23:52 PM
Thanks for your thoughts. It is a great question (regarding the FUP). My post was not intended to misguide in any way. That would be foolish and self defeating.

In the telephony and broadband worlds, FUPs are standard as I am sure the forum members are well aware and are designed to prevent the abuse of sevices which would be 'unlimited' to a 'reasonable' user.

I believe that this offer will give the users call rates that could work out at worst 90% cheaper than the current call rates to India from 0844 access numbers. Will be more specific later if possible.

KRs
Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on December 28, 2010, 02:07:14 PM
Ah.. yes! I now remember it being discussed in the old niftylist/telecomforum days. (...Talking of which, I noticed it has magically resurrected).

Interesting !        :o

I notice that there have been no posts made since the 10th September until today - which is some down time !        ::)

I also see that Oron hasn't bothered to post a welcome back to old members, nor to explain the gap of nearly 3 months.       ???

Communications hardly seem to have improved there !        :'(



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: srikanth.nuli on December 28, 2010, 02:10:59 PM
Interesting !        :o

I notice that there have been no posts made since the 10th until today - which is some down time !        ::)

I also see that Oron hasn't bothered to post a welcome back to old members, nor to explain the 3 month gap.       ???

Communications hardly seem to have improved there !        :'(



Dear Mh,
 
Are your comments related to any of the above discussion? Who is Oron here? I I couldn't find any.

Regards,
Srikanth.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on December 28, 2010, 02:27:42 PM
Dear Mh,
 
Are your comments related to any of the above discussion? Who is Oron here? I I couldn't find any.

Regards,
Srikanth.

I am sorry Sri, but petkow's comment, and my reply, assumed prior knowledge of the rival forum.        :o

Oron is their admin.        ;)

http://www.telecomforum.co.uk/index.php       ;)



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: davegr on December 28, 2010, 05:17:11 PM
Sorry to fragment this thread even further but exactly what is the policy regarding posting your own services?

I have something in the works myself though whether or not it would be of any interest to readers of this forum remains to be seen, however it would be useful to know whether it's going to get me into trouble to mention it here once it is ready?

Dave


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on December 28, 2010, 07:35:05 PM
Sorry to fragment this thread even further but exactly what is the policy regarding posting your own services?

The 'policy' is deliberately loosely drawn.  There is no automatic prohibition on posting about your own services, but it is courteous to run ideas past me beforehand, and I will not stand for deception where an interest is not declared.        ;)

In the case of this thread, baz owned up to an interest as soon as he was challenged, which is arguably a little late, but 'better late than never'.        ;)

If he had denied any connection, I should have messaged BJ and petkow for their reasons in alleging or suspecting an undeclared interest, and the thread would have been removed if there was reasonable grounds for suspecting a lack of integrity in the OP.

HTH.

mh.



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: davegr on December 28, 2010, 08:31:04 PM
Sounds like a very reasonable policy to me!


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: yoursinlove on January 01, 2011, 05:36:28 PM
I am sorry Sri, but petkow's comment, and my reply, assumed prior knowledge of the rival forum.        :o

Oron is their admin.        ;)

http://www.telecomforum.co.uk/index.php       ;)



Can you tell me More about that?


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: amitjajoo on January 02, 2011, 05:09:10 PM
Thanks for your thoughts. It is a great question (regarding the FUP). My post was not intended to misguide in any way. That would be foolish and self defeating.

In the telephony and broadband worlds, FUPs are standard as I am sure the forum members are well aware and are designed to prevent the abuse of sevices which would be 'unlimited' to a 'reasonable' user.

I believe that this offer will give the users call rates that could work out at worst 90% cheaper than the current call rates to India from 0844 access numbers. Will be more specific later if possible.

KRs
Baz


Do you have any update on the FUP for India ?


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on January 04, 2011, 10:07:33 PM
Hi,

Because of commercial confidentiality, I am not able to disclose the exact level of the FUP. However, it is our intention that  a 'reasonable' user gets unlimited calls to destinations cited. We have predetermined check points of usage at which we analyse usage to ensure that the service is not being abused and reserve the right to withdraw the service if the usage levels exceed that of a 'reasonable' individual user in a month.

It applies equally across which applies across the board for all the 40 destinations available.

Hope this answers your query.

cheers

Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on January 05, 2011, 09:53:10 AM
Because of commercial confidentiality, I am not able to disclose the exact level of the FUP. However, it is our intention that  a 'reasonable' user gets unlimited calls to destinations cited. We have predetermined check points of usage at which we analyse usage to ensure that the service is not being abused and reserve the right to withdraw the service if the usage levels exceed that of a 'reasonable' individual user in a month.
Wow... what a load of utter marketspeak!   ;D

So, here is the "no BS" summary from a person who is obviously not commercially tied to this business:
1. You pay 10 pounds in advance for one month's worth of "unlimited" phone service that is actually completely limited
2. Even though you have paid for a service in advance, they can cancel your subscription at any time. They will do this whenever they feel like you might have used it too much
3. They will not give you a pro-rata refund for the days you have remaining on your subscription

Hope this helps someone!  ;)

Note to Baz. Answers like that on a forum like this are not really a good way to find new customers here! It just increases speculation, and encourages more negative discussion like my post. Sorry.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: amitjajoo on January 05, 2011, 12:52:44 PM
Hi,

Because of commercial confidentiality, I am not able to disclose the exact level of the FUP. However, it is our intention that  a 'reasonable' user gets unlimited calls to destinations cited. We have predetermined check points of usage at which we analyse usage to ensure that the service is not being abused and reserve the right to withdraw the service if the usage levels exceed that of a 'reasonable' individual user in a month.

It applies equally across which applies across the board for all the 40 destinations available.

Hope this answers your query.

cheers

Baz

Thanks for coming back with that explanation. However, it does not HELP much, does it ? How can someone guess what is 'Reasonable' in your dictionary. If you take a simple example of data usage FUP of all different networks, they vary by a huge margin. So how can someone define reasonable ? And all these networks do tell you what their FUP is even though in small fine print.

I am sorry to say but this is not a matter of commercial confidentiality, but simply dubious business practices.  >:(

I, for one, won't be a customer for this service.  ;D

Cheers


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: djyhkr on January 05, 2011, 03:17:00 PM
Simple answer is remove this topic because the discussions here are very transparent. If somebody cannot give a clear answer please do not post anything in this forum.
JK


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: HiPD on January 07, 2011, 11:28:11 AM
Simple answer is remove this topic because the discussions here are very transparent. If somebody cannot give a clear answer please do not post anything in this forum.
JK

No JK, let's stick with free speech.  If the OP wants to rubbish his own service by being so cagey, why not let him, and enjoy the sight of his committing harry carry!    ;D



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on January 08, 2011, 08:30:33 AM
I am sorry to say but this is not a matter of commercial confidentiality, but simply dubious business practices.

Hi,

I reject the above statement and wish to state that the offering has had an excellent pick up rate and no complaints at all after 3 weeks.

Many thanks to all contributors to this thread. I have no objection to the thread being removed if that is the wish of the moderator.

KRs
Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: gudman on January 08, 2011, 03:13:23 PM
Hi all
This discussion is not a healthy one, I think. baz will not disclose his "business secret" FUP. All telecoms in UK tell its customers about their FUP and the limit in their small print. I think baz want to have a discussion here and make more publicity for his service so can the admin kindly remove this thread please. >:( >:( >:(


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on January 10, 2011, 09:50:48 AM
Hi all
This discussion is not a healthy one, I think. baz will not disclose his "business secret" FUP. All telecoms in UK tell its customers about their FUP and the limit in their small print. I think baz want to have a discussion here and make more publicity for his service so can the admin kindly remove this thread please. >:( >:( >:(

I do not really agree with you gudman.  The shortcomings in baz's OP / service have been amply highlighted by several weighty posts, and I cannot see that he has endangered anybody other than himself ( and the reputation / attractiveness of his service. )

IF there had been *any* attempt at deception which could have endangered members, I should of course have removed this thread, but I do not believe this to be the case at all.

Anybody considering subscribing is able to read the warnings for themselves, and no one should be misled.  Members should not be treated as kids in a kinder garden, but should be credited with some intelligence with which to make up their own minds.  All can weigh the pros and cons before making their own informed and responsible decision I believe.



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on January 10, 2011, 01:38:50 PM
Completely agree. Removing this thread would not serve any protective purpose whatsoever (if that is the intent).

I was also wanting to post something along these lines a few days ago, when the first calls to remove this thread came up.... but didn't get around to it. Generally, I do not really ever like to see threads/posts removed.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on January 10, 2011, 02:51:07 PM
Many thanks to you Mobaholic and Petkow for your contributions to the thread.

The postings on this particular thread of the Members and Administrator of the forum reflect well on their personal maturity and experience of the sector. I believe in the integrity of our service or I would not have deliberately subjected it to the scrutiny that comes from making a posting on a forum that has such a knowledgeable panel of experts as this.



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on January 10, 2011, 04:44:15 PM
For those who prefer to use a service with a defined number of minutes, just wanted to mention that we also offer a calling card pack which gives over 1500 minutes to India for just £12.99 - see http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/vmchk/Story/CCD-India-%C2%A35-3-pack (http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/vmchk/Story/CCD-India-%C2%A35-3-pack)

KRs
Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on January 11, 2011, 08:54:04 AM
For those who prefer to use a service with a defined number of minutes, just wanted to mention that we also offer a calling card pack which gives over 1500 minutes to India for just £12.99 - see http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/vmchk/Story/CCD-India-%C2%A35-3-pack (http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/vmchk/Story/CCD-India-%C2%A35-3-pack)
Apart from spamming a pretty standard product, does this further revelation indicate that the FUP on the cheaper "unlimited" product maybe (or may eventually be) below 1500 mins?  :-\ I would hardly expect the same company holding 2 completely contradictory products: "You can have 1500 mins for £12.99 or better still, you can have unlimited minutes for even less than that".

The way I see these unlimited products is that small businesses often startup without an FUP while they try and ascertain what call volumes are really like during the first months after launch. The fact is that the vast majority of users never really get close to any FUP anyhow, and so those few high volume users are balanced out by the rest. This is probably the real reason why BAZ cannot disclose any FUP yet.

Still, I will not just let Baz off thinking he is vindicated himself here!  ;) I am not happy with the methods employed by the suppliers of this product. Whereas other suppliers tend to send users a warning SMS when users have been noted to be excessively using a product, instead this product decides to just cut customers off at an unexpected point. As I have indicated above, this is a subscription service, where users pay for the service in advance and deserve to either know when the cutoff point will be or at least receive a written warning. In my opinion, this is basically pretty poor customer care.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on January 11, 2011, 11:26:05 AM

I should like to make a few comments here.

Firstly, I agree with petkow when he speaks about customer service: I believe that his apprehension about a sudden disconnection is entirely valid, and this seems to show an apparent uncaring attitude on the company's part.  I should like to suggest to baz that he take this as constructive criticism, and feed it back to the service provider.  I personally believe that a warning text and email should be the least that a subscriber should be able to expect to receive when he is approaching a FUP limit - especially an undisclosed one.        ;)

However, it appears to be the case that the company does indeed offer two different products, and petkow's fears that the FUP on the unlimited product might be less than the 1500 minutes on the other may well be unjustified.  I should expect 'unlimited' to provide more minutes than 1500 to justify the term ( even though we all know that all companies abuse the term 'unlimited'. )       ;)

For the benefit of members I must disclose that I have received confidential information about the unlimited service, and although I shall break no confidences, I will advise any member with a heavy requirement to call India to opt for the unlimited deal as the superior offer ( i.e. not just the cheaper option ) - if they are thinking of subscribing to callingcardsdirect (http://www.callingcardsdirect.co.uk/Story/CCD-Unlimited).       ;)



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: petkow on January 11, 2011, 02:27:44 PM
Thanks for that update MH. Good to know that my concerns were not valid and that the 'unlimited' is indeed more than 1500 mins after all. :)

And yes... I did mention what I did on both my previous posts on the matter as a form of constructive criticism to Baz. I do hope that they can make some changes with the mechanism of enforcing the FUP even if they chose not to disclose it.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on January 21, 2011, 11:46:56 AM
I have been away for a few days. Just noticed the post from BJ (I think) on another thread regarding phonecards.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12173604

Just thought I would post to this thread to ask fellow forum members to note that Story emerged 'clean' from an Ofcom investigation (or at worst was not named as a perpetrator of misleading phonecard minutes).

BTW, any comments by members of the forum are always appreciated and taken as constructive criticism.

Also petkow, there is no question of users being 'cut off at an unexpected point' arbitrarily. There is a fairer process in place for dealing with 'fair usage' issues which involves contacting the user first. There is obviously the possibility of suspending the service (but this would only be in the most extreme cases).

Regards
Baz


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: BCU on February 01, 2011, 04:06:49 PM
I have subscribed to the service after reading in google search result that this service offer 3000 minutes of calling for £10 but once you have reached your limit you can give customer service a ring and extend it to 10,000 minutes, Customer service is worst when i called them they said to me their is no fair usage policy if you have read something on internet it is right, so i buyed it, today i have finished with my calling minutes, i had given customer service a ring and they said their is nothing like them of extending your limit and for making more calls you have to buy a new card again, man this is fair cheating, misleading or fraud sale, please help me with some email or contact number to complain for them,


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: mobaholic on February 01, 2011, 04:16:32 PM
I have subscribed to the service after reading in google search result that this service offer 3000 minutes of calling for £10 but once you have reached your limit you can give customer service a ring and extend it to 10,000 minutes, Customer service is worst when i called them they said to me their is no fair usage policy if you have read something on internet it is right, so i buyed it, today i have finished with my calling minutes, i had given customer service a ring and they said their is nothing like them of extending your limit and for making more calls you have to buy a new card again, man this is fair cheating, misleading or fraud sale, please help me with some email or contact number to complain for them,

My reply #30 above gives a heavy hint that the FUP is over 1500 minutes.        ;)

However, I believe that the 3000 minutes you read online is optimistic, and the story about customer services extending it to 10,000 is pure bullshit !        ???
You should be careful to be skeptical of unlikely information.        ;)
Common sense would tell you how impractical that would be.  ( It would imply a calling cost of just 0.1 ppm to India for instance, which is wholly unrealistic. )        ::)

I suggest you write it off as an expensive education about your own gullibility.       ;)



Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on February 01, 2011, 05:20:07 PM
Well said mh.

It is interesting that BCU does not state where he read the 10,000 minute information. Also he does not state how many minutes he actually used and over what period.

If he arrived at his fair usage limit within  a few days, that suggests that he is spending several hours each day on international calling.

On the subject of fair usage, how many people spend 5 hours speaking on their mobile to someone abroad each day? How many people actually spend 5 hours on their mobile each day?

Would a reasonable person expect to get 5 hours worth of international calls each day from their mobile phone for £10 a month?

If you were to get a mobile contract that gave you 10,000 minutes per month it is unlikely that you would pay less than £75 a month and that would be for UK calls unless you have an international add on in which case you would pay more.

It is therefore completely unrealistic IMHO to expect to get 10,000 international minutes for £10.

The FUP limit for this product is set at a generous level so that an average user need never run out of minutes within the 30 day cycle of the product.

There is also a readily available telephone customer services desk for queries. The service provider has been one of a number of companies that were investigated by Ofcom recently. I am pleased to say that they escaped without censure unlike other larger and more well known brands.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12173604


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: korny88 on February 01, 2011, 05:35:03 PM

There is also a readily available telephone customer services desk for queries. The service provider has been one of a number of companies that were investigated by Ofcom recently. I am pleased to say that they escaped without censure unlike other larger and more well known brands.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12173604


Do you mean they 'escaped' for the time-being, but will won't escape in the future?

If they are doing nothing wrong, from what are they escaping?  ;)


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: baz on February 01, 2011, 06:38:43 PM
Do you mean they 'escaped' for the time-being, but will won't escape in the future?

If they are doing nothing wrong, from what are they escaping?  ;)


I should know better!  ;D

Need to choose my words more carefully next time. ;)

'Escaped' was used as a figure of speech.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: foneman on February 22, 2011, 06:42:20 PM
I called up Story Telecom on 0208 497 9210 to ask them about this service to find out exactly how many minutes do they define as fair usage policy. After a lot of um and ers they were not able to give me answer. Then they passed me on to their Customer services Team leader who didnt have much skills in customer service, anyway even that person could not tell me a figure.

What a joke. This is the first time I have come across a company that does not say their FUP. All other companies clearly state on their website but these people in the customer services at story telecom are a waste of space.


Title: Re: Unlimited Calls to India for £10
Post by: manofideas on July 22, 2012, 05:26:40 PM
Hello All,

Thanks all mates here in this forum for not just this topic, but for many other too which had brought things that if they are genuine as they project as what they are.... Was about sweat my many £ for nothing, this forum saved it   ;)

Cheers
manofideas
codename: SHAS