The most common problems consumers have with prepaid phone calls are rates higher than advertised and hidden charges; issuers going out of business, leaving consumers with worthless cards; poor call quality and busy signals; and cards expiring without the consumer's knowledge.
A recent study conducted at the University of Georgia looked at prepaid calling cards used to call Spanish-speaking countries. According to their findings, call costs averaged 87 percent higher than the advertised price because callers were not able to use their full allotment of minutes. Hidden fees and time lost when calls were rounded off to the nearest time segment ate away at the value of the cards. Most cards round time to the nearest minute, but the University of Georgia researchers found a half-dozen cards that rounded in eight-minute blocks.
