Be Aware of Minute Overrating โ€“ All Calling Cards Are Defective!

We should know of minutes overrating and take it so calmly as sunset. I've done some research this phenomenon. Here I present you the result.

• Minute overrating depends on how you are employing your phone card. It is minimal if you spend the whole phone card balance for making only one phone talk. But the longer you consume your calling card and the more number of phone calls you make with it, the higher minute overrating is.
  For example, for calling from USA to Canada with AT&T card, minute overrating changes from 2% to 42% when number of phone calls changes from 10 to 100.



• This is related to phone cards with maintenance fee. The longer you consume one of these cards, the higher minute overrating.
  For example, according to calculations, if one and the same card is consumed for 2 weeks or 4, then minute overrating is 104% or 147% respectively.
  Pay attention to this case - you can get twice fewer than promised!



• The more fees a card has, the higher minute overrating.
  For example, let's take Bizon card and Cardinal card. The former card has 15% of service tax, and the latter card has not. Minute overrating is 19% and 5% respectively.



• The more fees a card has, the lower per-minute rates, according to the known rule. Hence, the lower per-minute rates a card has, the higher minute overrating.



• Rounding is one of the fees. The longer rounding period a card has, the higher minute overrating.
  For example, let's take Bizon card and Continental card for calling from USA to Canada. They provide rounding of 1 and 3 minutes respectively. Minute overrating is 19% and 44% respectively.

Let's sum up.

• Cards with no maintenance/connection fees


• Cards with low service taxes


• Cards providing not more 1 minute rounding

I name them "light cards" because of the small "weight" of the fees.

• Bizon
  This is one of top 3 phone cards from Comfi. Its popularity is crazy!



• Jupiter
  This is the second card of the same top triple. Consumers' rating is highest!



• Cardinal
  This is a card with absolutely no fees. I wonder how it may be. But it's really so.



• Champion
  This is a good card too. Consumers like it.

As I said above, we should take minute overrating calmly. We only shouldn't take in view the advertised minutes.

Minute overrating means our actual or potential overpaying. But if this overpaying doesn't over some limit then we can make it up.

The question is how much we can overpay with one phone card or another. But we cannot go without calculation to answer this question. So...

Yes, I recommend calculating the real minutes you could get with a calling card.

When worrying about your money, you always calculate them, don't you? When worrying about your money spent on a calling card, you should calculate the real minutes.

Calculate them, taking into account all the card's fees and your individual manner of calling. The more fees you will take, the closer a calculated figure to reality will be.

And once you calculate an effective per-minute rate (i.e. what you really pay for every minute of a phone talk), minute overrating will be nothing to you.

Moreover, when you know an effective per-minute rate, all these low or high fees, minute rounding, and advertised per-minute rates will be nothing for you too. Because all of them for each calling card are replaced by only one value - the effective per-minute rate.

Just imagine how easier to compare these different competing phone cards if you know the real figures! In particular, you can easy find out what's cheaper: "light" or "heavy" calling card.

Use free Phone Call Minutes Calculator.

The more fees you will take, the closer a calculated figure to reality will be. Here we come to the concept of trust. If a calling card company shows all its fees fairly, if it provides an organized and complete listing of all possible fees then OK. That company is trustworthy.

The most common fees are:

• Connection fee
• Maintenance fee
• Payphone surcharge
• Service fee (or tax)
• Toll-free access surcharge

Every calling card has usually not all these fees, but some of them.

Then you know of minute overrating. You can avoid unpleasant surprises now regarding to this. You can compare absolutely different phone cards incomparable at first sight.

Good luck!