Online Phone Card Stores

Many choices, but buyer beware

As with making any purchase online, you will find a variety of sources for low-cost phone cards. Typically when you buy online, you are not buying a card at all, but simply the account info including PIN and access numbers. These numbers are then delivered to you instantly via e-mail at great convenience. In addition, cards are often available at a discount to the listed retail price, since the “store” can theoretically be operated out of a basement without any overhead.

Although most online phone card stores are very professional, and quickly get your phone card or phone card access information to you via regular post or via e-mail, there are some which cannot be trusted. Buying a phone card online is no different from buying anything else on the internet, in that you must take the same basic precautions to ensure the safety of your information and to verify that the vendor is taking appropriate security precautions. Each web browser has a slightly different way of indicating that you are viewing a secured page - both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox display a small yellow padlock icon toward the bottom area of your screen. This is by no means the only way to check the security of a website, however - for more information, please visit the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) website.

When purchasing a phone card online, ask the same questions that you would at a physical retail establishment. Check into the fee structure of the card, whether it is no fee, low fee, or charges you a single connection fee. Many online phone card stores even have a “card selector” that allows you to input the origin and destination countries, states, or cities of your calls in order to find the card best suited to your particular usage patterns. If you’re sure of the site’s security, but unsure about a particular card, purchase a low-denomination card, such as $5 or $10 as a tryout. If all appears to be as it should be when you make a few calls, then go ahead and re-order. An added bonus of online phone card stores is that many have loyalty programs that give you a credit for a particular portion of your phone card purchases (usually 5-10%),amounting to a “buy 9, get one free” type of special.