How to select a phone card company

One of the main reasons why a person might be cautious about buying a phone card online is the fear of the unknown. In the case of phone cards we are talking about the unknown phone card company. I mean, not many people have heard of ACC, IDT, NTC and the like.

One way to overcome such a fear is to stick with what we know. AT&T has been around for decades and is a very familiar household name. In fact, you can buy AT&T phone cards online from the comfort of your home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. AT&T prepaid phone cards are packed with features. Moreover, AT&T is the only phone card that offers toll-free access in over 100 countries around the world. However, all this comes with a price, and AT&T would cost you more than any other calling card from all the other smaller - compared with AT&T - companies trying to compete with the international telecommunications giant.

So, how could you know which company you can trust?

1. Does the store that sells the phone cards have a 1-800 customer support number?
This is first step in identifying whether you should bother with any phone card from them. Is there a live help, someone you can contact not only via an e-mail, but through a legitimate toll-free number? If there is such a number, you can proceed with the next step of identifying whether you can trust a phone card company.
Somewhat related to that: is the live help available in a number of languages? If the company has been around for a while, it tends to respond to the customers' demands. Obviously, when dealing with customers looking for means to call overseas, it is better to respond to their demands by providing customer support not only in English, but in some other languages as well.
Calling Card Calls offers you a toll-free support in English, Spanish and Russian. Call them if you'd like to check them out (the numbers are at the bottom of the contact page).

2. Does the phone card provider have a live customer support?
This is somewhat related to the preceding point. Only an established telecommunications provider will supply you with a toll-free number to talk to a live customer service representative. Take a look at the cards offered on Calling Card Calls. Click on any card and note that each phone card provider will supply you with a number to call for support. This number will be e-mailed to you with your PIN and instructions. Alternatively, you may contact the Calling Card Calls customer support to obtain the information, including customer support number, on any of the calling card provider companies.

3. Does the phone card store use a secure ordering form?
Now that you are satisfied with the fact that there will actually be a live person to talk to if need be, it's time to see how secure is the ordering process. There are sites that requests you to fill out a form with your personal information, including your credit card number, that do not use any encryption. How can you tell? Look at the URL (address) field of your browser - encrypted pages contain https:// in their URL, there is also an indicator that you are on a secure page located at the bottom of your browser, usually represented by a lock symbol.
All purchasing transactions done on Calling Card Calls use a 256-bit High Grade Encryption. You can check that for yourself, without buying a card. Select a card, click on the Buy button and proceed to the next step (once again, you don't have to go all the way through with the purchase.) You will notice that you are taken to a secure site. Check the security certificate while you are there by clicking on the little lock at the bottom of your browser.