I found the best international calling card ever!

Jack Smith says on May 1, 2005, 14:34:

Good for the biger cities..... That 4 cents a minute is for Bogota and some of the biggeer cities...we call Villavicencio and we will continue to use a $5 card called Home Run. It allows 2 hours if used all at once and we are happy ith it.....This sounds good at 4 cents for Bogota and other big cities though....It is 6.8 cents for the rest of the country

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poco says on May 1, 2005, 15:08:

Nothing is better than this I use international calling on my Cingular Cell Phone. 18 Cents a minute is not cheap but but worth it to see the faces of the Mexican employees when they see a gringo with a Cartagena No Problema T-shirt wearning Ray-Bans and speaking Spanish in the line at Taco Bell.

Hummm,, maybe it's the one that says "Kill them all,, let GOD sort em out". Same difference.

"When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy." Quote - General Tommy Franks

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jediknight says on May 1, 2005, 18:30:

are the rates listed for landline or are the rates different to cell phones?
JK

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xochistar says on May 1, 2005, 19:02:

What about a calling card for calling the U.S.FROM Colombia? I wondered whether these exist, as I always seem to pay the equivalent of 60 -75 cents per minute when I call Los Angeles from Bogotá. Does anyone know of any good deals?

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fennell01 says on May 1, 2005, 21:06:

where do i find ? I did a search for callingforcheap.com and could not find it...any suggestions?

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Lionheart says on May 1, 2005, 21:17:

www was missing CallingForCheap

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helper1 says on May 3, 2005, 09:26:

I hear you, but STS has FEES, and www.callingforcheap.com doesnt And I got a bunch of free minutes.

STS has an $1.05 connection fee
a 79 cent Mantanence fee (monthly/weekly?? ofcourse it doesnt say on its site) and bills in 3 minute increments

www.callingforcheap.com has NO connection fee, NO mantainance fee and Bills to the NEAREST minute.

STS, may seem like a good deal, but its the fees that stink.

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jennylupita says on May 5, 2005, 20:13:

i rather prefer a card that dont force me to use it all up in one go.
my family members arent home when i want to talk for 3 hrs. thats like watching a LONG LONG movie its ridiculous (in my case). i call my bro, dad and sis so its like frequent calls for me.

i have been burnt by the low price a minute but some extra charge kind of plans. if the call doesnot go through you are at higher risk of losing money period. i dont have patience to calculate the $1.05 conn. fee or 79cent maintenance whoa whoa seems like a twist in the tail lol.......

in my 4 years in the United states i have used plenty of cards. i think as a experienced campaigner :-) i would go for a plan that charges me a flat fee even if it seems a little higher than a card with "extra fees". those fees can drain your money and you will never even know ha ha ha ...

i will look into the www.callingforcheap.com plan. if its a flat rate i would give it a try.

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Rubiazo says on May 7, 2005, 06:33:

I've had the best luck with the STI card (they make a lot of different cards but there is one that just says "STI"). Cards that charge a connection fee suck because sometimes you get a bad line and need to try again a few times. The STI also seems to get better connections on average than the other cards.

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Rubiazo says on May 7, 2005, 06:33:

also if you have a computer and a mic www.skype.com rules

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Amilcar says on May 7, 2005, 18:45:

I just signed up for the www.callingforcheap.com plan. It is really nice. They have no extra fees and the cheapest flat rate as it said above and NO 4 minute billing like others,its nearest minute. I actually called them before started to ask this. The thing it dont say here, is they have online account management which is really cool, so I can check exactly how much I have used and what I have left. I got over 300 free minutes when I started the account too., and I get a great deal to speak with my family.
I know the guy above will not hear anyone else here accept himself and his STS superior talk, so.. I am not arguing with you, but others here just have different priorities, like service and no BS fees or having to go to the store everytime we want to call. Oh, and with all those fees your STS card charges, I am sure it works out to be about the same, unless you talk for those 7.5 hours straight.
I have used STS cards from here, and I have NEVER gotten 7.5 hours. I think that is an exageration, unless it is just cheaper from where you live.

-Amilcar

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Amilcar says on May 7, 2005, 19:06:

sts= 8 calls= $8.40 in connection fees (if you have all good connections, and don't have to call back)
If you have that card for 1 month its
$3.16 in maintanence fees (79 cents a week)
and 3 minute billing increments.
$11.56 per month in fees go to the company minimum, and then I try to figure in lost minute because I only talked for 3 second over the last 3 minute increment, so I loose there too. I don't know. It doesnt seem like a good deal when a card that costs $20 has At Least $11.56 in fees attached to it, and that is if I use the whole thing in a month! I would rather have something with no hidden anything. IT would probably be around the same price all said and done as the one I just signed up for, but I would rather have the service, online management, speed dial, and NO PINS, just direct dialing. I used callingforcheap to call home today, and it sounded great, and if it didnt. I would just hang up and call back not worrying about another connection fee of 1.05. I don't like the cheapies much, because they end up not being cheap at all and have poorer service most of the time.

***********Funny, just went to the STS website and found this - "(Long call fee may be applied for calls over 100 minutes)." Well great!
What the does that mean.. I guess it means they can charge you more fees if they feel like it, so if they can't screw you with the connection fees.. they will figure out another way to do it for whatever amount they wish. What a wonderful card.***************

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Lionheart says on May 7, 2005, 19:38:

chill everybody ... and no personal attacks please

Nobody is forcing anybody to visit this site or post their opinions here.

You agree to disagree and that's it.

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Lionheart says on May 7, 2005, 23:53:

Mario I deleted the post with the personal attack, it wasn't written by you.

My comments were directed at several members, not just one, just like your comments. And compared to your language I am still pretty tame. But as you can see best yourself, it is that kind of language that grabs attentions here. It is remarkable that all are happy with moderation as long as they aren't called to moderation themselves.

The way the tempers are flaring up in the Unfriendly Talkzone are not a pleasure to the majority ot the PBH members and also not to the moderators. So please try to be moderate without moderators.

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Lionheart says on May 8, 2005, 00:47:

trolls Trolls are originally defined different in chat rooms. They normally see themselves as God's best invention above human beings and think they can enter room and all others will fall onto their knees in awe. Then they flick their pinkie at the opposite sex and expect them to crawl to them and submit to them. Others are plain troublemakers in my humble opinion.

Mario, you single out newbies as "dipshits showing up here lately" - I beg to differ. I think we have oldie "dipshits" looking for every opportunity for a good barfight, and newbie "dipshits", the welcome distraction for oldie "dipshits" getting tired of the daily barfight. Once and awhile a newbie "dipshit" survives the initiation "dipshitting" contest and is welcomed to the ranks of the oldie "dipshitters".

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Amilcar says on May 8, 2005, 05:05:

Dear Lionheart, I am sorry you feel that it was totally my fault here. however, let me explain something: When people call other people "DIPSHITS" in their posts indirectly or directly it causes a reaction in people. Apperently you have no problem by the comments of that person who posted above for some reason. See... people don't like being talked down too like this guy has this whole thread long and then calling people "DIPSHITS".. His needs to learn to have respect for others, even if he doesnt agree with their opinions. When a new person enters a board and makes a comment, you don't expect to be attacked with profanities or being talked down too. When you are attackd, and people like me respond.. we are called trolls...if thats what you want.. then perhaps I will find another board on Colombia and not become a member here. Its a shame, I just found this board, but apperently I am unwelcome, and abusive people are.

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isaactraveler says on May 8, 2005, 13:40:

Here is what I do Now that my wife is here, we still call Colombia so she can have long conversations with her family.

We use ANY of the $5.00 cards you can buy at the store( buy them for $4.00 at the dollar stores). We like CASA BLANCA or YES or RED even).. call with that first, make sure they are home... THEN use

STSPREPAID unlimited $10, like Mario said. it costs me $1.25 per call, but we can talk for up to 100 minutes before it hangs up.

Email me and I will shoot you the specifics, but it comes out dirt cheap.

Other than using skype, this has been the absolute best way to call. You only waste the STS if you misdial, or the wrong person answers or you get a machine.

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isaactraveler says on May 8, 2005, 13:42:

PS Mario, chill out, old man. Good to see you active on this site, but you are taking things way to personal.

how are things going? Angelica is pregnant and having horrible morning sickness. Now I gotta clean, cook and plan for 3(soon to be 4). I love them and it was definately worth it.

I hope I get good hubby credit for all this extra work.

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Lionheart says on May 8, 2005, 15:57:

Amilcar, no bad feelings please Over time you will see that the tone here can get pretty rough and personal, you will learn to love and/or hate certain people here. Groups of people are calling other groups of people all sorts of stuff, and between the lines you can read the death threats and lynch mob mentality, a daily battlefield. As moderators we just delete personal attacks, the one-on-one name calling, which is against the rules, and many have experienced this and moved on. There are more subtle ways to tell somebody you think s/he is an absolute idiot.

Back to the phone topic ... I use Skype and I have been noticing more and more problems to keep a decent connection. And using audio/video in yahoo or msn has gotten poor as well, especially when communicating with Latin America from the USA. Also I have noticed that since the latest version of msn 7 everything is going downhill ... anybody else notice that?

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Cousin says on May 8, 2005, 21:08:

WWW.cheaperwaytocall.com I have been using Sin Bararras South America which I get off the internet site WWW.CHEAPERWAYTOCALL.COM.

It appears to be a lot cheaper than the other cards I have used. I have friend from Cali who use Blue Nile and are happy with those rates but they do not have access to the internet to get the Sin card.

Los Cuatro

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Vika says on May 23, 2005, 12:12:

This one is much better I use it for about 4 month and very good rates and quality
www.worldcheapcalls.com

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bogota says on May 23, 2005, 15:28:

A link for callingcards.com can be found through
http://colombian-services.com/colombia-calling-cards.htm

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miamimike says on May 23, 2005, 19:30:

xochistar--do a search here on "call back phone calls" or go to escapeartist.com and look for the same. Many offer "Callback" rates starting from around .22 per minute from Bogota(to usa) and other Colombian cities. This is a Worldwide system and has been around for maybe 3-4 years. Good Luck

Avatar Legend: Bush "If any of you Reporters are wondering, it was a Size 10"

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N2Aquatix says on May 27, 2005, 11:39:

Calling A Cell Phone I've never seen people get so totally emotional over a calling card! All I can say is......WOW!!! Go to a chat room. It's much more fun to argue a point emotionally there. My only question is what is the cheapest card for calling a cell phone in Colombia?

Jay

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helper1 says on May 28, 2005, 20:43:

Try www.callingforcheap.com Its a good deal and you have online account management where you can set up speed dial (up to 99 phone numbers), so you just call the local access number and then just hit a two digit speed dial number.
You can track all your activity and your balance, minutes used and #s you called. There are NEVER ANY PINS.. you just set up your account to recognize your phones (as many as you want) and then just call the access number.
There are never any maintanence fees, No connection fees, No commitment, Always nearest minute rounding. No rip offs.. everything is up front and you get a bunch of Free minutes when you sign up.
It can't hurt to try it once.
It works great for us and they are very reliable, and I really love the service they offer.
www.callingforcheap.com.

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FredGarvin says on May 29, 2005, 05:52:

good experience with... I have been using Tel3 (www.tel3.com) for about 2yrs now. great account management console on the website, auto bill (even during calls, so if you run out of mins during a call, it just recharges), connect to landline or cell-phone with not much diff in $ (about .08 - .10 per min).

No major connection problems...

fg

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Rubiazo says on Jun 2, 2005, 19:40:

Used the STS for the first time yesterday.

I made two calls on it. Once was to novia's house but her roommate picked up. It turned out that she had just gotten to sleep an hour before I called and had to get up soon anyways so I didn't wanna wake her up even though she had said that it would be ok. So i talked for 5 minutes with the roommate and hung up. Total cost $1.40

The second time I called the card balance was ALREADY down to $7.47. This time she picked up and we talked for just over 2.5 hours. The card balance is now down to $3.41. I had a slight echo on my voice which she had to put up with for the whole time because I was afraid to hang up and call again.

I havent yet even tried to call her cell; I wanted to get her when she's on a long-ass bus ride from downtown to her place in Suba or vice versa. But considering the rate really isn't that great to a land line I dunno what it would be to a cell.

All in all I prefer the STI card the best. It has per-minute rates comprable to the STS, gets better connections, doesn't charge a connection fee, and has no hidden charges.

Cingular's 18 cents a minute to Colombia is also excellent, and just the thing for short calls. The quality is really really good on a good phone like the Treo 650 I just bought.

In between those two is Skype. Skype has good quality to the land line, mediocre quality to the cell. It's 8 euro cents a minute to the cell, 4 to the landline. But during peak periods, like during the evening, the quality goes downhill quite a bit, and sometimes it's hard even to get through.

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ElCheAmericano says on Jun 3, 2005, 10:24:

My exeperience with STS Is with there STS unlimited card they dont discrimiate between land lines and cell. I use to talk to my girl on her cell all the time in BAQ and always got good mileage. But yes it is true once in a while there are problems with the connection which is normal, just follow what Mario tells you and you will be ok. Off the subject my girl is now in Maracaibo, Venezuela and I cannot find one card that will give me better then .08 cents a minute, it sucks. IF anyone could suggest something to me I would greatly appreciate it.

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ElCheAmericano says on Jun 3, 2005, 10:48:

Well I guess until her ass gets back to Colombia, I'm just gonna have communicate thru emails and webcams. I can't take paying $10.00 for a 2 hour phone cards.

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Peter Miami says on Jun 3, 2005, 11:04:

ElCheAmericano Try www.vmacorp.com from Miami to Maracaibo, Venezuela 4.9 cents. I use them and they are the best that I have found write an e-mail to edsanchez at vmacorp.com tell him I told you and he will also give you $5.00 USD for free.

Good luck,

Peter Miami

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ElCheAmericano says on Jun 3, 2005, 12:04:

Thanks for the info Peter Put is that the same rate for calling a cell in Maracaibo

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Rubiazo says on Jun 3, 2005, 12:57:

The only system I know that doesn't charge more for calling cells is when you dial direct with Cingular. It's 18 cents USD a minute no matter what. So I use that for short cell-to-cell calls, and I use the calling cards for when we're both at home and have lots of time. For short calls to her home, I use skype at 4 euro cents a minute.

I buy my STI cards at one of the many discount phone card outlets here in the Bronx. They sell the $10 card for $8 :)) you can also get em online though, just Google it.

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flaleo says on Jun 5, 2005, 08:08:

I don't understand paying 18cents/minute - we're talking about good rates...

MetroPCS sells a STAR-1-2-3 card in their retail locations (no web sales) in FL (if not elsewhere) which as great rates to major cities in S.A. Cali and Bogota are about 3cents/minute to landline, 8cents to cellphones. You don't need to be a MetroPCS customer to use the card, and it has local access numbers throughout FL. Call quality might only be average.

There are never hidden fees, connection charges, minimums, round-offs, etc. - I've been using the cards for months and have watched this closely.

Where can I do better than 3cents to Cali or 7cents to Medellin with no service, maintenance nor minimums/connetion fees?

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bsterling says on Jun 14, 2005, 16:30:

CLONCOM I have had good luck with www.cloncom.com . They have several plans. I use the one with 1 minute rounding and no maintence. I usually get the $10 card. They do hit you with an extra .50 for the card because it is less than $20. It's about 4cents or a little more to call Cali. One thing I like about them is that you pay for the card, they check it for being good and send you the pins. On some other ones that I tried they said we will call you within 5 to 20 minutes to authorize you and then you sit there and are still waiting (at least this is what happened to me) more than 40 minutes and no one calls you.
I am happy with 4cents or so a minute. Hell the cheapest rate I can get for calling within the states is 5 cents a minute with a Walmart calling card.

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maria1234 says on Jun 14, 2005, 18:10:

www.vmacorp.com Peter,

I think the guys at VMA have finally gotten their stuff together. I haven't had a dropped call in weeks and the quality has been pretty good to comcell phones. Apparantely, they went through a lot to get the Colombia lines done correctly. Their rates are pretty good and I like the fact that they don't steal from you.

They also offer a calling card that works from Colombia using the internet to start the call and the rate is about 15 cents per minute.

I got an email from them the other day asking if I would like to test one of their boxes they are working on to call from Colombia to the US. Get this apparantly the rate from Colombia to US will be less than 7 cents. I think they are actually looking for people that would like to become distributors for their products in Colombia. I would do it but I don't live there.

I got another email that I will make another post on that may be interesting to the community so I'll make it a different topic.

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money69 says on Jun 15, 2005, 08:54:

Try using www.uniontelecard.com. I have been using them to call mexico and colombia for a while, connection is good quality also on any of their cards.

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maria1234 says on Jun 15, 2005, 15:15:

Free for my friends. made a new topic.

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Vika says on Jul 9, 2005, 18:46:

Try this card I using this card and very happy http://www.cheap-international-calling-card.com/

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flaleo says on Jul 9, 2005, 19:51:

Mario See if you can add some value regarding this question rather than generalizing (impying fees don't matter, kitty crap or whatever).

For someone who has a usage pattern different than you, and they make frequent calls of shorter length - say numerous 5-10 minute calls and no 60 minute - multi-hour call lengths... and they won't use all of a $10 card within a 30 day period... then is STS still the best product? Or do fees then raise the per minute rate well above 1.7 cents so that other cards are the better option for that type of usage?

With that type of usage, a $1 call fee and a mtce fee if weekly will eat over half of a $10 card.

I understand that STS is great for usage of long calls, thank you.

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