VoipCheap charges

codetown

Hello,
I started using VoipCheap on the 2 December 2005.
I inserted a credit of 10 pounds and started using the system only for free calls (UK and international numbers).

Up to this morning everything seemed fine.

But now whatever number I try with it (at least I tried UK and Italy) it shows me a 0.05 pound/min charge, even if it showed 'free call' up to early this morning. The program still shows me in credit of 10 £ and I haven't tried what happenes if someone replies to the call.

I could not find any announcement on the voipcheap web site and cannot understand what is going on. Anyone knows more about this change?
The calls to UK landline and Italy landline are still shown as free on their site.
Can anyone check and report if this is a general change or something strange going on with my account?

codetown

I have tried and can now confirm that my voipcheap program has started charging 0.5 pence a minute for calls to all UK landline. Still no announcement on their web site.

I wonder if this is the same also for the other VOIP line (VOIPStunt, VOIPbuster)?
Can anyone confirm?
I am particularly interest in calls landline to UK and Italy.

eilz

I had a problem yesterday with voipstunt, anyone else

Skint1

I Have just made a local call UK have not been charged.
I joined Voipcheap in Dec and have all my credit

codetown

Skint1 wrote:

I Have just made a local call UK have not been charged.
I joined Voipcheap in Dec and have all my credit

that is strange... Have you tried for a reasonable lenght (over 10 seconds)?

I tried again myself:
-a call to UK landline of 2 seconds is not charged,
-a call to UK landline of 46 seconds has been charged at 0.5 pence a minute

I also tried a call to Italy landline and has been changed 0.5 pence a minute as well.

I read somewherelse that VoipCheap has introduced a fair-usage policy and might start charging people who use their free destinations too much.

But the strange part is that they seem not to discriminate among countries of usage, as I have certainly not used much UK calls (probably less than 1 hour in total over the last two months!) and yet they are charging me for it now... The only thing I can think of is that you might have a buffer of free calls and once you go voer they remove the free and charge 0.5 pence a minute anyway.

Maybe is convenient to open another 'free' account?
Can anyone reasonable new confirm if VoipStunt is still free to UK landline and Italy landline?

eilz

voipstunt is still free for uk landlines

pin

According to the Voip Cheap website UK landline calls are no longer free (on the front page anyway).

However if you go to the destination list UK landlines are shown as free.

Very annoying for me, as I use it all the time to call back home.

Skint1

Hi back again just to let you know I have been on the phone quite abi today I have made calls of over 5 mins all local UK and still not been charged . I wonder if its because I never updated their software. If it aint broke dont fix it

nilocmac

You might also find this interesting

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=151102

pin

Used VoipCheap last night to call the UK and no charges.

codetown

I used it again and it is charging me consistently 0.5 pence a minute to any UK landline number. the same applies to many other users (see VoipBuster forum, where lots of users of VB and VoipCheap report their problems).

The really bad thing is that Finarea will not tell why there are charges on numbers advertised as free and who are the 'unlucky' people.

A theory is that you might have an allocated amount of max free hours and then you are switched to a paid-for (non advertised) tariff.
But is this legal? I think absolutely not and I think this should be made clear to the user! People should at least know when their calls are not free and why!!!