Buzzcard -- Anyone used it

RadioactiveFrog

andy88 wrote:

On the other thread where Martin mentioned your product, your initial, special offer post (which has expired now you have secured more exposure here) said this
Your website makes no explicit or detailed mention of your surcharges from callboxes either.

The rates pages has the following text on it -- Calls from mobile or payphones may incur a surcharge from the service provider.
And our FAQ page has the following text on it -- Q. Are there any other charges?
A. Currently we get charged 9.5p a minute when you use a payphone so this is deducted from your Buzzcard at cost.

Only now under extensive questioning do you eventually admit that there are surcharges from your company, not the callbox operator as your site ambiguously tends to imply*, on callbox usage.

There is obviously still some confusion here so please let me clarify. There is no charge from Buzzcard for using a callbox. However the callbox provider does make a charge for you to use the callbox and this fee comes out of your buzzcard credit. As has already been stated we make nothing on this fee unlike other card providers.

Hopefully this clears everything up.

Graham

andy88_2

RadioactiveFrog wrote:

The rates pages has the following text on it -- Calls from mobile or payphones may incur a surcharge from the service provider.

So it does, but the surcharge is not definitively described on that rates page. I quoted you above saying there were no surcharges, and in blue, you again said that the rate is the same abroad, whilst omitting to mention callbox charges.

And our FAQ page has the following text on it -- Q. Are there any other charges?
A. Currently we get charged 9.5p a minute when you use a payphone so this is deducted from your Buzzcard at cost.

Your faq page is not as easy to find, as it does not link from the headings on the home page

Hopefully this clears everything up.

It does at last, but the impression that this information is not easy to obtain from you or your website endures. The posts that criticised the layout of your site were deleted though.

Other calling card firms have said that the charge from callbox operators varies per country.

RadioactiveFrog

andy88 wrote:

So it does, but the surcharge is not definitively described on that rates page. I quoted you above saying there were no surcharges, and in blue, you again said that the rate is the same abroad, whilst omitting to mention callbox charges.

I am sorry that in my original post i ommitted to mention the callbox charges but i was not attempting to explain everything in one paragraph i was merely answering a question that had been asked a lot at that time about the rates changing when abroad. Which they don't. The callbox charge is relevent from any callbox, UK and in other countries so i didn't feel it necessary to mention it at that time. Hopefully everyone now knows and understands the charge made by the callbox provider and maybe we can move on to new questions.

Your faq page is not as easy to find, as it does not link from the headings on the home page

This is very true it does not link from the headings and we plan to change this in the near future to make the FAQ page much easier to find. However it is linked to from the contact us page for the time being as if customers have questions then they would generally go through the contact us page and find the FAQ on the way!!

Other calling card firms have said that the charge from callbox operators varies per country.

We have been told that this is not the case but if that is what you have been told then we will check it out anyway and let everyone know if anything changes. It could be that the amount they markup the charge changes per country which changes the amount but that is an assumption on my behalf.

If anyone has any other questions please post them here or contact our customer service team using the contact form on the website https://www.buzzcard.co.uk/contactus.php.

I should note now that i will be away from sunday 12th Aug for up to a week so if anyone has any questions during that time that others can't answer here please contact our customer services team and they will be able to advise you.

Kind Regards,

Graham

alared

Andy88

Are you going to risk £4-50 and buy a virtual Buzzcard and report back your findings as most questions have now been fully answered?

andy88_2

Are you? I'm mainly interested from abroad, so won't necessarily use it a lot. I'll see what I hear from Germany Belgium Holland about the access numbers

RadioactiveFrog

andy88 wrote:

Are you? I'm mainly interested from abroad, so won't necessarily use it a lot. I'll see what I hear from Germany Belgium Holland about the access numbers

Andy,

What are you waiting to find out about the access numbers? I can tell you that we have customers using the card in all three countries you mention with no problems if thats any use to you!

alared, £4.50 well spent i'd say :cool:

Graham

coolsteel

So to clarify, Bazzcard's price, dialing from a payphone abroad, evening 0.6p per minute + 9.5p surcharge per minute = 10.1p a minute plus 17% vat = Total true cost of dialing from a PAYPHONE abroad =11.8p a minute evenings, 11.7p a minute weekends (0.1 p cheaper per min) and 12.6 pence per minute day time (1.39p per min plus the extra's) If my sums are wrong and im sure ill be corrected if this is the case. Would like Buzzcard to display the true cost on their home page PER MIN inclusive of ALL added extra's surcharges, VAT etc dialing from a payphone abroad.
So your five pounds will in fact get you roughly between 41 and 42 minutes talk time dialing back to the UK from a payphone.
PS could anyone check if my sums are correct?
Coolsteel :cool:

RadioactiveFrog

coolsteel wrote:

So to clarify, Bazzcard's price, dialing from a payphone abroad, evening 0.6p per minute + 9.5p surcharge per minute = 10.1p a minute plus 17% vat = Total true cost of dialing from a PAYPHONE abroad =11.8p a minute evenings, 11.7p a minute weekends (0.1 p cheaper per min) and 12.6 pence per minute day time (1.39p per min plus the extra's) If my sums are wrong and im sure ill be corrected if this is the case. Would like Buzzcard to display the true cost on their home page PER MIN inclusive of ALL added extra's surcharges, VAT etc dialing from a payphone abroad.
So your five pounds will in fact get you roughly between 41 and 42 minutes talk time dialing back to the UK from a payphone.
PS could anyone check if my sums are correct?
Coolsteel :cool:

Hello Coolsteel,

Firstly we display our costs without VAT as this is the standard method for calling card companies to display the rates and minutes per card.

Our rates page shows the rate that we charge you to make a call to the relevent destination. The 9.5ppm charge by the phonebox company is not our charge, it is the callbox companies charge and you pay it through your buzzcard. Even using a Buzzcard through a callbox with their charge it is still very cheap to call home when on holiday! But to save even more avoid paying the callbox charge and find a hotel phone or a landline that does not have such surcharge!!

Maybe we could look at introducing a call calculator so people can work it out for each destination!! I will discuss it with the team.

Kind Regards,

Graham

andy88_2

RadioactiveFrog wrote:

What are you waiting to find out about the access numbers? I can tell you that we have customers using the card in all three countries you mention with no problems if thats any use to you!

Mobiles

whether they are blocked by mobile networks that recognise them as calling cards that they receive no revenue from.

I first asked this of you 19 days ago, but you answered about Orange UK, and even now still appear to either not know the answer or try to belittle the question.

I realise that on a per country basis, some networks block more of these than others eg in Netherlands KPN blocks more than Orange

Callboxes

Also in Netherlands, even some callboxes block access, and the country has higher callbox tariffs than most, which makes me wonder about your claimed 9.5p flat rate everywhere.

Some calling card firms do respond to enquiries more promptly than your 2 weeks with clear detail of their charges, and 3 emails from one company yesterday tell me that their callbox surcharge tariffs vary from €0.10 France through €0.26 Belgium to €0.49 Netherlands, again rather at odds with your flat rate 25p profiteering on 9p accusation - 2 are cheaper.


edit - ok, perhaps I am overdoing things about Netherlands - clearly one of the cheapest mobile ways to phone UK from there is using Lebara Mobile, which charges €0.12 per minute for many countries landlines - unless it is possible to use their SIM with Buzzcard's 0800 number for less, of course
http://www.lebara-mobile.nl/engels/home.htm

andy88_2

Is it possible with Buzzcard to check the account balance, either online or via a menu system on calls to a special number?