WARNING!! TEL3.COM PHONE CARD OFFER!

[ketzel]

There is an offer appearing on many freebie boards
for a free 50 minute telephone card from Tel3.com -

TAKE MY ADVICE - DON'T DO IT!!

One of the things that they ask for is a
credit card number. They say:

"We need your credit card information in order to verify the information
you provide, with the credit card company. This is the method we use to
protect us from abuse of our card and our free offer. Your credit card will
never be used for any other purpose, unless you want to purchase additional
minutes. You will NOT be charged for your 50 FREE minutes. GUARANTEED"

so I signed up for a free 50 minute phone card,
and I used my Fatshoe.com Visa account ...

Tel3.com IMMEDIATELY charged $10 to my Visa -
and a few minutes later I received an email from
them saying that:

"Unfortunately, we were not able to process
your order for the following reason : Address not matching"

which is not true, of course, since they've already
charged me $10 for a free 50 minute phone card ... sigh ...

so I tried to call the customer service number from
the email (which by the way is the same number listed
on the ad on the site - ) and all I get is a recording -
a bad recording at that!

I'm voting that it's a BIG TIME SCAM! and everyone
should STAY AWAY! Tell all your friends to RUN!!
(grin) I called Fatshoe (BTW, they answered on the 2nd ring)
and they have sent me a dispute form to print out and
sign regarding the $10 charge.

At least I didn't use my credit card -
I used my lil' ole' Fatshoe account ... the most they
could get from me was $12.42 ... LOL

Thought I'd let you know -

Ketzel

[ugotcarrie]

Could this be part of the 3 million ppl who had their #s stolen and were charged 10.00 from a Telecom Co, in Moscow?

[ketzel]

You tell me - here's the registration for the site:

Registrant:
NeTeL Inc (TEL12-DOM)
1020 NW 163 DRIVE
MIAMI, FL 33169 US

Domain Name: TEL3.COM

Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Kivilcim, Guven (GK4304) [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]
Radiant Telecom, Inc.
6300 NE First Avenue
Fort Lauderdale , FL 33334
954 776 9100 (FAX) 954 776 9120
Technical Contact:
Bayazitoglu, Burak (BB14634) [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]
Radiant Telecom, Inc.
6300 NE First Avenue
Fort Lauderdale , FL 33334
954 776 9100 x2106 (FAX) 954 776 9120

Record last updated on 14-Dec-2000.
Record expires on 05-Aug-2010.
Record created on 04-Aug-1997.
Database last updated on 4-Jan-2001 14:43:50 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.NETEL.NET 63.150.78.25
NS2.NETEL.NET 63.150.78.30


Whadda ya think?

Ketzel

[theloo]

There was another deal listed on DoD. When I signed up for it, there was a link to a 50 minute phone card from tel3. I didn't want to enter even my WebCertificate number, so I didn't do it. Thank goodness!

i have done this deal
it is NOT a scam
the $10 was on ur statement for a few days
it was verification charge.
it will be credited back in few days.
ihave used the calling card w/o any probs
i dind't go over the limit thus they never charged me a penny

[saparks]

I've been using telcom for several months. It has been reliable. I have it set up to charge my CC 25 dollars automatically when it needs to be recharged. I call Seoul, Korea several times a week from home and other phones and the service has always been goon and there have been no billing problems. I too got the 10 dollar charge on a CC charge from Russia- but this was on a different card than I have set up with my Tel3 account. So I do not belive that Tel3 is connected with this scam in any way.

[mrsarkar]

to my knowledge, this company might be having goofups with the cc charging, but IS NOT the outright fraudelent type. I do advise that if using the "50 free mins" offer, just discard the card after using initial 40-45 minutes, or you'll get billed at the 50th minute or so.
And their CS is quite hard to get.

[ketzel]

They may or may not be a legitmate company -
but their site clearly states that your credit card
information is for verification purposes only - that
they will not charge you for the 50 free minutes.

If you want place a charge to verify that a card is good,
the industry standard is $1.00 - not $10.00. Think this
through - if they get just 5,000 people to sign up for a
free phone card, and they charge them all $10.00, they have
$50,000 in their account drawing interest - even if they
do credit all 5,000 of the $10 fees back in a week, they've
still made quite a bit on just the interest accrued in that
week alone. In fact, payment services like PayPal were
set up to take advantage of just such interest "floats".

Secondly, I'm quite certain that legally they have to
tell you if they intend to charge your card - no where
on the site does it say that your card will be charged,
or charged for verification purposes. In fact, it says
just the opposite - that your card will never be charged
unless you request more minutes added to it than the
initial 50 free minutes.

So whether they're a legitimate company is not really the
issue here - the issue is what they have been doing.
Their credit policys, procedures, and practices STINK!
And the practice of saying one thing then doing another,
especially when it comes to credit cards, usually indicates
that the company is not on the up-and-up. It's a red flag.

I'm glad for those of you who enjoy their service, and I
hope that you continue to use them problem free. But I stand
by my vote - why would you want to hassle with a company
who can't even follow their own procedures, and can't get
their billing straight? If they can't remember not to
charge you when they've offered you something for free, how
can you possibly believe that your phone bill will be correct?
And if it's not, you're willing to just let it go because
you can't reach customer service? There are many companies
out there offering rates just as competitive as tel3.com,
and most of them manage to do so without any of these hassles.

I would continue to urge anyone who has not yet signed up
for this offer to RUN AWAY as fast as you can! It's my
opinion, based on my experience, and I'm standing by it!

Ketzel

[ketzel]

To clarify one point -

I never said that Tel3.com is in any way connected
to the company in Russia that apparently stole money
from millions of peoples' credit cards.

I merely listed their registration information and
asked what YOU THINK in response to ugotcarrie's question.
The registration information clearly shows the company to
be based in Florida, no mention of Russia at all.

I have no reason to believe that my problem with Tel3.com
charging my card $10 without my permission has anything
to do with the credit card fraud from Russia.

I hope that I have cleared up any confusion on where I
stand on that point and what I have said about Tel3.com.

Ketzel

[Amber112]

Originally posted by kaiotes
i have done this deal
it is NOT a scam
the $10 was on ur statement for a few days
it was verification charge.
it will be credited back in few days.
ihave used the calling card w/o any probs
i dind't go over the limit thus they never charged me a penny

I have NEVER heard of any company charging so much for a verification charge. I am glad that you havent had any problems with them, but personally, I think someone ought to call the better business bureau on them because the standard verification charge for credit cards is $1. Besides not everyone has limit left on their cards so soon after the holidays. lol. That is my opinion anyways. I have seen offers for their card too and didnt do it. Now I am glad I didnt. lol.

Donna

[ketzel]

Just wanted to update on this ...
the $10 charge has been removed from my Fatshoe
account today. I don't know if it was removed
by Fatshoe (since I sent in the charge dispute form)
or Tel3.com ... but since I've never received
anything further from Tel3.com - not a single
email in response to my questions about the $10
charge - I kind of doubt the Tel3.com removed
the charge ... but hey, who's to know.

In any case, I thought it would only be fair
to let you know that after 14 days I got my $10
back - time to go spend it!

Ketzel

[Edited by ketzel on 01-17-2001 at 10:49 AM]

[Amber112]

Well, if it was an authorization charge, then it would have gone off anyways. But there is no telling what it originally was. I am glad that you got your money back though. Have fun spending it. lol.

Donna

[green1]

I use my tel3 card for all of my in-state calling. I have never had any trouble with them at all and have also never had trouble with customer service (I've called a couple times). They aren't the friendliest people around, but I haven't had any problems. I don't remember if they charged my cc $10 when I first signed up though. Seems like I would have remembered that-lol.

[manup9]

Hi everybody!
I want to advice you of not buy telephone card from the TEL3 company. Their cards take off minutes from your account without you talking to nobody. It happened to me with me lose 100$ in this way!!!!!!
THEY stolen my money!!!!

with respect

Manu

[islandgirlscot]

I have used Tel3.com for some time with no problems. I have never taken advantage of any Free offers, though.