Phone Card Scams Revealed, Congress to Act

Last month I wrote about the Senate Commerce Committee's inquiry into prepaid calling card scams by Elite Telecom and GEO Telecom.

Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that congress may soon legislate against deceptive phone card practices.

Gus West, President of the Hispanic Institute, testified before the committee and found that small-time phone card fraud is pandemic in Hispanic communities:

Mr. West's organization has tested hundreds of calling cards sold in Latino-area convenience stores and found that, on average, they deliver about half of the minutes promised.

The prevalence of such scams might turn some people off of phone cards all together, driving a switch to alternative telephony technologies like Skype. But as I noted in my post about Skype vs Phone Cards for immigrant communities, oftentimes phone cards offer much better rates than Skype.

This makes it all the more important that people find the phone cards that deliver the full amount of minutes advertised. Congress enacting legislation to enforce good rates will further solidify calling cards as the number one choice for a large number of long distance callers.