Complain about a product or service

IDT Calling Cards

IDT • Long-distance • Calling cards --- • Card charges investigated

Heather of Custer SC (10/11/03):
My husband is in the military and I sent him the "free" calling card we received when we signed up for IDT long distance. On 10-11-03 my husband called his family and everything was fine, but when he tried to call back later on in the day he received a message saying, "this PIN number is no longer valid." So my husband had to call collect, which charges outrageous amounts as it is, to let me know the calling card was not working. I asked him to call me back and when I tried to call IDT their office was closed.

This was very upsetting being that we haven't seen my husband in over 3 months and we live to hear from him on the weekends. After my husband got off the phone I called a "callback" number for IDT, and after 6 hours, still received no call back in regards to this matter.

The outrageous collect charges on my phone bill are going to be around $20.00 just for 5 minutes of this call. I just got done dealing with the outrageous charges from MCI of $7.00 per minute when my husband didn't have the calling card yet.

Emilia of Jackson Heights NY (6/28/03):
I used an IDT $5.00 pre-paid phone card as following: it started with 30 minutes available; after two busy signals, the card had 9 minutes left and I spoke for 2 minutes before the time finished up. I called their customer service, which put me on hold for about 10 minutes, then the line went silent and nobody picked up the phone.

Paul of Middleburg FL (9/4/03):
I recently purchased an IDT global calling card to make calls from Peru, I was told that I had to call another number to get the access number to make calls from that area. I waited about 2 weeks and called to get the access number and was told that IDT does not have service from Peru, so I asked if I could get a refund since the initial salesperson told me that they did provide this service.

The reply I received almost knocked me over, when the girl told me this was my problem for not asking more questions about the service, she stated she would never have done anything so silly as what I did, by purchasing a calling card you could not use. She also told me it was nonrefundable and said she did not have time to talk to me. I asked to talk to a supervisor and was put on hold and after 33 minutes I decided no one was going to talk to me.

I'm out $100.00 on the calling card

Afshin of Chicago (6/10/02):
I have been using IDT calling card service to speak to my family in the Middle East. Each time I used this card to call Middle East, the call did not go through and I was charged for it. IDT charges its calling card customers fee even the call does not go through. Most of the time, IDT refuses to refund or to credit the lost minutes to the customer's card.

For example, on June 9, 2002, I placed a call to my country. The phone line sounded busy. I hang up the phone and redialed again, IDT automated service said that it was experiencing a problem with my card. After redialing again I noticed that I was charged for the previous call without been contacted. Since IDT does not indicate it has a connection fee for the first dial up, I immediately, called the customer service to request a credit. They denied my request and accused me of using the card for more then 5 minutes.

I have lost 43 minutes of talk time for technical difficulties that IDT system was facing during my dial up. This is not the first time that it has happened and I just will not ever buy their calling cards or switch to their local or long distance services. IDT just ignores your complaint.

Hortense of Rosedale NY (8/23/01):
I purchased a $5 card to call Jamaica WI on 8/17/2001, I tried several times to call Jamaica without success, each time I tried to call IDT deducted money, hence minutes, from the card. I had to call several times to report the problem to an automated system. I finally got to speak with someone who informed me that they would restore $2.80 to the card. They refused to fully restore the $5 even though I had not made any connection with the party in Jamaica. I asked to speak with a supervisor but was told that person was unavailable. I want to emphasize that this is an ongoing problem with these phone card companies who are bilking consumers of thousands of dollars from unsuccessful calls.

This was the second time that an incident of this nature has happened to me and many others that I am aware of. Economically it may not seem like a lot but if one were to add all the dollars this company and others like it have defrauded consumers the loss would be substantial. Plus I wasted a lot of time and effort trying to get the problem resolved. I was not able to use the 8 minutes they put back on the card (the original amount was 30 min).