Vonage works reasonably well. $24.95 (or so) a month, unlimited calls anywhere in the U.S., Canada, and an expanding list of other places.

-Jim

The Skype policy is clearly stated in black and white for those who will read it and heed it. No secret, no mystery. Sad to suggest though, that many in the US will lose their credits purchased months ago before the Free SkypeOut period for the USA and Canada was launched. All SkypeOut calls since the launch have been free and credits unused sit and will rot except spent in some other way: by a SkypeOut to a land far away or by purchasing a Ringtone or by trying out the new SMS. Ringtones $1.20, SMS $0.112, fools who disregard terms of service/policy "priceless"

Wow, Huffnhustle, you really showed me. Indeed, what I fool I am...any policy that is printed in black and white is clearly a good and moral thing, and anyone failing to take heed is clearly a fool. How nice for Skype that they're able to make a handy profit raking money off fools like me, with the added benefit that stalwarts such as yourself have their back.

Well Phil, you may have chosen option 3... however, they will probably end up losing more than that just in lost business. It only takes a few people reading this blog post and deciding to go with Vonage instead. Of course you yourself will likely go with a competitor as well. Service companies disregard customer service at their peril.

And this six-month rule is just stupid, regardless of what huffnhustle said. What kind of company doesn't keep records for seven years? It's a few bytes, the cost of keeping a customer is effectively zero. The cost of losing a customer and other potential customers through word of mouth is orders of magnitude greater.

Phones are so twentieth century.

I still have trouble processing the fact that Vonage costs $25 a month....for crying out loud, one can get decent cell service for not much more!

Does that decent cell service give you unlimited free long distance calling throughout North America?

Very, very close, actually. Communication services are one of the few heavily regulated industries where there's actually been real progress in both services and prices in the past decade. For $40/mo, you can get a heck of a cell phone plan (I have 1000 anytime and unlimited night/weekend, and have never come close to running over), and of course the mobility of a cell phone is an added fillip that a landline can't match.

It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to this. If this is something Skype only recently started doing, then it wouldn't be too surprising to see a bit of an act of contrition from them in the coming weeks. If this is something that has actually been going on for a while now, however, and Phil just now found out about, then it's likely the smart money in the market has already factored in the effects of that business practice. (Doesn't change the fact that it's pretty darn annoying, of course.)

Try freeskypecredits.com. They also give away free Skype Credits at registration.

http://freeskypecredits.com

Try freeskypecredits.com. They also give away free Skype Credits at registration.

http://freeskypecredits.com

Good to see the Skype apologists out in force.

What Skype is doing by revoking credit is tantamount to theft in my opinion; there is no technical reason why they would have to revoke your credit. This is simply a ploy to rip people off.

I have started investigating the possibility of taking legal action against Skype; it may only be a few dollars but someone needs to teach these chumps a lesson.

I found this discussion by Googling "skype sucks". This is a search tactic I use when considering a service, and it hasn't yet failed to turn up discussions which enlighten and aid my decision making process. One thing that I have learned so far which has discouraged me form using Skype is that it is owned by ebay. Ebay is, in my opinion, the single most arrogant, user unfriendly corporation I have used.

This thread is helping me come to a decision of whether or not to use Skype. I'm leaning toward eliminating Skype as a possible internet phone service for my business use.

i use vonage to call a long list of friends in UK and Ireland. i use it like 2 hours or more everyday. Best part - For FREE!

As for Skype, i paid $10 to make some calls (to pakistan-not in list of vonage free calling) - and my account has yet to show that balance after 5 days!

Skype DOES Suck!

Skype's explanation that they can not hold on to 'dead accounts' doesn't make any sense at all.
the SEC requires data to be stored for at least seven years before it can be deleted.
so if they have to hold onto your records for that long they may as well keep your account open.

The fact that they want to expire credit that hasn't been used is perfectly fine with me...just as long as they return the monetary balance to the customer. Otherwise that is theft in my opinion. Here in New York, companies used to do that with gift cards and charge you a fee if you didn't use your card in a certain amount of time. Yeah, it was laid out in black and white. But the Attorney General's office said that's still illegal, no matter what the disclaimer says. If you pay money for a service, you get that service or you get your money back.