That's why good customer support is so important. When something goes wrong with the card it is incredibly frustrating if you can't get it resolved. Make sure you can phone and speak to someone at customer service or that they respond to your email quickly. Try ringing their customer support number before you buy their phone card to test if they answer or respond quickly.

So why do you not get what you pay for? The long distance international phone call marketplace is extremely competitive. So the different phone card companies come up with a whole lot of unusual tricks and gimmicks or ways to present their product so that they look cheaper.

To really be able to determine which phone card to use you need to have access to a resource such as www.ephonecards.com.au that compares all the phone cards on the same basis. This includes using peak call rates and not off-peak calls rates and providing standardised information on each card in a “more info” section. This enables you to compare the phone cards on the same basis – apples with apples.

The most common marketing techniques used by phone card companies include:

• using off-peak rates to compare call rates. These call rates are generally at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night when no one makes phone calls!

• having connection fees that kick in after 5 minutes and then every 10 minutes. This way when the phone card is being compared it appears to have no connection fee – actually it is just hidden.

• using variable call rates so that after the first 10 minutes the call rate goes up by 50% or more. Again when comparing phone cards it looks cheaper against the other call rates. Make sure the call rate is a flat rate 24 hours/day and stays the same throughout the call.

• the card expires quickly – in less than 30 days. Phone card suppliers make a significant portion of their profit from the unused minutes on a card.

• applying a service or maintenance fee that gets charged once a week or every 4 days. You may suddenly find your phone card minutes have gone down without you using it!

If it looks to good to be true it usually is. The most important thing you can do to make the right choice is find a resource that compares apples with apples in a standardised methodical way and that your information source is not tied to any one particular product.