My husband and I were staying in a campground in Idaho and needed to call our sons and a friend. My cell phone worked and I tried to use our calling card. The calling card worked once, and then I was greeted by a friendly voice of an Opticom operator, who put me through to my number. I made several other calls, leaving two messages of my own, listening to one message without leaving my own message, and actually talking to a person only one time. All of the calls except the last one lasted less than a minute—time enough to leave a message. Four of the calls were $17.99 each; one call was $23.49.
They do have an option at the beginning of their message that gives rate information; never having paid any amount close to that for a long distance call, I didn't review the rates. I figured they would be higher than normal, but I never dreamed one call to a message machine would cost $17.99.
What I'm wondering is why my phone card worked the first time, and then would not work. I will check with my phone company.
It seems that Opticom could make a profit without losing future business from its customers by charging exhorbitant rates—I, for one, will never use Opticom's service again. I will also make sure to listen to the rate information before I dial. Diane
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