I bought €10 worth of SkypeOut credit on 5th of March last. I used about €2 of that on calls and recently when I went in to check my balance, my balance was zero – €0!
How did that happen? There’s no record of any SkypeOut calls for several months on my account – all my calls lately have been Skype to Skype.
I was going to top up my credit but now I don’t trust the system with my money.
have you passed the time limit ?
I guess that’s a possibility Maca – but you think they’d give you a warning or something if they were going to appropriate your money.
They sent me a warning about some credit I hadn’t used since may, but I distinctly remember the email just being a blank message from skype with the title “Credit Expiration”. The rest of the email was completely blank! I then went to look at the site and found out about the time limit.
If they were that shoddy at sending me an email and forgetting to actually put any content in it then perhaps they just didn’t send you one at all?
Nope, they don’t – and they even sometimes take your money if you HAVE made a call within the last few days of your time, although when it happened to me they did at least refund the cash later.
@David – at least you got an email – I received none.
@Noirin – thanks for confirming that it isn’t just me!
Tom – Perhaps you can vote with your feet and switch to…http://www.gizmoproject.com
I haven’t ever tried it, but I have heard good things about it and it has cheap calls to US phones so might be good for your podcasts.
Good thinking David – I’ll look into it.
The world would be a better place if everyone used Gizmo! It uses the open SIP standard which means the interoperability of the service is much better. It works pretty well with Blueface and everything.
It is kind of a tipping point issue, isn’t it?
Until the userbase increases, everyone will want to go with Skype – the open architecture is a much better idea, though.
trust blueface! irish, you can call them, and they offer great services. 100% customer service, they answer the phone when you ring. similar costs to skype.
blueface.ie they are good. i get 076, and 01 number and 5 hours of FREE landline calls for 9.99euro per month.
http://www.runningwithbulls.com/blog/category/bernard/tech/voip/
b
That’s handy alright Bernard but I need Skype (or an equivalent) to record my calls.
Dave, I downloaded Gizmo – but I don’t know anyone else using it, so I can’t test it!
tom,
i used gizmo. and then figured why the hell do i have about 4 accounts with different providers. just stick to skype and a proper VOIP service.
Recording calls – use Xlite true VOIP softphone, and record your calls on your computer.
I have a little applescript audio recorder. works a treat.
Use Blueface. Your call costs will be way better. And its proper VOIP.
Bernard you’re a big fan of Blueface and right you are but think about how cool it’d be if people used Gizmo instead of Skype, Gizmo is completely interoperable with Blueface because it’s SIP. You can call Blueface users for free from Gizmo.
ah, now there is a thing! i did not know that about gizmo. i should download it again and use it as my SIP softphone.
Still tho, it is not “the” IP-IP voice app. But if it will do SIP then I will be happy to retry it. Yes if people used Gizmo, that would be cooler (actually using SIP not a proprietary system)
Blueface rock. At the moment their user base is small so they can give such personal service. If they can scale the quality of support as they grow, they are onto a winning formula.
But I still say give Blueface a go. There is a free trial available. They give you 1€ worth of calls. Enough for about 1 week.
night
Dave, that’s cool and I have installed Gizmo – but I don’t know anyone else using it so i can’t call anyone!
Yep I have much the same problem Tom, I’m trying to convince my current Skype contacts to move but that’s not the easiest thing to achieve.
maybe u called to a mobilephone?
recently i used 13euros to buy 500min of time with skype, then after 56 minutes, my account was empty… then, a littlebit too late i noticed, its ten times more expensive to an mobilphone!!! that pissed me off, big time!!
Just found out I lost all my credit on my Skype account (10 euros) – this really sucks. I planned to use it when the sofware would be better. Now skype is out for me (pun intended).
Note that this page comes up really high in google when you are searching for “skype credit expiration”…
I can’t find Gizmo! Where is it?
Does it work with all VOIP SIP services?
Does it work with Freespeech?
LtotheN: No-gizmo does not work with freespeech, or any other SIP provider, at the moment. I say at the moment, not because I work for Gizmo, or know inside 0-day info, but more because I hope that they will see the potential gizmo has for becoming *the* open source SIP softphone.
Gizmo is the softphone freely downloadable for use with the SIP VOIP provider http://www.sipphone.com/.
Sipphone is a very big name in the SIP VOIP world..*but* at the moment they tie gizmo to *only* sipphone.com
On the other hand, if you have a sipphone account, and want to call a blueface.ie or freespeech.ie SIP VOIP account, then yes it will work. Thats because it uses SIP protocol, for transmission, unlike Skype, which uses there own P2P technology.
So, in loooong way to answer your question, gizmo cannot be used as a softphone client for freespeech, or blueface.ie BUT it can be used to call a blueface.ie, or freespeech acount FROM a sipphone account.
btw: gizmo can be downloaded at: http://www.gizmoproject.com/download.php
hth,
bernard
Hi,
Well my experience with Skype is also a bit dodgy. For the most part it works a works well (you get what you pay for). About a 6 months ago my account was blocked. The account still has a credit of 6 Euros but i can’t make any external calls. I’ve been emailing their support group and billing but keep getting excuses like, you card details don’t match and when I get that right I’ve received “that’s a fraudulent network”. Which is bogus since i can login using a different account and all is well. They’ve basically stolen my money and don’t seem interested in providing the service or returning the cash!
Mike
Skype just took my balance.. The mail said it was bacause the account hadn’t been used for 180 days and I quote
“You will receive reminder emails 30 days, 7 days and 72 hours before your credit expires.”
They didn’t send me any warning mails. They have taken my money and not provided the service I paid for. And many people are saying the same.. Talk about abuse of trust. Sounds more like stealing to me..
That totally sucks 🙁 And let me guess how you paid? Pay Pal? Guess who owns paypal and skype? Ebay….Hmmm wonder if it is a conspiracy….LYnd
Same story 4 me with Skype. My Credit disappears and it has happend to my friends also. Really Skype just steal your money. Their free and paid service is very patchy and when travelling you cannot depend on it working any way consistently in different countries. Try nonoh for free and very cheap voip calls to phones and mobiles. I have used it for ages and it always works well from Ireland and abroad. Recently I changed to Chorus UPC broadband phone & tv in Ireland and Nonoh does not seem to work with this setup.
Skype got sued for 250 thousand dollars. fopr talking money, now they look to get that money back. the new law. they can not make you use your money at a period of time. or purchase things drom them with in a period of time. that is gone with.. if so sue them for it. you will win.
azre you saying ebay skype and paypal is the same??Well you are right. and also you did not know that ebay is another owner of part godaddy. and so on????? guess who made over a billion dollars????