Skype

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swordfish1

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ok, I tryed buying skype out credits so I can PC-to-phone, and both my credit cards were rejected (status CANCELLED) on the skype site when I attempted the purchase. I am very sure that both credit cards I tryed are perfectly ok, as I use them on daily bases and used them overseas as well, bot for in person purchases and internet purchases and all has been fine. So my conclusion is that skype credit card system is crap. I spoke to somebody who had tryed purchasing credits from them long time ago (from South Africa), and she said that she had also problems with them, but not with the authorisation, but with the actual credits not being allocated to the account.

So I wonder, is that skype thing works at all, I see people using it, but seems to be using it mostly for PC-to-PC. Anyone using it for PC-to-phone? Anyone sucessfully bought credits from them with South Africa credit card?

So far skype seems to me one crap company !!!
 
Last year at my previous employer the one colleague had bought some time and we tried using Skype to call his cell phone locally. The quality was abysmal, not worth it at all. Do note that this was on 64K diginet connection.

Skype’s PC to PC quality is superb but I’m afraid the same cannot be said when you use it over land lines, it might have improved since we tested as we tried it out just when Skype out was released.
 
Hi there swordfish1. I use SkypeOut often. I also had the problem with signing up with my Visa and also my Mastercard. I use MooneyBookers (www.moneybookers.com) to buy SkypeOut credits. I had to call the helpdesk of MooneyBookers in the UK once and they were extremely helpful. I believe PayPal accepts South African credit cards again, after they stop accepting a few years ago.
 
thank you allyoucaneat, I just saw that paypal accepts SA cards ... last time I checked they didn't!

Vio, will try the PC-to-phone in the next few days and will post about the quality, but better be good!
 
Be careful with Skype-out!

Bought some credits a while back and did not use as quality was not fantastic from Skype - phone. Tried again recently and quality seems to still vary from reasonable to non-existant.

When I checked my Skype out balance last week it had gone from 8 euro to 0 overnight (no further usage on my part). I contacted support and received a reply saying,

'According to our system your Skype account balance has expired wrongly. We will fix it as fast as possible.'

A week later still sitting on 0 credit!
 
yeah sleepyhollow, it seems their support suck as much as their credit card validation system ... not very impressed at all, maybe I should try net2phone rather
 
SkypeOut Rocks

SkypeOut rocks. I've phoned people in USA, Sweden and Germany and the quality of the call (even to a cellphone) is really good. There is a very slight delay sometimes, but not so you'd notice it. The phone call connects quickly, and I've only had one call drop on me. The call rates are cheap and I'm saving big bucks on international calls - nice.

The only hangup is the billing. Don't use their payment page, rather go through PayPal. It's painless and the money's in your account within 10 minutes.

Cheers,
Luke.
 
swordfish1 said:
yeah sleepyhollow, it seems their support suck as much as their credit card validation system ... not very impressed at all, maybe I should try net2phone rather
Click to expand...

I've tried net2phone too. The rates aren't bad but the line quality really sucks. They don't handle voice packet delays very nicely either.
 
No problems here apart from network problems and everyone wanting to shape p2p out of existence. Skype runs off p2p.

Before May I was unable to use my Visa Creditcard to purchase skype-out credit but that issues seems to have been resolved.

Keep in mind - its in Telkoms best interest for Skype not to work well. I'm not making any accusations but its just food for thought.
 
SWF. Hi hows the adsl going - good i hope.
As far as skype is concerned the CC payments can be a nightmare. I had the misfortune of having my CC "Blacklisted" by them because i used it to buy credit on two different accounts - according to them that is an indication of fraud. Unluckily (or maybe luckily) i lost my CC while on holiday in NZ and my new card works fine, i just make sure not to use it on any more than one account. As far as quality goes obviously there are many factors but a major one on using skype out is the quality of the gateway - in certain areas at certain times these seem overloaded. An example is in New Zealand where a few months ago it was pratically impossible to get a sucessful connection to a mobile phone, but obviously the gateway was upgraded as i tried a week ago and got such a good connection i thought i must have pressed the wrong dial button on my dual phone.

Where exactually are you trying to phone if Australia / New Zealand try Freshtel its a aussie based voip company and hence has a much better infrastructure in that part of the world, you can approach pstn quality. Cheers
 
Daveogg, ADSL rocks !!! I have no complains whatsoever !!! No disconnections, I am connected 24x7, while at work, I SSH to home to monitor my downloads and do other stuff :-) it is awesome and fast (well I have only iBurst and dial-up modem background so 192 kbps sustained speed is fast for me!).

Thanks for the info about Skype, I have both Visa ans MC, neither works with them, I am thinking of phoning the bank and asking them if they have a record for why my transaction didn't go through, as I never had such problem before. I didn't know until few hours ago that I can use Paypal as the last time I checked it there was no SA in the list. I am planing to use skype mostly for Europe, but I may use it for NZ as well, so will see. I just found that friend of mine apparently has an active skype account so I will try this first before I buy any credits.

thanks!
 
FYI - From Skype Knowlebase

http://support.skype.com/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=286

My order was CANCELLED, why is that?
Skype wants to keep call prices as low as possible, in order to do this we need to prevent thieves and crooks from using our service. For most users, our payment process is quick and simple. However, the process is also very strict and unfortunately this means that a few genuine users can't use the most simple process we have.

There are many reasons for this - perhaps we see a lot of stolen cards from your card company, or perhaps we don't get the necessary verifications from your banking institution. Your card may well work on Amazon, but the nature of our business means that Skype must comply with stricter authorization rules in order to protect ourselves. For that reason we require that your financial institution has implemented either Verified By Visa/Mastercard Securecode or CVV2 check in order to accept your payment.

If your payment is refused, and you are sure you have entered your details correctly, please try again with a card issued by a different bank or credit card company.

If you still have problems, we offer a more secure payment method through Moneybookers.com. Moneybookers is a fully regulated financial company, who may also request you to fax or email a copy of your documents before opening the account. Your information is safe with them.

Alternatively Paypal is a great option for many people. Paypal has over 70 million users worldwide and is quick and easy to use.

We are improving this situation from week to week, as we strive to accept payments from users anywhere in the world.
 
A friend of mine had problems all his credit cards as well; he then painlessly used PayPal and is now in love with SkypeOut.

I call France daily at moment and have good (not excellent) call quality and call a US mobile regularly and 9 times out 10 have excellent call quality. For €10 I would say it is worth taking a punt.
 
MrSmith, I read this text on their site, and they emailed me like 10 times some automated crap explanation ... but this doesn't answer my question why they reject my CC??? If they want to do business they should have fixed their system before going public! Until recently paypal didn't accept SA CC, so how would you have paid then?
 
I find it strange that before February when skypeout was ilegal to use, CC where accepted no problem and went through for many people without hassle. Once the new regulation came into place and skypeout was "legal" the CC problems started. Makes you think doesn't it.
 
SWF forget the stress of trying to find out why skype rejected your CC. I phoned my bank they did not reject it, tried getting details from bibit (skypes verification partners) no joy their. Tried Skypes "live" help - now you wont believe me but that help desk makes WBS appear like angels. You wont get a logical answer, just go the paypal route if they are now accepting SA CC.
 
Daveogg said:
SWF forget the stress of trying to find out why skype rejected your CC. I phoned my bank they did not reject it, tried getting details from bibit (skypes verification partners) no joy their. Tried Skypes "live" help - now you wont believe me but that help desk makes WBS appear like angels. You wont get a logical answer, just go the paypal route if they are now accepting SA CC.
Click to expand...
WOW! I thought that WBS-like customer support is patented for South African use only :-)
Ok, thanks Daveogg, will do some tests first and see if it is worth paying at all ...
 
ok, I just tested skype to phone (to Europe) and it wasn't bad ... the person on the other end said that it is not loud enough (but still can hear me 98% of the time), but I guess this could be due to the cheap headset I use. Otherwise the larency is almost none, and the voice quality was reasonbale. Paid about 0.80 Euro for 24 minutes ... not bad
 
Not sure if I should be saying anything about this, but I use a great service called Vonage. When I was in ZA back in May, I tested it out, and it sounded like the person was down the street. Used it to call the US, the UK, Aus, and the quality was great and the cost minimal - esp to the US (free with subscription). You have to get the VOIP adapter where you plug a telephone into, and there is a $25 a month sub fee, but you get a US based number in the area code of your choice. For those who spend more than $25 a month calling the US or in general phone calls ... it is a great way to go. And as mentioned above, the quality is amazing. Calling the UK is only 3c (US) a minute. And you have the added benefit of having a US based telephone number.

In my opinion this is the best thing invented next to DSL.

www.vonage.com
 
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