Penny Talk review: Fake and Customer Service Sucks 47

Sorry to hear your complaint. I reffer Penny Talk to many of my traveling companions because it worked well with me. I am considering it for my full time long distance method.

I signed up for the $25 calling card and after 3 days I was still waiting for my account to be activated. I received an email stating my account was disabled due to problems with my billing address. I called customer service to have it fixed. Finally, after the 3rd call to customer service and still no active account, I closed the account. The people were nice and polite on the phone but the customer service leaves much to be desired.

as with any company there are sometimes problems with billing. it's called a mistake. those things happen, and pennytalk happes to save many people hundreds of thousands of dollars. sorry you people are so spoiled by society today you forgot to have a little thing called patience. by the way you calling pennytalk "fake" is crap and hopefully you can be sued for defimation of character!

I purchased a PennyTalk calling card at my local 7-11 store.When my minutes were up I went online to recharge using a Visa CC.I did not use the Auto-Recharge feature online.After my intial two adding funds online, PennyTalk automatically billed my Visa card 100.oo today.I was astonished and very mad.I telephoned the very poor connection customer service line.Finally after being on hold for nearly 10 minutes they credited my Visa card the 100.oo charge.I then sent them a fax and an email to totally delete my acccount.Beware of any credit card info that you put online.It is far better to purchase the cards and not go online to add the funds.As of today they have not responded to my email and my fax to delete my account information.

mewo must be employed by PennyTalk.She should try them out sometime.

I just saw the commerical for penny talk & I'm happy i read your comments. No penny talk for me, friends of family members. A company with bad customer Service will always leave a bad taste in people mouth. Bad news always travels faster than good news. Again I thank you guys for you honest comments.

I just saw a Penny Talk commercial and am grateful for your comments. I will not consider this long distance option. Thank you all.

I was just about to bye pennytalk minutes online, but thanks to your comments will not. Thank you for writing these feedbacks!

Because their system fell, Verizon picked up my call and I got charged $38.00 for a call to Chile for 8 minutes. They didn't want to help me out, didn't pay for the call, this company sucks, their system fails and they have terrible customer service.

I paid $25 for a new account, and made one call totalling about $3. When I try to make another call, the automated voice on phone tells me there is no money in my account. My account on the web shows a remaining balance of $22. The customer service told me that my account indeed has a balance and he will fix it. It has been weeks and they did nothing. What a fraud!

I am a legit user of pennytalk's services and have been very happy. I use it to call from the states to Canada and it saves me PLENTY every month. No problems so far, hope it stays that way.

I've been using PTfor at least 4 years now. The problems I've always has was that every time I made a call and it was not answered, I still got charged for it. I immediately called Customer Service and they always credited my minutes back. Yes, I did have to wait on line several minutes but I rather wait that having to pay an expensive calling card or any phone program. I've never been over-charged. Customer service is not that great, especially because it is always ansered somewhere overseas. I will continue to use it because every time I have had an emergency (no matter where I am) it helps a lot!

i signed up and put $20.00 on. when my balance got to $4.80 i could not make anymore calls till i put more money on my acct. called customer service to see why i could not use the rest of my balance, the answer i got was thats our policy. so i am out of $4.80. that lets me know they are a rip off, thiefs.

i signed up and put $20 on mt acct. when my balance got to $4.80 i colud no longer make a call. called customer service to ask why i coul not use the rest of the balance, the answer i got was that was there policy.
so that lets me know they are a rip off, thiefs. stay away form pennytalk.

I have been using PT fro a. 4 years. Always for calls from the US to Italy. I talk a lot. 2 times week for 40 min/1hr with my mom. After the initial trouble with signing (cc card address, etc etc) things worked fine so that I decided for the automatic recharge. Since then I used custom office once, no more. So far no surprised on my account. I would say this is fine. Anyway, thanks for the comments...and I will double check more.

I started to use Pennytalk very early on, I opened my first account in 1992, I never had to use customer service... so far, so good.
My biggest complain early on was the quality of the tone and the drop lines. Today is like light years ahead, still no perfect.
Considering that in 1992 the cost per minute to call Europe via my normal phone company was more than a dollar a minute, I decided my buddies in Europe could live with broken calls from time to time and some double voices, but that si history. Since the new technology was implemented, it has been a bliss.
I am not sure if PT is for everybody, if you talk more than 30 times a month for around 40 minutes each call, I will not be using it. One can get better rates with fixed international rates some as low as $30 per month.
Overall, I refer people to the service specially if they plan to call a couple of times a week. I can say that I have saved thousands in calls that I "had" to make and I called than I should because PT was so cheap!

Last week, and for the first time, I bought a $10 Pennytalk card at one of my local supermarket chains. It is working great for my calls to my boyfriend who is in The Netherlands. He calls me most of the time, but for when I need to call him, this is a great solution. Now that I know of the credit card-related problems reported here, I will just buy more cards when I need to and not try to recharge the card I bought.

I have experienced no problems whatsoever with my $10 investment in this one card but I will definitely avoid giving them my credit card information, just in case!.

I was charged 25.00 on my checking account and did not even know who pennytalk is-I called and they said they would credit my money back-but the fact remains where did they get my account info?

I have been very happy with PennyTalk over the past year. Now, in the past few days I'm about to look for another International carrier. Customer service is not there, they answer the phone, but that's about it...never clear up a connection problem.

Too bad, previous to this I was a very happy customer...maybe there were purchased by someone else..?

Only complaint so far is the same as Traveler46: that $0.50/call charge...whether it gets picked up on the other end or not. Still it seems cheaper than most, but I'm looking for an alternative asap; just haven't found one yet. As with all these "deals" the devils in the details.

My case was exactly as the original story went (the person calling Ireland), except for the fact that I placed two calls within my same state.

After six calls to customer service (a misnomer) I ended up speaking to Elvis, Nuana (unsure of the spelling, pronounced Nu-wan-ah), and finally Louis (the constantly unavailable supervisor) I was forced to spend 50 minutes 47 seconds on the phone only to be told that Louis couldn't get any information about resolving my problem.

Three charges we processed, and approved. $50, $25, and $25. After $100 of approvals, my account still showed -$1.01 .

I will be proceeding with legal action.

Anyone interested in enjoining such an action, please leave a note here.

Thank you.

I signed up when the earthquake in Haiti happened was told the rate was cheaper, advertised cheaper on there own web sight.
$25.00 went very quickly on my account, soon realized they lied the rate was the regular rate. What really sucks is that when your account runs down they take another $25.00, which they did from me. I was lied to, cheated and now they have another $25.00 I cant get back. Some one needs to take care of them legally. I sent several emails to them with no reponds. They are not a real company. Will find away to file a true complaint..

It is the name of the game: money! you don't pay, you don't get it. Like others, PT has policy which is applied to everyone who uses their service. If you don't like what they run, stay out of it.

I have been using PT to call my in-law in Lithuania, easter Europe. So far so good!

Be advised MONEY gets you connected and you can't call home without IT.

JFN in San Diego, CA.

I have been using PennyTalk to call my relatives in Indonesia and in the Middle East for more than 5 years now. I have no problem at all.If my balance below $5 automatically charge my credit card. I love it !

Thanks for all your comments. I was researching phone companies and was considering Penny Talk seriously after watching their commercial on TV. These many people cannot be wrong about the same company. Thanks for your comments. You just saved me Time and Money.

I would advice all of you to use Startec global communications I have use this company for many years, they are cheaper than "penny-talk" . I just saw the commercial on tv and wanted to try their app. But after checking their rates and this forum full of complaints . I rather stay where I know it's secure and so fa "CHEAPER" than most long distance providers.

I don't work for "Startec Global Communications" I know now that I'm better off with them!

With all the complaints, I wonder why I have had nothing but GREAT everything with Penny Talk! I have had the account for about 2 years and I call France, England, and Ireland regularly, with no issues whatsoever. I add on to my bill via the website and, within minutes, my account is updated and I can access the money immediately. On a rare occasion, I call doesn't go through and I have to redial, but I have learned I am too quick to put the numbers in and I should take a breath first! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Penny Talk! I've never needed customer service so I really can't answer to that issue!

Penny Talk is terrible. They stole all of my money and never connects my calls but charges just to hear the phone ring and then say SORRY WE CANNOT CONNECT YOUR CALL.
I hate penny talk.
I cant even get in touch with Customer Service right now! This is terrible!

WARNING!
been having a different issue with pennytalk. I downloaded the application to my blackberry so I could call numbers from my phone book directly. Got my phone bill from my mobile carrier ( tmobile) with multiple expensive charges to international phone numbers. I called customer service and was informed that sometimes their software is not working and that I need to make sure it loads on my phone screen every time before the call is placed. I make most of my calls when on the go and from my car and have a wireless headset so usually my phone is in my purse. Even though it is clearly something wrong with their software they didn't offer me any solution to this problem except for matching the screen every time I make a call. Very poor customer service and faulty software. After some research google offers a phone program now for less than penny talk and skype is free and you can download the app to any blackberry or iphone. Good luck :)

i was highly going to spend money on peny talk but after ready all those poor people were going thru, no way! thank to the comments im not doing business with penny talk what a scam!

I feel everyone's pain. Had the $25 charged to my bank account but no go on the phone. After 3 phone sessions with customer service lasting over 45 minutes each and my bank calling them I got it sorted. I believe the trick is to not get upset even if they are a scam. Keep calm ! Do not swear because then they can hang up. Dont hang up no matter what they say. Ask them to pursue different avenues in order to solve the problem because they will not do it on their own accord. All in all it was like instructing a child... do this, try this. I think that I just finally annoyed them into putting the $25 onto my phone. Oh I should say that I have unlimited minutes so I just sat with them on speaker phone and let them try all the tricks. Good luck everyone !

Dave

use gmail voice...MUCH better!

People, banning PennyTalk for few isolated customer service issues is stupid. PennyTalk is legitimate. Both my mom and brother have been using it for years with no issue. I called customer service once to help me mom and got my general question answered with no problem.

Avoid this company. Surprized they are still around!

This a totally useless service. Promotion is false. The rates are not what is billed. I was to surprised to buy $10 for a call to Ghana. This amount got me only 12 minutes of calling time. Then when my first call did not go through without talking to anybody, my next call a minute late gave me only 8 minutes of call time. To top it the reception was not clear all. Buy this service at your peril. Not worth for FREE!

hi.i have 5.05 on my account the call to mauritius is 0.039. per minutes i must have over 100. minutesl left how csn it be 51 minutes. i think you will take care of it thank you

This [censored] is hang up on me and it seen like he's the only customer service guy that will answere the dame phone penny talk is a reap off.

I received a $25 global calling card as a gift in June of 2011. It had gotten misplaced until just a few days ago. But when I made my first call, I was informed that I had less than $7 remaining! I just got off the phone with customer service after being told that there is a service charge of $.99 per month, just another way to gouge and alienate customers. But they made $18 and provided me with nothing in return. Oh sure, the monthly charge is mentioned on the back of the card in extremely fine print, but for an unsuspecting elderly buyer, this doesn't even register as a heads up.

If you consider this sneaky tactic and the connection fee, this card is a piss poor value, and the company should be driven out of business. Avoid them and tell your friends to do so as well.

I have been using Penny talk for a number of years and here lately I've been losing my money because the computer is not connecting me to my number I'm trying to reach. Over the past few days I've lost at least $5.00 because the computer isn't connecting me and the money keeps being used. On the other end I hear one ring and then nothing. It's is getting very irritating.

Very Upset!, , , , , Never used my $10 card, as I still had some remaining time on my Sprint cards. Now when I went to use card it told me I had no remaining minutes ! What happened? When I reached customer service I was told to read the back of my card. I needed a magnifying glass for this. In the very fine print it says" 99 cents monthly service fee charged on each monthly anniversary of card activation." After speaking with two agents they both explained this to mean 99cents a month service fee. WHAT SERVICE FEE. I HAVEN'T EVEN USED THE CARD YET, AND I HAVE NO
VALUE AT ALL FOR MY $10! Does someone see something wrong with this picture? If other people have had this same surprise I think you need to also complain or bring a class action. This fee should be printed in large letters on the front of the card in plain English, so the consumer can know what they are getting into. It is outrageous, and in my opinion deliberately misleading. BEWARE IF YOU BUY A CARD.