Tel3 reviews and complaints

Quality of service is very poor and customer service is non responsive. I had an account that they closed and refused to refund the $17.30 balance in my account. HORRIBLE company to do business with and very dishonest. This is theft when you take payment and do not provide the service. They refused to reopen my account and then they got rude and told me they would do nothing to help.

A month ago, I tried to place an international call. My account "was not active". Tried to call customer service (!?), was told to wait two days and some one from the office will contact me because my account was not active for a long time. No one has contacted me since then. Called customer service (!?) again. Was told to wait a couple of days and try my account again. My account still not active. I have about $75.00 in my account that I cannot access or use. Called again, put on hold for over an hour then got disconnected. It does seems, from many other complaints, that this is a business practice of this company, may be we should report them to the Better Business Bureau, and the Consumer Protection Agency. May be they will have something to say about that.

Stay away from Tel3. The customer service reps seem to be prepared with a list of excuses to validate why they have taken your account money and won't put it back.

I was a customer of Tel3.com since Feb., 2010. I haven't used my account for over a year. I tried to use their phone service today and was told my account no longer exists. I called customer service on the phone to check the reason why. It was explained that since I did not use my account for over a year the account was closed and the money in my Tel3 account was kept by Tel3 (to go towards their profit line) and that this was in accordance to the terms & conditions I signed when I set up the account. I informed them that before I set up the account that I was concerned about the security of my money and I called to check if there was a time limit on its use. The customer service enthusiastically assured me that this was not a concern and 'of course the money is always held in account for me and it would be there forever'. The customer service rep today advised that when I called 8 years ago the rep must have thought that I had seen and read the conditions of contract and didn't think it necessary to go over them on the phone with me even though that meant she would not be fully answering my direct question by not telling me about the expiration after a year of non-use.

Tel3 is a SCAM! I had an account with Tel3 for a family member who is a minor. Tel3 sends a message to recharge as one is in the middle of a call, and if you click yes, they recharge, without the authorization of the card holder. They have no legal right to charge a credit card with authorization from a third party. But they do it anyway. I have tried repeatedly to cancel my account with Tel3, for nearly two months now, and each time (if I can get through to them, which is rare) they tell me they've cancelled the account, and then they continue to charge my credit card.For two months they have blocked my access to my account so I cannot go into the account to cancel it that way. I've repeatedly asked for a new password, but what they send doesn't work. I just called two days ago again and they said they've cancelled the account and I insisted that they write this into the record, but for the past two days they have continued to charge my account every day, even though I have not made calls. They are using my credit card illegally, because they have my number, and I had to change my credit card number to stop them. Tel3 is a nightmare!

I have used Tel3 for several years to call internationally to Guatemala. In the last year or so, the quality of the calls has decreased markedly and the number of dropped calls has increased dramatically. It's gotten to the point where Tel3 no longer meets my needs. I've given Google Voice a try and found the call quality crystal clear with no dropped calls.

This evening I called Tel3 to cancel my account and have them refund my remaining balance ($22 and change). Tel3 has refused to do so because I last purchased air time with them more than 30 days ago. Remarkably poor customer service, with an unacceptable outcome. (And even the quality of the customer service line was lousy!)

I would suggest all to avoid Tel3.

Regards,
Todd Phoenix