The first thing to consider when lowering your bill is that the bottom line on YOUR particular bill is what matters - NOT some rate you are quoted. You must take into account every aspect of your calling habits and examine every line of your current phone bills over a period of time to get a true picture of where you can cut costs.

Start with your local charges and see if there is anything you can do there. Take a look at our list of local service options first. You may be paying for charges that should not be on your bill at all or for services that you don't even use. One of the most common mistakes people make when adding optional services is adding them one at a time and eventually paying more than they would for a package deal with even more options. Just the opposite is also very common - they get talked into adding some package even though they actually only use one or two services which would be cheaper as stand alone options. The biggest single cost on your bill may be for your local service if you are paying for local metered service or live in the country or distant suburbs and pay an extended metro charge for a local number in the nearest large city. We have some more info about local metering which you can check out first (if you have this service option) and then come back here. If you are paying a large metro charge, make sure you can justify this in terms of total minutes of "big city" calling time. With the very lowest long distance rate you may actually be able to save money paying for the time instead of a flat rate. If you spend mucho hours on the Internet and no ISP has a local number outside of your metro service, then you are almost definitely better off with the metro charge. Check your number of hours on-line versus the best rate you can get on long distance versus the best rate any ISP charges per minute for toll-free access.

Examine each line of your bill and make sure you understand what each charge is for and that it is warranted. You can check out this explanation of some of the charges that you see. Many times charges are slipped in through a total mistake, an oversight, or a practice known as cramming. Unscrupulous slimeballs send charges through on people's bills all the time, figuring most people won't notice one more line mixed in with dozens of other weird charges and if they only charge a buck or two the bottom line isn't eye-catching. This is also done quite a bit on credit cards and other remote billing systems, and is becoming more common all the time. Unfortunately the Internet contributes to this problem with more credit information being made available to more and more people. We never ask for any credit information (including card numbers) over the Internet for just this reason. No matter how secure the encryption is between systems, everything gets decrypted eventually. There are several other ways these phantom charges may appear and you can get a brief primer on some of them at our illegal stuff page. You must take 5 or 10 minutes each month studying your phone bill to avoid these rip-offs. It has been estimated from studies that in excess of 50% of all residential bills and as much as 80% of business bills contain unwarranted charges and many are caused directly by your local phone company. By checking out the pages here and the other telecom links, you can learn how to protect yourself.

In almost every case you are better off using more than one provider for your long distance. Almost everyone makes long distance calls in state and out and the rates for the two are usually not as good with just one plan. Most people also need a calling card, and many would like a toll-free number (even for residential use) if they could get a really decent rate, so family or close friends could call without charges. International calls are also made by many people for a few calls a year or many times a month, sometimes just to one country where they have a relative, friend, or business contact. Trying to choose just one or even two services to cover all these options will never result in the cheapest possible bill. Many people think they are stuck with just one long distance provider and that they must choose the best compromise for their varied calling patterns. You can have a primary 1+ provider and any number of secondary providers, or you can actually specify NONE as your primary carrier and use only block-time, dial around, or calling card plans.

Use our comparison pages to check out the best rates for each service and put together your own package, check what others are paying, or you can post or fax us your bill(s) and we'll do all the work at no charge to you. In most cases you can set up many services under one comprehensive plan that is no more difficult to manage than a single 1+ dialing plan. With memory buttons on your phone, block-time, dial around, and calling card plans can be keyed in with the same number of button pushes as 1+ and with much greater savings. You can also usually specify different 1+ providers for interstate and in-state calls. It's possible (maybe if you live in California) that your local provider may have lower local toll rates than any long distance provider. You simply must analyze your bill by looking at where you are calling, when you make the call, how long you stay on the line, and how your calling patterns might change if you could just find a better rate for a certain type of call. As mentioned earlier, we will do this for you or you can figure it yourself, but you MUST do this every few months as rates change constantly and the best deal now, won't be later.

In almost every case, sticking with the big guys will cost you. If you use one of the "Big 3" or any provider saturating the airwaves with advertising, you WILL pay more than you have to. These huge corporations have to recoup all that advertising cost and the infrastructure expense that thousand of employees and stockholders bring to the equation by charging more and making you think you are paying less or getting better service. The smaller companies with streamlined operations and no advertising budget can offer a better price for their services. The least expensive of these companies also pays less commission to anyone (like us) selling their services, so you will only find these deals using low cost forms of advertising (like this) or by word of mouth from friends or associates. When you get your plan set up, tell your friends and help contribute to lower costs for all of us.

If you have business employees using a fair bit of long distance, you can easily save more than the cost of a simple service that allows you to track (on your bills) who's calling and for how long. For a few dollars (sometimes free on large volume business lines) you can setup accounting codes for each person in your company. When people know every cent they use is rolling up on their personal accounts, they are a bit more reluctant to make personal calls or waste time on unnecessarily lengthy conversations. You can also setup multiple toll-free numbers for the same cost as only one, so this gives you a great way to track calls coming into the business from both employees and customers. You can save money by properly assigning all the costs of a particular job or assessing the effectiveness of your advertising by using different numbers to monitor each separately.

There are several common sense things to avoid that some people nevertheless are guilty of doing. It is amazing how many bills we have seen that have mucho bucks charged for calls to information. People often say things like, I had no choice, they were out of state, or it was a new number. While you won't find every number there, many times the number you are looking for is in your local phone book. If it's an old number, a recording may still tell you the new one. The fact that you are reading this shows you have access to the Internet. Practically all the information from all the phone books in the country can be found at one of the number search sites. In those situations where it's a new number and no recording exists on an old number, there are still ways that will take no more time than calling information. If it's a business, another location of that same business or even a competitor may provide you with the number. If you absolutely have to, go ahead and call, but remember in many areas that 1 call to information may wind up costing you the same thing as 20-30 minutes of long distance time. Another mistake people make is calling collect or accepting collect calls from friends or family. NEVER make or receive collect calls - you will NOT save a buck or two! Get a toll-free number and make sure all your friends and family (who might need to make an emergency call to you) know what it is. Finally, NEVER buy prepaid calling cards. There is one block-time plan which can be pre-paid and does offer an excellent value, when combined with a pocket auto-dialer or pre-programmed phone. For an explanation of this, check out the page on calling cards or go directly to the page describing this unique plan.

We can also help each other by communicating what we know using forums like this. Other tips can be found all over this site on each aspect of your calling. If you want to know the ways to make a free call legally, or save a bundle on international calling, check out those pages. You cannot only post your bills, you can also post comments on others' bills or just comments in general by going to the same area mentioned above. In addition there are a number of other forums on the Internet for exchanges of information about telephony. Some of them are listed on our links page, and in addition to the newsgroups listed there, you may find other posts in practically any area of Usenet, as phone service is used by everybody connected to the Internet and practically everyone else. Make sure you check out the info on scam prevention before you leave the site, as more people every day join the ranks of the sleaze trying to steal your money or worse, your credit and reputation.

Don't just accept what you are being charged - TAKE CHARGE!

You may send a request for information or order any of our plans by simply filling out the form below. We can contact you by E-mail if you desire, although we actually prefer to speak to you directly at your convenience. We don't ask for any personal information over the Internet so just leave your name, phone number and the best time to call, or leave only your name and E-mail address if you don't want a return call. Leave any message you may have in the text box at the bottom and press the submit button. You are not signing up for any plan by filling out this form, nor are you obligated to accept anything if we call.

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