Careful while buying calling cardsWritten by Muthukumar
Prepaid phone cards charge a lot of hidden fee reducing number of minutes. This article looks at various hidden fees charged by phone card companies. 1. Connection fee: This is also known as Access Fee. This should be known to most of calling card customers. This fee is charged whenever one calls to destination. This usually varies from 5 cents to 1 dollar. The worst thing that can happen with this connection fee is, when card buyer makes call and either answering machine gives a reply or call is routed to a voice mailbox. This immediately deducts connection fee even though customer has not really uttered even a single word. The best option to get over this problem is to choose a card, which has no connection fee. There are a lot of companies, which sell cards without connection fee. Before buying any Calling card, just find out average rate per minute considering all costs. This would definitely give a clear idea about best option. 2. Service Fee: This is charged pro-rata to call fee. Usually around levels of 5 - 15%. 3. Billing increment: Also known as Minutes Rounding. If company says it has 1 minute rounding, a call of 50 seconds will be charged for 1 minute and 200 seconds will be charged at 4 minutes. This could be a better option among all. The higher rounding period, more customer loses. 4. Maintenance fee: This is a notorious, hidden fee. This gets charged on phone card either on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. While buying phone card itself, customer should read fine prints to find if there is a maintenance fee. If at all there is this fee, this card should be chosen only if customer is going to exhaust card before specified period. 5. Payphones: There are surcharges on phone cards for calls made from Payphones.
| | Job Hunting Tips #3 Organizing your AttackWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
Looking for work is an energy-devouring ordeal, often leading to running in circles and not getting anywhere. A systematic approach can help you focus on your goal, avoid wasting energy you need to conserve for interviews and employer contacts, and lower your stress level.Some resources you might find helpful include: 1. Newspaper classified. Pro: you know that an opening does exist or a company wouldn’t spend money to advertise. Con: there may be thousands of applicants for one position. Value depends upon kind of work you are looking for and uniqueness of your skills and experience. Certainly worth a weekend check but cannot be exclusively relied upon. 2. Registering with agencies. Pro: they only make money when you obtain work so they are motivated to get you employment. Con: they need you to take a job, any job, so they can earn their fees and they work to keep their real clients, employers, happy so often screen you out of really good jobs if they have any doubt about how well you will fit. 3. Internet resources. There are some good resources – Monster.com and Careerbuilder and job finder section of most major home pages. Beware of wasting time on groups. While some (a very few) are well-managed and inappropriate postings screened out, others (many) are choked with pornographic messages.
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