Skype - the good, and the ugly

Use Skype IN and Skype out at your own risk .. and be careful. I am not alone in getting burned by deceptive/confusing advertising. As you may know, Skype is a nifty program that allows one to make computer to computer telephone calls free and will allow one for a fee to make calls to a real telephone and and for another fee to have a telephone number. It works ok. But I am very unhappy about the plan and the billing.

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With a good broadband connection the service works. Skype for awhile became my emergency extra phone. Then I did not NEED it, but it was nice to have.

My first problem was that I purchased the Skype Pro and Skype In plan which I thought would give me unlimited USA calls for a year and international calls for a fee. Nope .. cell phones and voip phones had a charge to them. There was another plan that had truly unlimited calling. So read the plans very carefully.

My next problem happened today. I thought this was a year service. It is, and it isn't. They cut me off without warning after 180 days to the day of not using the plan .. I lost about $8 USD in credit and I think nearly $80 setup fees which were supposed to last the year. They claimed in the cutoff notice that this was a standard accounting practice and that they had sent me warning emails. I don't think this is a standard accounting practice .. and they sent me no warning emails and that this was documented deeply in their service agreement (which it is).

Update: Lastly I just read on the Skype site that that Skype was tacking on connection fees onto Skype out pro customers before they killed the program. At this point in time they no longer offer Skype Pro plan

I am not happy.