Calling Africa – The calling cards rip-off

Calling Card with typical misleading ad

Africans in the Diaspora are faced with a serious dilemma when it comes to calling back home to their loved ones; as the cost of calls from Europe and America to African countries is the most expensive in the world. Western telecommunications tariffs and rates to Africa are ridiculously priced to the point that you will be forgiven to think that the job they started, exploiting our resources during colonial times have not been completed. They still want more; and this time they are targeting Africans living abroad who resort to menial jobs to earn a living to support their families back home. A one minute call from London to Accra or Freetown through British Telecom will cost you about £1.50p

When you ask these companies why the calls are so expensive they tell you the prices only reflect the heavy levy placed on them by National African telecommunications carriers. But the question is; what are the levies placed on these African Telecoms agencies by the western carriers as well? And don’t forget the taxes that western countries impose on local telecoms agencies; all these determine the final cost of telephone calls to Africa. But it is interesting to note that a call from London to the U.S. can cost as little as 1p depending on the service you use.

These vast contrasts in tariffs for about the same distance in miles to the destination country only highlights the growing problems of an unequal playground within the world economic order. Because of these inevitable higher tariffs, most African’s in the Diaspora have been turning to alternatives methods of calling their loved ones back home. The use of the calling cards have sky rocketed in the past 5 years as Africans seek to get the best deals to call their country.

But it has come to light that these cards are themselves the product of the major telecoms companies who use them as a means to levy stealth service charges and connection fees after advertising that a £5.00 calling card will give you hundreds of minutes to an African destination only for you to find out later that for every call you make using these cards, there is a 30% connection fee applicable and a card that is meant to give you 100 minutes of talk time ends up only providing 15 minutes of call use. Calling home has now become a big business for western telecoms company and Africans continue to be the victims of this vicious rip-off game that continues to make the west richer and Africa poorer!!

© 2012, Ahmed M Kamara. All rights reserved. – Reproduction of Newstime Africa content on any other news medium without the prior consent or approval of the publishers is forbidden, and in direct contravention of International copyright laws. Violators will be pursued and prosecuted.