Toll Free Audio Conferencing Resources

Many pick their audio conferencing providers based on the rate per minute they get quoted. But unfortunately that quoted rate isn’t always the real rate.

Several conferencing companies add additional fees and surcharges to the bill, some are legit others aren’t (or are at least questionable). Often times, these customers are led to believe that the additional taxes and fees are just being “passed through” to the consumer and it is a cost of doing business. However, in many situations these taxes and fees are not being passed through at all. The phone company bills them and the customers pays for them and none of them get passed on any further. On top of that, only the per minute rate you were quoted is used to meet your contractual obligations, “the other charges” do not count towards meeting your minimums.

Conference bill “scams” & misleading charges

Many people are surprised to find out that the REAL RATE (figured by adding taxes, surcharges, miscellaneous charges, administrative charges, and other charges)they are paying for their audio conferencing service is up to 25% higher than what they were quoted. Usually, this occurs when customers purchase their conferencing services from a phone company and not a conferencing company.However we also see this happening with real conferencing companies.  Generally, these additional fees are not very well explained at the time of purchase. In addition, it is not necessarily for a company to pay these charges.  In reality, what they pay is considerably higher than the quoted rate.

Some questionable fees (which we have seen on actual bills!):

• Port Charges – why would you have to pay for conferencing bridge ports while you are also paying per minute per participant? This sounds like a redundant charge.
• Bridging Fees – same as port charges
• Billing Fees – in this day and age there is no reason to add another few dollars to your bill and label them “billing fees”, this is a questionable way to increase revenues.
• State & local taxes – also questionable and most conferencing companies don’t charge them
• Additional telecom charges or taxes – some audio conferencing providers even go so far to “make up” additional telecom charges or taxes, they label them so that it is implied that they have to pass these taxes/charges through to the government. In most cases this is not true and just simply misleading.
• USF – USF charges are legitimate but not every conferencing company charges them
• MP3 recording fees – again another way to increase revenues, there should be no reason to have to charge additionally for this.

In addition to paying much more than the original rates that they were quoted, customers are often times enticed into signing a 12 to 36 month Conferencing Services Agreement. Because of the rapid decline in the market price for conferencing services over the past few years, only usage based contracts are in the best interest of the customer.

You should not sign an audio conferencing contract that has a term commitment or a monthly minimum usage commitment.

Bottom line is that when you sign up with a audio conferencing provider, you should know what your bill is going to be. The per minute rate should be all inclusive. I urge you to take a look at your latest conferencing bill, you may be surprised.

If you want a conferencing billing review (no obligations) please contact us and we’ll show you what’s going on and where you could save. Toll free audio conferencing shouldn’t be expensive and certainly shouldn’t be more than the quoted rate.