Skype Charging You Too Much?
A warning to Skype users: you may be getting charged too much for your service! I have US phone number through the internet service “Skype”, which lets me have a local number there for people to call me wherever I happen to be in the world. When I went to renew it today, I was astounded to see that it would now cost me $60 to keep this number, despite there being no mention of this price increase anywhere on their website. I read through all of their pricing detail pages, and there simply wasn’t any mention of it: it should have cost me $38 per year just like the last time – right?
After some poking around, I noticed that the Skype prices were being shown to me in Euros, despite the fact that I had my currency setting set to USD, and my location as being the USA. Apparently, the good folks at Skype charge you different prices depending on where your IP address originates: my IP address originating in the EU costs me 58% more if I try to renew my Skype service. That’s quite a price hike! Take a look at these screenshots:
The first one shows what it costs if I log in from an EU IP address, and the second one from a USA IP address. It costs the normal $38 to renew from the USA, and $60 to renew from Germany.
First of all, I was surprised to find out that this kind of practice exists. It’s probably done a lot, but I just never personally ran into it. It seems kinda fishy that a company that sells a service that is supposed to travel with you (“locationless”) would want to charge you different prices depending on where you happen to be at the time when you want to renew or buy more service.
So how to get the cheaper, US prices?
I happened to have access to a PC in the USA that I could log in with, so this wasn’t a big deal to get around for me. If you don’t happen to have access to a USA IP address, then try out CosmoPod – it’s free, and it’s a nifty service as well! You get a remote Linux desktop, which you can use like a normal computer – and connect to the internet from a US IP address. It’s pretty cool to try out, regardless of whether or not you have the Skype overcharging problem.
Simply sign up for an account there, login at Skype, and you’ll get the normal USA renewal price for SkypeOut.
Hi there. If I subscribe to Skype-out here in the USA, but go to La Paz Mexico and make calls through Skype from La Paz to the USA, am I charged some rate they have based upon calling from Mexico? Or do they even know where the call is originating from? Thanks a lot.
I think that you will pay the same rate that you would if you were in the USA. I use Skype Out from Germany to make calls (occasionally) and send SMS messages; I am charged the same as if I were in the USA.
I have my sister use my skype from Israel and with a skype UNLIMITEd is still get charged 2.1 cents/min (For skype out) and if I make the same phone call from US (to US) i do not get charged.
Mike – I bet that Skype is doing that using an IP-based screening. I am guessing Skype Unlimited doesn’t exist in Israel . Interesting to note, however.
Skype has been debiting my Skypout minutes at a rate of over 4 cents per minute when the posted rate for the call is 2.1 cents per minute …
I emailed the Skype customer service twice but they did not respond!!
I just today was doing some math on the skype debit from my account and I guess there system felt it fair to take a bit over double the posted 0.021 on up to 0.0635. On my calls to Toronto Canada. Skype better respond to reason or they can go pound sand.
I was charged for a 25 hours call to Guatemala instead of 25 minutes. There is nobody to contact or to complain about. Help at skype just does not work.