Reviews » Pingo prepaid phone cards

So there are two sides to Pingo that I have experienced.

The good: I've used Pingo since 2008 for travels to places such as Australia, Asia, & Latin America. I love it because it's incredible useful to have local access numbers to be able to call friends and family without being charged long distance. It's nice because I can usually call my boyfriend from my hotel room and talk or hours because they don't charge for local calls!

The absolutely horrible side:
So my boyfriend is in S. Korea and I set up an account via Paypal for him so he can call the local number from his cell phone/office. Pingo withdrew the money immediately from my account the same day. They sent an email requesting for verification and I sent it back. The acct remains inactive for 5 days with no replies from customer service after a handful of emails trying to contact them. I called customer service and the girl on the phone tells me the account was closed. I asked her why it was closed and she says the only way to find out is to email Pingo and she did not know who or where in the company handles transactions/payments/refunds. She just kept saying like a robot "Is there anything else I can help you with" even when I asked her a question. I escalated a claim with Paypal after several more attempts to contact them through email. Finally 10 days after they withdraw money from my bank account they sent a message that says, "Thank you for contacting Pingo. We apologize for the inconvenience; The transaction was rejected, please allow 3-5 business days to see it in your bank statement. We hope this addresses your concern."
I'm not sure if the Paypal claim motivated them to reply or they just like to reply to whomever they feel like replying to after they take your money.

I've had great experiences with Pingo in my previous travels but I'm afraid the customer service is ridiculous and unacceptable.

I'm sticking with Voxofon. Their customer service answers you within 30 minutes each time. I felt like I was chatting with them live and it an actual smart, competent person on the phone who is polite and has manners. Plus their rates are cheaper (in the countries I've tries), there is an app that lets me send text messages and make 3G/wifi calls so I don't waste my minutes on phone cards.

I just bought a card to call India for $10.00 to first try this company and was credited only $5.00.

I will look for another company

The new account verification took me 2 days, then Pingo sent me a confirmation mail and told me $20 had been charged and I got full access. BUT I'm totally fooled. The account balance is still 0, and 4 days passed, I still have not made a call. I'll never use it, I don't wanna see the company name anywhere.

I paid for a card and received nothing; I am still waiting to receive a sign up confirmation. This is very frustrating; I will NEVER purchase a card from them aging. Hopefully I will receive my money back.

Absolutely the worst customer service on the planet. Could not explain why it is now three days and they still have not responded to sign up request. This company is very poorly run. Use someone else.

Their customer service is absolutely terrible. I paid $10 for a card and received nothing. I called customer service and said that it would be activated within 24 hours. Days passed by and I received nothing. I am now disputing the purchase with PayPal. Do not use this company, they are atrocious.

I found that there Toll-Free number is not free...
Anybody notice that?

See!!
[Canada Access Numbers "Toll Free" 1-800-305-4031 English ]
I call from Canada and it's not free...
WHY?

Pingo is not giving 50% off on calls made on Wednesday as advertised on www.pingo.com. That's false advertising.

If I don't get the 50% off on Wednesday calls then I will have to go back to Airtel.

Call Quality to India: Good.

Customer Service : Poor

The rates are competitive and the quality is very good, but what I like the most is how convenient it is. If you register your cell number you can just call Pingo, enter the international number, hit pound and connect to anywhere in the world. It's been very reliable, I like the service.

Pingo is the best calling card I've ever tried. So convenient and easy to use. Rates are great too, and I love how I can manage my account online!

Does pingo have a conection fee and if how much for each call? Also is there a minimum balance as far as how much I much spend on purchase each time and if how much?

I have been a patron of Pingo for three years and have never encountered a problem until now. I loaded up my pingo account with credits..it was charged to my credit card but it doesn't show up in my overall balance when I attempt to make a call. I credit $10 to my pingo account and instead when I call the number, it says I only have 8 cents! I called customer service thrice and their technical department couldn't pin point the problem.

Customer service sucks. Pingo sucks.

Don't use this service anymore. In the end, they'll just rip you off and then innocently say they will fix it. Fix it when? When pigs fly and when all international calls actually become free. Bull.

I use pingo to call to India and the call quality is just pathetic. Dont ever buy Pingo.

Switched to Pingo to get away from high AT&T UVerse international calling rates. Calls to Bolivia are clear and have not had any connection issues.

I changed from Acculinq and find Pingo much better. It's cheaper for my calls to UK and China. I've never had issues with call quality to UK, but did have some quality issues calling China on Chinese New Year - perhaps due to it being a busy time. Managing my account online is way better than anything Acculinq has. I also love that I can set up quick dial numbers and the connections are fast ! I'm totally happy with Pingo.

I called Pingo to find out about their service and they hang up on me. I called back and the customer service person's voice sounded as he was sleeping. I am glad I found this blog. It shows me that it is not worth it to buy Pingo calling card!!

Don't EVER go with this company, Pingo.com. It takes DAYS for a simple 20-dollar credit to be processed, so NOTHING is instant here.

Additionally, customer service is, of course, out-sourced to India so you can bet on shoddy customer service and language barrier Heaven if anyone even answers the phone.

I am EXCITED to end a dispute with Pingo.com, as I have 20 dollars floating in non-appended/unapproved purgatory ever since Monday - calling them only awarded me that MAYBE my credit would be approved on FRIDAY of the same week. FIVE DAYS TO APPROVE A MEASLY 20 DOLLAR CREDIT?? I asked for a refund and that will take 5-10 business days to process now.

There is NO notification anywhere on the website that warns the user of extensively long approval waiting periods and call quality SUCKS.

DO NOT GO PINGO EVER!!!

Pingo is one of the worst services I have ever used. Half of the phone calls I tried to make were never connected or cut off in mid conversation. When I did make a connection it was poor quality making it hard to have a conversation. I'll never use this service again.

I purchased Pingo to call home while traveling in Ireland. The calling card worked satisfactorily during the first week while there. However, by week 2, the one and only access number I was given for Ireland (ie, a local Irish number) stopped working. I attempted to call the access number from hotels, bed and breakfasts, phone booths, and Internet cafes, on a near daily basis, all to no avail - the number was dead (I even had locals give it a try just so I knew there was no possible way that I all of a sudden started to misdial the number). Now, I was able to use $15 of the $20 worth of the card, so my main dispute is not regarding the lost $5, but rather the complete lack of responsiveness from Pingo. Multiple attempts to contact the company have been fruitless, except that I've received an automated "Pingo Loyalty rewards" e-mail that did no more than add insult to injury. In short, I would like my $5 refunded and would like to receive the customer service that I deserve; namely, a simple acknowledgement and preferably and an apology and explanation as to why their local access number stopped working. It's just common courtesy.

Pingo was good but have higher charges now. Was 13 cent to call Ghana Cell phone but has risen to 16.5 cent which is expensive. Pingo, review ur charges otherwise, you are on your way of losing your customers

We wanted to personally respond to CallingBargains.com readers concerns.

Venu - Sorry for your concern but we have a verification system to control any misuse of the service. I'm afraid this might have bin the issue. You can contact account verification to see what might have triggered this to resolve it quickly.

George - We do have a 100% call quality guarantee that would have resolved this issue. Plus your feedback is important to keep the service connected with global call quality.

I gave Pingo a try but received consistently poor voice quality on my calls to Japan. I could hardly hear the other party, they sounded muffled and the volume was way too low. It is unusable. Hope this helps.

Pingo's customer service is so pathetic and irresponsible. I had recharged my pingo account recently for $20 but my account did NOT get recharged. I had contacted Pingo customer service regarding this. The customer service Agent said my payment shows pending so he will have billing department to have a look at it. But NO response from Pingo even after 5 days. I had sent couple of follow up emails but No response/reply.

Finally, I went ahead and disputed the transaction. The same day evening, I tired logging into Pingo but I was getting �Invalid Account��This is NOT AT ALL ACCEPTABLE�

My Kind advise, DO NOT GO FOR PINGO since you have other good calling card providers in the market.

Thanks CallingBargains.com for the Pingo review. We wanted to personally respond to these comments

Jon: Yes we do have a maintaince fee to use are service but we maintain a 95% customer retention rate with the additional promotions and features that we offer customers

Linda: Welcome to Pingo. Glad we could help you save a few bucks

- Pingo.com

Attention All CallingBargains.com readers:

enter coupon 'forum' for an additional 15% off in addition to $10 bonus and 50% off on Wednesday calls for the next two months!

I used to call my sister in Australia using my cell at 60 cents/min! Didn't know I could use calling cards with a cellular phone. Now I do and I'm only paying like 2 cents per minute. Now that's a big difference.

The only thing I don't like about Pingo calling cards is the maintenance fee they charge monthly. I like to buy larger amounts of prepaid credit and use it over a long period of time. I still use their service though.