Prepaid phone cards are commonly-used, convenient and user friendly devices that many individuals use for making international or domestic phone calls. While many have found these devices to be truly useful, some call cards, sadly, have been involved in some manner of phone card fraud.

Phone card fraud refers to the theft of a firm's or users ' telecommunications service, and this has been an ongoing concern for many consumers, government regulators and private telecoms providers. However, if the individual consumer is not vigilant, and does not report fraudulent charges, the fraudsters and scam artists out there will continue to rake in profits, and fool more customers.

Consumers Should Play A Wider Role In Fighting Call Card Fraud

Since most local phone card providers and firms are required by law to bill for other firms that provide telephone services, there is a wider possibility that fraudulent charges or transactions may appear, and could land on your phone bill. Consumers are an important asset in fighting fraud in a ll forms, and should play a larger role in helping eradicate phone fraud, because frequently the first step in detecting a fraudulent transaction or scheme is by identifying and reporting illegal, or unauthorized charges that appear suddenly on your bills, or may suddenly wipe out your card's remaining balance.

Scam Artists Are Still On The Prowl For More Phone Card Victims

Despite frequent crackdowns and ordinances or measures implemented to fight phone-related rip-offs, the scam artists and thieves are still out there, busy creating new methods of committing phone card fraud. These mindless individuals always seem to find newer methods of getting out of reach of regulators and the phone firms that try to close in on them.

You could be a potential victim of a so-called phone company "salesperson," who is out to trick you into switching your prepaid card for something else, or may give you false claims to entice you on transferring to their service, which in the end, could result in you seeing your card's remaining call times to be suddenly wiped off the system.

Fighting Back Against Prepaid Card Fraudsters

If you discover unauthorized charges or other evidence of fraud, you need to quickly report these to your local phone firm, long distance carrier, or through the state public service or utility commission. You may also send in your complaints to the offices of the Federal Communications Commission for proper resolution of your concerns and problems. You also can ask your calling card firm to issue one that does not have your PIN on it, or you may also memorize your PIN and do not write it on the card itself, to prevent it from being seen by others.

The increase in the number of prepaid phone card providers in the market these days has been triggered by low start-up costs. In a large number of of cases, some service providers have taken customers' money and left them with nothing but worthless cards. There also have been other reported forms of unlawful or deceptive marketing methods and practices involving prepaid call cards, and some phone card providers also have been noted to fail to tell consumers about fees, surcharges and other costs, or hide them in small, difficult-to-read print.

If you are traveling a lot because of your work; you are studying far from your parents; you are living abroad, definitely, you have to keep in touch with people dear to you such as your family, relatives, friends and associates. These days, there are lots of ways to communicate with others.

With the use of the internet, there are ways for you to communicate by sending and receiving emails, chatting and so on. But nothing beats hearing their voices, so calling is still the best way to communicate. Making international calls can give you enormous telephone monthly bills, reason why most people prevent themselves to make international calls.

With the use of prepaid calling cards, now you can make international and local calls within the reach of your communication budget. Yes, with these phone cards, you can handle your communication budget, since you can buy these cards with different denominations, so you can buy one depending upon your budget.

In using these phone cards, you can save lots of money since you will no longer have enormous monthly telephone bills. These phone cards offer lower rates in making international calls than with your telephone service providers. You can make international calls any time of the day and every where since you can use these cards in any regular phones, pay phones, cell phones and in the hotels.

Indeed, prepaid calling cards are convenient and great tools to communicate with others. These cards are so thin that you can put it in your pocket, so you can make calls any where you are.

You can see a lot of different phone cards on the market and online, so it can be quite hard for you to choose which you will use in making local or international calls. Of course, you want to make sure that you'll be getting the right card that can give you satisfaction and comfort.

Each card comes with different rates, features and services, so it is best for you to check out few cards before you use one. Definitely, you do not want to be caught surprised with the hidden charges of the card you are using.

You can use the internet in checking out several cards. Yes, it is wiser on your part to check out few cards and compare. In comparing, it can help you find the one that you need and can suit your lifestyle.

It is also a good way to ask for recommendations from family and in order to gain the right card for you. Definitely, they will give you good assessment about certain cards.

Whatever your reasons may be for wanting to find out who that phone number belongs to, never feel that they are not legitimate concerns. And, don't worry that you are alone in needing to find this information out. Sadly, many people have concerns that a spouse or a partner may be having an affair because of telephone numbers that keep appearing with no name. Not only that, there are just as many people, usually women, who are being stalked with phone calls from unknown numbers - and that can be frightening.

But, are the phone number trace services legitimate? There are some very unscrupulous people who will take advantage of people's desperation during this time of worry and doubt. When doing your reverse telephone lookup, always make sure that you are dealing with a company that has an accurate database.

Most of the services allow you to enter the phone number for free, which will give you some basic information about the number. You will usually be required to pay a very small fee to get a generated report with complete information, including name and address - some even give a map! A good service will give you the option to upgrade and purchase a lifetime use, instead of charging for every search. That way, if you need the service again in the future, it will be completely free.

Unfortunately, there is a very large market for this kind of service simply because people are not sitting back and hiding behind lies anymore. And, thanks to this technology, anyone who is being stalked by an unknown caller can have answers in minutes and can take the necessary action. Finding out who a phone number belongs to is a very simple process, and it is completely legitimate. You can find the answers you are looking for in minutes - and make any decisions about what to do with the information immediately.

Unfortunately, in today's society there are countless reasons why someone would need or want to match a phone number to a person. This person may end up being someone they know, or a complete stranger. Thanks to the internet and technology in general, it has actually become very simple to do. Each day thousands of people come online to do a reverse telephone lookup, hoping to get some answers.

So, do you need to find out who a phone number belongs to? Here are some common reasons that people have for doing these searches:

• To find out who is making harassing phone calls to their number. If they are receiving numerous calls or hang-ups, it can start to become a bit frightening - at the very least annoying. If the caller is using a cell phone, it hasn't been possible to identify them until now.

• They may want to find out a name for a "suspicious" phone number on their partner's phone. As sad as it may seem, infidelity is on the rise, and many people have used a reverse telephone lookup to find out who is calling their loved ones.

• Many times there are phone numbers on a phone bill that don't match with any that are normally called. It is important to make sure that you haven't been a victim of any fraudulent charges to your account.

• To find an address of an old friend that you have a phone number for.

There really are many reasons for doing a phone number search, and thankfully it has now become a very simple process. Within minutes of typing it in, you can match a phone number to a person - and you will have the answers you have been looking for. The service is free for basic information, and you can get everything for a very small amount. In the end it is worth it for your own peace of mind.

If you are considering whether to get cable TV online via the Internet versus to get or maintain your traditional cable TV service, there are a number of pros and cons to consider:

Pros of Cable TV Online:

1. No need for any cable box converters.

2. No need for messy cable wires.

3. No need for any additional hardware to be installed in your computer.

4. Unlimited access to over 3,000 live cable channels.

5. Abundant diversity of international channels being broadcast from 78 countries.

6. Access to many of the prominent English-language channels.

7. Multilingual TV channels being broadcast in the native dialects of each national locale.

8. No monthly subscription fees.

9. Easy to access from any machine that has a high-speed Internet connection.

10. More variety of programming than that offered by mainstream cable operators.

Cons of Cable TV Online:

1. You can only watch it on your computer unless you hook up your PC / laptop to your TV.

2. You are dependent on having access to a high-speed Internet connection.

3. Local TV programming availability (to your specific city) is not guaranteed because its target audience consists of multinational and broad-regional audiences.

4. Not compatible with Tivo.

5. No centralized regulatory control over any of the content.

6. Quality of the broadcasting depends on how powerful your computer is.

7. Quality of the broadcasting depends on the bandwidth available in your high-speed Internet connection.

Web-based cable TV is gaining widespread popularity, with over one million people across the planet already watching TV online. As indicated above, there are pros and cons to consider if you are debating about whether to get cable TV online.

Email is a powerful computer tool that individuals use to communicate with others all around the world. What would some of us do without email? Instead of picking up the phone, we can send an email to our loved ones, to a business partner, to our college children and more. Emails have helped to close deals and to start businesses.

However, there are a small number of individuals who use email as spam and scams. These are people who have created a wedge between the advantageous use of email and the disadvantages. When you receive an email, pay close attention to the subject or title. Do not open emails that you don't recognize or will tell you that you have won something. Usually, if you win something, you are notified by mail and not by email.

There are some that not only use their Computers to access the Internet, but to use email communications to "phish" for your personal information. What is "Phish?" This is a way to get you to click on a link inside the body of the email and in so doing; the phisher would be able to retrieve your personal information including passwords and bank account information.

The Phisher may only be guessing, but sometimes are right on the mark, when they send you email from your bank. If you are not familiar with the concept of phishing, you will easily fall for it. They will copy and paste the bank's logo into the email to make it look authentic. However, if you look at the email address, you will notice that it is probably not from the bank. Be cautious. Take time to look for any clues that makes the email look fraudulent.

Be careful how you use email to send personal information such as social security, date of birth, address, passwords and usernames to family and friends. If this information is not deleted from their email inbox, anyone can get a hold of it and use it to your detriment.

Spammers use email to send you fake newsletters to your email with the option to unsubscribe. When you click the unsubscribe button, then it becomes a sleuth of spam emails constantly in your email inbox daily. Be careful of this old trick.

Be aware of emails that your friends forward to you, like the ones that they get with jokes or some motivational emails that tell you to forward it to your own friends and families. This is what hackers use to spread virus. Avoid reading them. It does not mean that you don't trust your friends or family, but you have to be careful of these spam emails. Since you don't know where the email originates from, then it is not safe for you to even open it.

You can block spam from your email inbox. Your email account has a specific feature to block certain email addresses from coming through to your email inbox. Utilize these features to make your email computing more pleasant.