Toronto company ready to introduce renewable calling cards to market

A giant in the phone card industry is about to make a bold change in the way it conducts business by allowing customers to refinance their cards. The Gold Line Group of Richmond Hill ON is the largest provider of prepaid LD calling cards in Canada. It holds about 80 per cent of the market, representing more than 100 million LD minutes each month. Now it is joining with WireMITE Inc. of Toronto to alter the production of calling cards. Currently phone cards are sold through convenience stores, community centres and other agents and have a set financial limit. When the monetary limit is reached, the card becomes worthless. The two Ontario companies are working on a system that will see customers able to re-finance the cards. "As soon as your account goes to zero balance or one dollar, you can either go to the web site or to our customer service here and we charge it or to the agents," Gold Line COO Shawn Reyhani tells Network Letter. "There are three ways of recharging this system. That’s the benefit of this." The agents the company is currently using have their own offices or call centres. Reyhani expects that vendors such as convenience stores will be part of the process within the next few weeks. That will rely on point of sale activation. Vendors will use ATMs or credit card terminals to access the customers’ accounts. The phone cards will be swiped through the terminal, a financial ceiling will be set and the money will be automatically transferred from the client’s coffers to the vendors’."When it goes to zero or has a low balance, you can take the same card to the convenience store and pass it through again and punch in the number you want. That would eliminate the fraud or theft of these cards," the COO explains. That should be attractive to the company’s more than 7,000 vendors. Under the present system, stolen phone cards can be activated, depriving the seller of any profits. These new cards will not be usable until they have had their cash limit set by the terminals. Gold Line makes its profit on its wholesale price; the vendors earn a commission on each transaction. Gold Line has concentrated on supplying the immigrant market, which grows by approximately 250,000 people each year. Community groups and small retailers, usually members of the same ethnic groups, have been among the most avid sellers of Gold Line’s cards. "The other good thing about this system is that on the regular phone cards, you don’t see a detailed billing," Reyhani says. "But on this system, every month, you can go onto our web site and by putting in your PIN number you can see your last month detailed billing. In the sense of where you called, from which phone you originated the call, and what was your destination, and how long you talked and what were the charges." Complete controlThe firm controls all aspects of its business. It designs, prints and makes the cards through its Card Express Printing Inc. subsidiary. Gold Line Telemanagement Inc. markets and distributes the cards, which may be customized for a particular client or branded with a Gold Line brand name. The Arc Phone Canada Inc. division acts as a wholesaler of LD minutes and provides specialized services, such as engineering, software applications and technical needs. The company also has a multilingual customer service centre. Open seven days a week, Teleresolve Inc. offers service in 40 languages. Gold Line is also venturing into the VoIP market. WireMITE is hoping to join with Gold Line and other partners to enable customers to immediately deposit money in bank accounts in other countries. The cash transfers would be faster and more secure than older systems.

Toronto company ready to introduce renewable calling cards to market

News | 08/13/2002 4:00 am EDT

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