ORIGINALLY WRITTEN July 2000
Out of all the low cost telephone operators Unicom was the 4th one we tried. Unicom offered the cheapest rates.
Calls to India are 33p/min (peak weekdays), 31p (offpeak weekdays) and 29p/min (weekends). Other offpeak prices are USA 6p/min, Australia 6p/min, ... Read review
Advantages: Indian Father Helps Out Financially Disadvantages: Bloody Blood Relatives
...the low cost telephone operators Unicom was the 4th one we tried. Unicom offered the cheapest rates.
Calls to India are 33p/min (peak weekdays), 31p (offpeak weekdays) and 29p/min (weekends). Other offpeak prices are USA 6p/min, Australia 6p/min, South Africa 16p/min, and Pakistan 39p/min.
Once registered you are given a freephone number together with a personal identification number. You are also given an account number ... ...is our money in the Unicom account. This money was lost through no fault of our own and Unicom had the nerve to tell us that our money would not be refunded.
This scenario went on for 2 weeks. Eventually all the money lost would be refunded. I guess that there were plenty of angry customers who terminated their accounts. I was thinking of doing likewise but decided to open an account with Alpha Telecom instead. But this refund fiasco ... more
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN July 2000
Out of all the low cost telephone operators Unicom was the 4th one we tried. Unicom offered the cheapest rates.
Calls to India are 33p/min (peak weekdays), 31p (offpeak weekdays) and 29p/min (weekends). Other offpeak prices are USA 6p/min, Australia 6p/min, South Africa 16p/min, and Pakistan 39p/min.
Once registered you are given a freephone number together with a personal identification number. You are also given an account number and have to choose a password. You simply call the customer services department and a prepaid amount such as £20 or £30 is added to your account by debit or credit card.
You can connect to your destination at once in 80% of cases. Obviously there are times when demand exceeds capacity eg between 6 pm + 7 pm weekdays and weekend afternoons. All calls are pre-paid.
We usually purchase £20 of calls per week. Occasionally they have special offers eg at Puja time or Diwali + give out £5 of free calls.
The customer services department is quite helpful and offers refunds if money is lost from your account. You can check your account balance at any time.
During blustery weather conditions it can be difficult to get a connection. I am hopeful that prices will come down in the future due to competition.
UPDATED December 2002
REFUND DISASTER
Occasionally it is impossible to get a line. It is worse when money is taken from your account even though no connection has been made. Customer services usually refunded the lost money.
A few months ago my wife phoned for a refund and was told that only refunds over GBP 1 would be paid. We were furious. It is our money in the Unicom account. This money was lost through no fault of our own and Unicom had the nerve to tell us that our money would not be refunded.
This scenario went on for 2 weeks. Eventually all the money lost would be refunded. I guess that there were plenty of angry customers who terminated their accounts. I was thinking of doing likewise but decided to open an account with Alpha Telecom instead. But this refund fiasco was unnecessary.
NEW RATES
A few weeks ago I received a few leaflets from Unicom. Here are some of the new call rates:
Country Pence per Minute
Cuba 55 India 24 Malaysia 8 South Africa 10 Sri Lanka 19 Turkey 15 Thailand 19
For the past few years calls to India cost 38p/minute. But this call charge was reduced to 24p/minute after November 1st 2002. This is great news as this means that my wife can speak to her family for much longer than before.
Happy New Year!
UPDATED October 2004
BACK IN BUSINESS
This is my first update this year. The past few months have been extremely tough but the worst is thankfully over now. I would like to thank Bigbaz, Tabyorky, and Tange and other Ciaoers for their support during my anxiety. It was Baz who persuaded me to resume writing.
Silverback commented that I use my ops as diary entries. This is true which shows how large my superego has become. I do find writing ops therapeutic.
EFFICIENCY OF UNICOM
Over the years Unicom has provided fine customer service and a clear line quality. The only times we have had difficulty obtaining a line has been the busy periods at weekends and Bank Holidays. The prices for phone calls have also been quite competitive. I would recommend them for low cost international calls.
PARANOIA
A few years ago odd events took place in our flat during our holiday to Copenhagen. Our Unicom details had been stolen and there was subsequent interference on the line. Due to my UFO beliefs I was sure that some sinister organisation was responsible.
But we had more mundane things to attend to after the holiday e.g. filling the fridge, washing the dirty clothes, developing photos, opening souvenirs, catching up with news etc.
It turned out that my parents were monitoring our phone calls via a sophisticated system set up by my uncle who is a bit of a techie. They stole my Unicom details. I actually saw this system at my parents' home but did not know what it was. In football terms it was like knowing that Terry Venables is a good coach. But how many of us have actually seen him coach?
But some good has come out of this episode. The shock and anger I felt destroyed some of the barriers in my mind and jolted me back into reality.
As Bob Hoskins of 'On the Move' fame once said 'it's good to talk'!
Advantages: 36month price freeze, Superb customer service, very cheap line/calls Disadvantages: none so far
UNICOM otherwise known as universal utilities plc. I switched to the manchester based company in Feb 2009. My BT bills were £660 per quarter (3 months) or approx £220 per month for two lines. I was called from some geordie call centre and asked if it was ok with me for them to sent one of their field rep people out to analize my bills and see if they could save me money. I (surprisingly) accepted their offer of a visit, when the guy came out he demonstrated ... ...so i would advise all you forward thinkers to choose wisely. If i was able to satisfy one of my customers like unicom have done to me i hope they would also voice their appreciation like i have. Well done Unicom, keep up the good work! Grant, Glasgow. ...
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Dishonest salesmen, poor service
We signed up for Unicom after a visit by a salesman who promised us cheap line rental, cheap calls, and even promised us free line rental for an additional line for broadband use.
So after some thought we decided to take up this offer and got back in touch with Unicom. The salesman they sent out didn't make any comment on the great deal the first person had offered us, so naturally we thought everything was OK and signed on the dotted line.
After ... ...Unicom services would commence on a certain date. This letter made no mention of broadband however so I called them up and discovered that broadband hadn't even been ordered! I was also told that the first salesman had had no authority to promise free line rental and that we would be paying full price for this!
I put it to them that the salesman in question had made a list of the items he had offered (I made him do this as it sounded too good to ...
MikeGrant 07.02.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Unicom
Line Quality
Quick review of Unicom
Although we have only been with Unicom a short period I have no problem in recommending them to other people. When we were looking into changing suppliers the poor reviews Unicom had received from some customers nearly put us off. However, as long as you read their terms and conditions and query anything you don't understand, it is simple. The swop over from BT was very smooth and easy. The main plus point for us is that they have a UK call centre. When you phone them they pick up the phone quickly, you get through to a real person, not a recorded message and their staff are extremely helpful. ...
kley 21.07.2008
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Unicom
Quick review of Unicom
Don't touch Unicom with a barge pole.
They'll tie you into a 3 year contract without you knowing (yes it's in minicule script on the back of the form) and you have to write not more than 3 months before the 3rd anniversary of the date you signed to end a contract or it will roll over into another 3 years before you know it. I don't know how long they will get away with this trick, but the legal system in this country needs to sort them out before long.
Sharp practice is too nice a word. ...
doneupgood 29.08.2008
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Unicom
Quick review of Unicom
A company that actually has a UK call centre!! And they pick up the phone very quickly. They get some bad press from customers who do not understand their contracts, but for sensible people that read the terms and conditions you can't really go wrong. ...
trojan123 22.08.2007
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Unicom
Advantages: most calls abroad 1p pm, no monthly minimum, no prepayment Disadvantages: only for BT customers; only from fixed line; avoid 0845, 0870 calls;
18866 is the prefix to dial from BT landlines before
dialing in order to get truly low cost call rates
to both fixed and mobile numbers worldwide.
Quick opinion:
Pros: excellent for calls abroad, no monthly minimum, no prepayment
Cons: only for BT customers; avoid 0845, 0870 calls; see end of my opinion.
As their 1 pence per minute charges seemed too good to be true
I registered (required, but simple online at call18866.co.uk),
and monitored (also online) the costs for each call made,
and after 3 weeks everything is as claimed.
So far the countries called were:
Belgium landline;
Switzerland landline;
China mobile (UNICOM network).
And each cost just 1 pence connection charge plus one pence
per minute of the call, calculated per second and
then rounded to the nearest penny. This means calls
under 30 seconds are ...
bobbie 25.10.2003 (01.11.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Call18866
Advantages: Useful for Conducting Holiday Romances Disadvantages: Lack of Decent Relatives to Phone
-paid. This meant getting a heart attack every time the bill came through the letterbox. I think that later Cherry Communications went out of business.
Since Cherry our main low cost telephone operator has been Universal Communications (Unicom). The service over the past 5 years has been fine. But recently the customer service staff having been messing us and other customers around.
ALPHA THE FIRST TIME AROUND
I remember reading an advert in the London Evening Standard about Alpha Telecom in 1996. The advert said that calls to India were 26p/minute. This was amazing, as the call charge to India using Unicom was 37p/minute.
Like a prat I immediately signed up to Alpha Telecom. When I registered I was given loads of documentation. One of the leaflets said that the call charge to India was 37p/minute. I got on the phone to Alpha and they ...
mrpaella 18.01.2002 (22.02.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Alpha Telecom
Advantages: The best mail order catalogue around Disadvantages: Standards have slipped over the past couple of years
, which did not appear, on the next statement. I made another payment, which was ok. So there are glitches in the system. Generally most of the problems have been ironed out.
Reading directly from the leaflet there are a number of account enquiry options: current balance, amount of credit available, when last statement was sent, copy statement request, order stationery.
The services are relatively straightforward to use. In case of a problem you can be put through to a call centre adviser.
PIN SECURITY
The Quickserv pin number is very easy to work out from the agency number. On one hand it is very easy to remember. On the other hand the security aspects are pretty poor.
I mentioned in my Unicom op how my parents could monitor overseas phone calls after stealing the pin. At that time they also stole my Lloyds Phonebank Express ...
mrpaella 29.05.2001 (19.02.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Freemans
