IDT Corporation Consumer Reviews

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- I recently switched my local and long distance telephone service from Verizon to IDT Corporation because of IDT's advertised $39.95 flat rate for local and long distance residential telephone service. When I received my bill from IDT, I noticed that I was being charged a lot more than promised.

I was charged for long distance service (despite the fact that I was told by IDT when I signed up for their phone service that all long distance charges were included in the $39.95 monthly flat fee), and I was charged a series of excessive fees, including a $26.00 monthly "FCC Subscriber Line Charge", allegedly mandated by the FCC. (I was never charged such an exorbitant fee when I was with Verizon.) In fact, by switching to IDT, I am actually paying MORE now than I did when I was a customer of Verizon!

I called up IDT's Customer Service Number and I asked the representative who I spoke to about the excessive $26.00 monthly FCC fee, as well as the other various surcharges which total an additional $23.75 per month. They told me that the monthly $26.00 "FCC Subscriber Line Charge", as well as the $5.93 monthly "Federal Universal Service Fund", the $9.88 monthly "National Carrier Charge", and $7.94 listed simply as "Other Surcharges", were all mandated by the FCC, and I have to pay them. They claimed that all telephone carriers must charge these fees to their customers.

I also asked them why I was being charged for long distance when it was supposedly part of the $39.95 monthly flat fee, and they told me that my plan didn't include long distance. This is not true!!! I was told when I signed up for service with IDT that long distance would be included!!! Needless to say, I have severed my relationship with IDT Corporation and switched my local and long distance telephone service back to Verizon. In fact, upon switching back, Verizon told me that many customers who had switched their telephone service to IDT, have switched back to Verizon after discovering that IDT was not delivering the low cost telephone service which it had advertised!

CLEAWATER, FLORIDA -- I used IDT for long distance on my land-line phone for years. We recently moved and decided to get rid of our land line (just use cell service). So I disconnected my land line and cancelled my service with IDT in February, 2007. Three months later, I received a bill from IDT for service provided in April, 2007, to my cancelled number. WTF? I called and was told they never received my cancellation, even though I mailed it as a letter with my final bill (they managed to cash the check but not to cancel my service). After an argument, they agreed to cancel the account but I had to pay the bogus April charges.

Three months later, I received ANOTHER bill from IDT for service provided during July, 2007. This time, the bill showed the "service" was for a telephone number I haven't had since the LAST time I moved 8 years ago! WTF? I called IDT again and explained they're charging for service to a phone number that hasn't existed in 12 years. They promised to fix the problem once again. But once again, three months later, I received ANOTHER bill from IDT for service provided in October, 2007, to the 12-year-old phone number. This time I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and ignored the IDT bill.

About two months later, I received a copy of a response to the FTC from IDT's legal department. It basically said they would fix the problem (my question, "When?") but that it was somehow my fault! In February of 2008, I received yet ANOTHER bill from IDT for service during December, 2007, to my non-existent 12-year-old telephone number. I ignored it. Moral of the story: You cannot cancel IDT. Once you have them, you're stuck with them! Also, their customer service people were very rude, each and every time I spoke to them.

I had a problem with my phone service for the past 5 days, and have been continually on the phone with representatives from IDT. I began to notice that not a single person spoke English without an accent, and some were downright almost impossible to understand, so I asked a simple enough question. "I know that your corporate office is in Newark, NJ, but where are customer service calls being directed--what country/state, and are these calls being outsourced?"

The rep absolutely refused to give me an answer, citing "for security reasons". Nonsense, of course, because I didn't need specific information, but I did want to know at best what country the calls were taken in, because I do not deal with companies who outsource when at all possible. We need jobs in this country, and I despise the fact that greedy corporations are constantly outsourcing their work to give a bigger profit margin to their stockholders. The rich get richer, no matter whom they hurt in the process. I have the right to know this very basic information when I am paying them for a service.

The refusal to respond leads me to the conclusion that the calls are in fact outsourced and that IDT does not want their customers to know this. Therefore, since they refuse to give me a straight answer, I am going to cancel my service with them.