Betamax VoIP accused of fraud
MyVoIPProvider.com has accused VoIP service provider BetaMax VoIP of credit card fraud. They allege that BetaMax improperly charges small amounts of money to credit cards of members, and that because the amounts are small most companies do nothing about it. BetaMax offers services under the names:
www.voipbuster.com, www.sipdiscount.com, www.voipcheap.com, www.voipcheap.co.uk, www.netappel.fr, www.sparvoip.de, www.voipstunt.com, www.internetcalls.com, www.voipdiscount.com, www.poivy.com, www.webcalldirect.com, www.freecall.com, www.nonoh.net, www.voipraider.com, www.justvoip.com, www.voipwise.com, www.budgetsip.com, www.smslisto.com, www.12voip.com, www.lowratevoip.com, www.smsdiscount.com, www.voicetrading.com, www.voipbusterpro.com
This is a pretty serious charge. I have to say that I've purchase from VoIPCheap before. It's true that they ask for a credit card number up front, but I've not encountered the behavior described. In any case, if you're a regular user of their services, you might want to check your credit card statements.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 am
From what I hear from users their game to be different. They will offer very low prices on a specific destination and free minutes. But, you have to deposit money. Then after a short while they change the price. Now you already have 10 dollars in their account, so you are stuck.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
So the Betamax nightmares finally come true? That reminds me of the apprehension I voiced in September:
Markus Göbel’s Tech News Comments: WTF is Betamax (VoIP)?
http://www.goebel.net/technews/2007/09/wtf-is-betamax-voip.html
I still remember the time when they introduced Voipbuster in Germany. They gave us the calls for free, but wanted our bank account data. You had to send them one Euro from your bank account to start to make unlimited calls. This seemed suspicious and many people feared some kind of phishing or another big scam.
But until now Betamax turned out to be a reliable company for me.
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Not only is Betamax fraudulently charging their CUSTOMERS credit cards, they have now found a way to charge innocent victims using stolen credit/debit card numbers. See ripoffreports.com
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Topped up 25euros, was charged VAT of 4euros twice. no refund, no contact, no thing… hope they get what was coming to them. their old forums were littered with unhappy customers
January 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I have been using Betamax companies for VOIP service since April 2005. I signed up in a hotel room in Paris (free Internet) and was making free calls to the UK within seconds. I have only paid with PayPal and MoneyBookers. Call quality has generally been excellent. Reliability has improved over the years - now better than a switched circuit. It is rare to get an uncompleted call or poor line quality on a cal.
If you are just looking for free calling, you will get upset when they change their conditions. However, if you are paying for some calls and getting others for free (as I am), the Betamax system, with a couple of accounts, works very well. The biggest “problem” with Betamax (for US users) has been payment in Euros and the rise in the Euro/Dollar exchange rate. And if you only top up with the minimum Euro 10, your potential losses are very limited, compared with the savings you are getting.
Betamax is regularly slagged on various forums; as with all technology “your mileage may very”. They are still in business, unlike a number of other VOIP companies. My experience has been very positive. I willl continue to use them until the experience changes.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I have been using Betamax - VoIPBuster and VoIPBuster Pro - since Jan 2007 and have had nothing but positive experience: easy to install, easy to use, cheap calls, no “double billing”.
Call quality is USUALLY good but, when it’s not, I just hang up and redial a few seconds later.
I have recommended to a coupel ofcolleagues and they, too, have had only positive experiences
January 29th, 2008 at 5:22 am
There is a very interesting discussion about the same topic in Voxalot’s forum:
http://forum.voxalot.com/voip-news/2768-betamax-accused-fraud.html
There are many Betamax clients among Voxalot’s users. But so far nobody complained. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding as “satphoneguy” points out?
January 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
One if the ripoffreports authors claims that several items have been charged to their credit card, from several countries
They’ve obviously been victim of stolen ID and credit card details. Why blame one of the companies that the fraudster used it with?
There have occasionally been posts in the Voipbuster forum from disgruntled would-be abusers of the Betamax fair-use policy, with multiple accounts at the same IP address, perhaps callshop proprietors, who have threatened to blackmail the company by publishing complaints on the internet
In this context, the MyVoipProvider article seems based on rumour, not investigation
January 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am
This company Betamax GmbH & Co.KG, or someone diverting funds to this company, today hacked into my Paypal account and took nearly $2000 Australian dollars from my bank account through Paypal (1000 Euros), there’s an Ebay thread on this topic also -
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000614952&tstart=0&mod=1201224528450
January 31st, 2008 at 6:10 am
Betamax is A TOTAL FRAUD COMPANY.. SINCE i deposited money and suddenly i am not able to make calls.. and also refund of my money..
ITS A 100% fraud company….
February 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I cant say really anything about satisfied customers, but BETAMAX has discovered a new innovative way of fraudulent with its customers. After charging the account, it allows few calls to be made, then suddenly stops services with an error message (The other party ended the call…). I am not the only victim, there are thousands around the globe. Somebody even tried to reach their allegedly head office at Cologne, it’s not there! People are getting organized to file fraud case against the company. If any of you from this Fraud Cheat & Co. (FCC), better pull up your socks before you are in serious trouble.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I have 3 accounts with Betamax, i use voipstunt voipcheap and lowrate voip but, the latest trick this fraud compay is doing they have blocked so many account and i have sent more than 30 emails and didnt got any response i got so mad that i told them im gona go to germany and find them their response was : were waiting for you. Funny thogh the dont give a damn for costumers I wouldnt recomned anyone to buy anymore credit i used to introduce more than 100 friends to betamax products but for now BETAMAX IS A FRAUD AVOID.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I can’t believe this. I have an account with nonoh and after topping up my account with 10euros, it has suddenly been blocked. I’ve sent them numerous emails, but no response. I still have 7 euros left in the account. This is absolute fraud!
February 20th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I have the same problem. I’ve topped up by 10euro and they have blocked my account. I have ‘The other party ended the cal’ unknown error 33!!!l
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hello All,
we are students & living in different cities in germany we’ve problem with this Fraud BETAMAX Company for the last 2 years our account were blocked without any reason our account having enough money to call. We have already contacted 1000 times via email, messages, telephones personally visit but no one gives us a positive & reasonable answer even the office address of Betamax which is showing on different Voip serivices like (lowratevoip, voipwise, Nonoh, internetcalls, voipstunt, voipbuster etc..) is wrong. so you all be carefull to buy a credit from this Fraud company Betamax. We are putting a case against BEtamax so if someone of you has already infected by this company then please contact to the lawyer or whatever you can do. We have here a office name Verbracuher Zentrale we went there with our all bills and calls list balnces they gave us a positive responce but they are also waiting for more complaints so please do whatever you can. thanks
bye
Students living in NRW Germany.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
you guys are absolutely correct. We are students here in Sweden. Many times our accounts at voipwise, lowrate, voipraider are blocked even with credit of few (round about 10) euros or US dollars. Each time dialing any number, the stupid message of “The other party ended the call due to unknown error” appears.
I strongly recommend that there should be some action against them at any level.
bye
students in sweden
February 24th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
we are also students here in italy they have also fraud of us we make a lot accounts of bitmax companies but now they have blocked every thing please let do some thing
February 24th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I have the same problem. I’ve topped up by 10euro and they have blocked my account. I have ‘The other party ended the cal’ unknown error 33!!!l
February 24th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Nonoh.net is a complete fraud! It allows people to make free calls showing you how good the phone voice quality is. Once you decide to purchase their 10 euro (plus 0.50 which is not mentioned before hand), they start to block your calls and charge money for FREE destinations! I heard Germans are good at engineering, but they have shown the other ugly side of them!!!
If other Germans vising this forum are offended by my above comments, then do something about your BETAMAX and ask your government to close it down before it gives you more bad publicity.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Never heard of them until I got my credit card bill this morning…
February 26th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I know four people around me , who are cheated with this company, we all have 10 Euro. in our account but the stupid messiage , the other party ended the call , appear on each trial , we are waiting disperately what this guys may do on our bank account as they already have enough information about us.
Let we work together to bring this compnay to court if it is possible to locate them there where about.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I noticed a strange charge on my bank statement; it was from Betamax, they have done it twice this month it seems. Tomorrow I am going to my bank and start a complaint process. Seems they got my info from voipcheap, what scum.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I never heard of them either until I saw the charge this morning. I can’t believe they’re getting away with this! I’ve never once used ANY VoIP service in my life, so there’s no chance that I’ve used any of their sister companies. I’ll try disputing the charge with my credit card company, but someone needs to do something about this company, what are they a group of slimeballs running this out of their parents basement??
February 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Just as Jeremy said, I had never heard of them until checking my card statements. Their website hasn’t been updated since 2005 so emailing them was a waste of time. I had to close my card and get a new one. What a hassle. And they still get the money. This internet and criminals sure get along good and most get away with it.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
UPDATE: I recieved an email from Betamax asking for a copy of my bank statement. They must have training on how to get information and use it for illegally collecting money. I told them if they had the resources to take my money, they had them to put it back. I am awaiting a response.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
They claim, by the way, that they are the victims of fraud themselves. Please read this: http://saunderslog.com/2008/02/04/betamax-victims-of-a-fraud-themselves/
It may be that it’s someone spoofing betamax who is stealing your money.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Ive been using voipstunt since 2005, n from 2007 till now voipwise. today in the morning i got to know that my acount has ben blocked, i guess i m the luky one coz i had only 90 cents left.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
BETAMAX is responsible for ALL, THEY CANT MAKE EXCUSES AFTER TAKING MONEY FROM PEOPLE — why — they have blocked so many account.
OVERALL, BETAMAX ITSELF IS FAUNDANT COMPANY IF THEY CANT PROVIDE SECURITY TO ITS CUSTOMERS THEY MUST SHUT THEIR SERVICES. or ITS time to take legal action against them. Join hands and make a combine LAW SUIT against this company.
People if different countries join hands and gather people to make complain, we can make law suit in germany or france where ever they are in!!!
Let us BLOCK BETAMAX!!!
May 4th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
My wife uses voipcheap.com services.
From the beginning everything looked OK, but then
nobody knows how they calculate those “FREE” minutes.
My wife never used announced 300 minutes. And all the time after couple days they start charging and never reply on e-mails.
Does this fraise from their web-site (* Max 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address.) sounds tricky? Seems like they count always for last 7 days, which is not really per week.
Plus we found out that even when it says FREE call, your money on account went down.
We are moving from them.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:22 am
This company called betamax is not reliable. i have 4 accounts in all with them with about 30euro in all. all my account were blocked and effort to rectify it from them proof abortive. please i will be glad if there can be any legal pursuit on this fraud case.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Voive Trading is A TOTAL FRAUD COMPANY.. i deposited $1600 and i am not able to make calls from my softswitch.. and did not refund of my money..
Voip Wholesaler
May 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Here is there new email
helpdesk@voicetrading.com
- Voip Wholesaler
May 15th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Who is Betamax anyways? It sounds to me like another fake company like all the other names. Besides aren’t companies supposed to be registered to a person?