LONDON -- Ofcom has today opened an industry-wide monitoring and enforcement programme into the advertisement and sale of international calling cards. This follows research showing that consumers are often confused about the charges and terms and conditions of international calling cards.

Widely used by the UK’s large immigrant population looking to make cheap overseas calls, more than 5 million UK adults use international calling cards. On average, these users spend £13 a month on calls, creating a market that is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

In May 2010, Ofcom commissioned research on the international calling card market, investigating the accuracy of information available to consumers in terms of call charges and terms and conditions.The research, which covered a period of two months, looked at cards supplied by the following international calling card companies: The Post Office, IDT, Tesco, Connect, Nobel, Story, Nowtel, Lycatel and iCard.

Performance of cards
In summary, the research found that: