Talk may be cheap but not for Skype customers

Skype users claim that SkypeOut has changed its credit renewal policy without giving them notification.

Consumers are complaining about expiring credits for SkypeOut, the internet phone service's "low cost way to make international calls from Skype to friends who still use traditional landlines or mobile phones".

Go to the Skype website and the first thing you'll see is the tagline: "With Skype you can talk to anyone, anywhere for free. Forever." Apparently not. Calls within North America or between two Skype accounts are free until the end of the year. However, you'll be dinged for any international calls and might in fact lose your purchased credits in the maze of confusion of re-activation.

The international calling pay-for-service called SkypeOut works like this:
You purchase Skype credits online and dial away.

Easy, right? Not quite. The Skype forums are buzzing with confusion and complaints. Customers can't seem to wrap their minds around SkypeOut's credit expiration/renewal system. Or maybe Skype can't seem to manage their purchased credit system.

Consumers aren't getting their credit expiration notices on time or are having problems re-activating their credits even when they do get the notice. In some cases, early SkypeOut customers are alleging Skype never even informed them that the credits had an expiration date.

Since Skype is an international service, its credit expiration policy could land them in hot water. According to a German customer in the skype forum, Germany has a new consumer protection law that states money for credit can't expire.

Until recently, eBay-owned Skype has enjoyed an almost competitor-free market. But with companies such as Google and Yahoo! coming out with similar services, Skype needs to be more upfront with their customers or risk losing them.