Seek The Info
Cottonwood,#2UPDATE Employee
Sun, September 07, 2008
for those who have contacted this company on the defense, your atitude has most likely lead you to your current opinoin. All the charges you see on your phone bill from inmate calling solutions are because you or someone in your home has accepted a collect call from one of the 400 jail facilities nation wide that this company services. When you are expecting and want to receive these calls but cannot because you feel as though inmate calling solutions is interupting these calls because it is a "racket" or a scam to obtain your hard earned money keep this in mind... This company is contracted with the inmate facility and in no way is attached to your phone services. If you get the automated message to prepay it means one of two things, either your phone company does not have (or want) a billing contract with ics so that ics can bill your phone company and they bill you(third party collect call billing), OR you have exceeded the collect call limit. Now for those of you frustrated at the thought that some third party company can restict your ability to speak with an incarcerated loved one, think about this for a minute, this is a company that is extending a "line of credit", if you will, to you with no intrusive questions about your ability to pay bills. Now the way the collect call limit or Threshold is determined is not by you the individual accepting the calls, but by the total % of bad debit that has been incurred by the company from others accepting those calls from the same facility in your area. This means that people, unlike you who pays your bills on time, have opted NOT pay their collect call bill or phone bill all together for that evryone has to pay. it is unfortunate, but not the fault of the company. now some of the facilities serviced by this company are only serviced on a prepaid basis by this company. this means another platform provided, i.e. global tel link (gtl) or embark. this means that if you are for any reason unable to get the calls as collect and directed to contact ics to setup a prepaid acct, if you want the calls as collect you would actually need to contact the collect call provided for that facility, not ics, the prepaid provider. ics can refer you to either of those companies and advise you ahead of time what the issue may be, but remember taking it out on the customer services reps of ics is of no help because they cannot control it, they dont provide the collect calls. for the facilities they do service the collect calls for they can tell you why and help you get the calls asap. just because they tell you that collect calls are not available to you for these calls though does not mean it is a result of something they have done. most phone service providers dont tell you that a collect call block comes standard with your service and you most likely dont even know that you are actually paying a monthly charge to have it there. also, most people are under the impression all the calls accepted will be billed to your long distance bill if you are out of state or considered long distance from the facility, that is not accurate, all the charges will be billed to your local services provider if you are billable. if you are curious about your collect call availability either call your service provider or pick up your cell phone and call yourself 1 800 collect. keep in mind, general collect calls are completely different from third party inmate collect calls. they cannot dial 1 800 collect and just have a chat with you. they have to follow automated props to make those calls. so in conclusion, do your homework and contact them with an open mind before jumping down their throats on the defense. it may be beneficial to you and the loved one you just want to be able to talk to. give them a call @ 888 506 8407 and submit wht they call an investigation, and within 24-48 hours someone will contact you with the info you seek and be able to answer any additional questions. they do have strict and standard policy though, one you setup prepay, you remain prepay, so, again, do your homework. if you treat them with respect they will treat you with respect and maybe go above and beyond to make those calls available to you.