Way to Russia Talk Lounge

trebor121 · Just Starting Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 4 Location: UK

hi can anyone help out as i need to get a pre-pay phonecard for my girlfriend Embarassed

who lives in Yoshkar-Ola and i live in the UK and i'm not going back until july, and to save her money i would like her to have a phone card. can i arrange it all via the UK and then just keep topping it up as well.
cheers in advance if anyone can help! Question

wavetossed · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Jun 2004 Posts: 337

This is incredibly difficult. In order to buy a phone card, or top-up a phone card, you have to be able to make payments to a phone company in rubles. No foreign banks can do this. The way this is done is for Russian banks to establish correspondent relatinships with foreign banks. Then, you can make a payment to a UK bank, they will correspond with the Russian partner and that partner will issue the payment in Russia.

To do this you need the bank account information for the Russian phone company. This is not hard to get since they usually publish it on their web pages. Then you need the account number of your girlfriend. This means pay-as-you-go phonecards are not possible. But, it can be difficult to get the phone company to divulge the account number because they are not used to giving out individual subscriber accounts for this type of payment transaction. However, a Russian speaking person with patience can find this.

Next, you need to contact the phone company's bank and find out which UK banks they have a correspondent relationship with. You also need to find the account and code numbers used to receive foreign funds transfers. You might be able to send English email to the bank to get this info, but it is easier for a Russian speaking person to get it.

Now you have to choose which UK bank to deal with, if there is a choice. Chances are, none of the correspondence banks are high-street banks and they only have one or two offices in London. But, once you have made the arrangements they will give you more code numbers.

Finally you can make payments by paying funds into the UK correspondent bank and submitting a correctly filled out form to their office. Be careful with filling in this form. Any Russian names must be written in the correct case and it looks odd. For instance there might be a bank named Goszhukbank and you might see them write it as GosZhukBank on their website. But on the funds transfer form it must be written as GOSZhUKBANK. Yes, that lowercase "h" is correct and necessary.

But there is a simpler way. There are companies that will take care of all these details for you. One is called Western Union. The other is called Visa. I suggest you simply send her the cash via Western Union.

On the other hand, why don't you just make all the phonecalls. When she wants to talk to you she can send an SMS and then you ring back using the numbers at www.telediscount.co.uk. This way, you pay for the calls and you get a reduced rate.

Other countries have similar discount calling services.

trebor121 · Just Starting Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 4 Location: UK

thanks for replying so quick, I have just read on-line about prepay online phonecards. but still looking at them trying to understand how my girlfriend using a online card? thanks for the info!!

Paul Holmes · VIP Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 970

trebor121 · Just Starting Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 4 Location: UK

cheers might give it a go

BELS · Lounge Lizard Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 107

I believe you are in UK now ? and you want to phone your girlfriend in UK, I have been in same position for several years, Now my wife.

Contact a newsagent , who will sell international phonecards of many sorts. My recommendation is Eurocard, its about 240 minutes for £5, qiute often you will see posters outside their shops, giving details of rates for cards. Best is downtown in town centres, if you are in a town or city close to a University you will get the largest selection of cards. sometime they will discount you, if you want to giva a card a try. normally £4.00 instead of £5.00

BELS · Lounge Lizard Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 107

Sorry maybe I did not read you correctly first, as for Russia , might vary in different regions, I live in a western Moscow region, My wife buys pre paid cards from various sources. A video hire shop, and a few of these trailer type shops they have. Deals are not so good in Russia, but cards are available at marked price of 5 dollars from varius types of shops, look out for for small places that sell mobile phone services also.

trebor121 · Just Starting Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 4 Location: UK

my girlfriend lives in Yoshkar-Ola and I live in England, and I would like to pay from England for a prepay phonecard (or something like that) for her to use in Russia. And for me to be able to top it up as and when needed.

vettra · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 3:40 am Post subject:

i got a related problem of trying to pay my web hoster in Moscow.
fortunately they have a bank account in Latvia, so i did an inter-bank
wire transfer. However, they never acknowledged getting the money
so at the moment i'm skrewed. i think the major problem is that
Russian payment system is rather different from America's/UK.
There's always Western Union... does the Russian gov't take a %-age?
Ideally there would be a Paypal for all countries.. hmm, business idea