How to Buy Skype Credit for Calling Phones

By Loren Abdulezer, Susan Abdulezer, and Howard Dammond from Skype For Dummies

8 of 9 in Series: The Essentials of Communicating with Skype

You can buy Skype credit to call telephones using a service that is sometimes called SkypeOut. You can call phones anywhere in the world at a fraction of the price that a normal phone call would cost. This is a service that seamlessly bridges Skype users on the Internet to regular phones.

Be aware that Skype is not set up to make emergency calls such as 911. Skype is not a replacement for your ordinary phone and cannot be used for emergency calling.

A PC-to-PC connection over Skype is always free. A PC-to-phone connection, whether to a landline or a mobile phone, is an extra service and entails a fee for its use. To make a call, you must first buy Skype credit. You can buy Skype credit only in increments of $10 or $25 at a time.

You are told what the per-minute charges are before you make the call. The most popular destinations have one unified rate, often referred to as the "Skype Global Rate." Countries with "mobiles" in the SkypeGlobal Rate are charged the same rate that it costs to make a Skype call to a landline.

Calls to other countries have different individual rates. You can find these rates on the Skype Web site. If your billing address is in the European Union, a value-added tax surcharge may be applied when you buy Skype credit.

You can purchase Skype credit for calling phones while running your Skype application or by going to the Skype Web site from your browser. Here, you see how to do it from your Skype program. (The process for purchasing credit through the Web site is very similar.)

To buy Skype credit, you need to have a Skype password and a valid e-mail account.

When you click the View Account button of the main Skype window, it expands to reveal various links, one of which is Buy Skype Credit. If you don’t see the View Account button, just click Skype from the menu at the top of the screen and choose Account.

To buy Skype credit, follow these steps:

Click the Buy Skype Credit link.

You should momentarily see a padlock display, signifying that you are securely connecting to the Skype site.
Select either $10.00 or $25.00 for the amount of Skype credit.
Deselect the Auto-Recharge box if you don’t want to automatically buy more Skype credit whenever your balance drops below $2.00.
Fill in the requested billing information.

You are asked to fill out some basic information and method of payment (which can be PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, or other forms of payments, such as a wire transfer).

Respond to security confirmation: As a security protection, Skype e-mails a confirmation code and asks you to insert this code in a confirmation e-mail screen.

Receive feedback for your order: Skype displays a notification that your order is being processed and sends you a confirmation by e-mail.