Jeremy wrote me and told me that they will be getting calling cards starting Febuary 1. He said from what he heard they would be $15 for thirty minutes. Kinda steep but there are some benefits like not having to worry about if you don't have a house phone. Who knows how they will work out for us.

Idaho State Correctional will also be getting calling cards

Oh by the way, Jeremy is in Idaho Max.

One of my friends sent me the notice he got, he is in IMSI.

Inmate phone system
Changes are coming

Changes include:

A debit or phone account system
A charge for long distance attorney calls.

These changes will start February 1st

A debit or phone system
In response to request we are starting a phone acount system. You will now be able to purchase phone time through inmate commissary. Time can be purchased in $5, $10, and $15 amounts. When you make a call you will be asked if this is a prepay or collect call and the system will tell you how much is in your account. You can then chose which calling method they prefer. You will now have two ways to make calls----your phone account or collect.

A charge for long distance attorney calls

MCI is planning to implement a software upgrade that will allow MCI to begin charging for long distance attorney calls. The contract requires local attorney calls to be free and allows MCI to charge for non attorney calls. They have not had the ability to distinguish the difference until now so all attorney calls were free.

When you make a call you will be asked if this is a prepay or collect call and the system will tell you how much is in your account.
So is this not actually the same as a calling card? Right now its 1.95 for a local inmate collect call. I am wondering if the prepay will be the same. I wonder if you will get 7 calls out of a 15.00 phone account.

If this is how it works then this might not be such a bad thing after all

I don't know the cost TNC, but yes from the way it sounds they will purchase phone time from the commissary and it is put on their phone account and then each time they call it will tell them how much time they have left. I don't believe it is like a calling card, they won't have a card and when the dial the number it will ask them if it is collect or prepaid. I don't believe they will be dialing a number outside like you do with a calling card. It is all still controled by MCI.

I think it will be a good thing especially for families that have blocks on their phones and can't recieve collect calls. This will be a way for them to be able to speak with their loved ones.

softie

When I first heard of it I thougth it was like a calling card. From what I heard it was 30 minutes for 15.00 and that price kinda scared me. IMO thats outrages, but now that it looks to be differant I will be checking into it a little more.

Maybe I will call the prison and get more details and post here for those who are interested

I just got off the phone with the person in charge. After making a few calls I found someone who has all the details.

She said its the exact same price as what your collect call would normally cost. Its just giving the inmates the option to pay for the calls rather then the family or its just giving those who have blocks an option.

In my case a local collect call is 1.80 for 30 minutes. With the new phone system it will cost exactly that same price.

I asked if there was any connect fees when a call is placed and she said no. I asked over and over again if its the same as what I would pay if he called me collect today.

Knowing this it makes me feel much better about how this new system will work out.

Oh thats great! From what Jeremy said it was a calling card type of thing. I guess I should make sure that he gets his facts straight before I post about it! Thank you guys for clearing it all up. I think its a good idea so far.

Oh thats great! From what Jeremy said it was a calling card type of thing. I guess I should make sure that he gets his facts straight before I post about it! Thank you guys for clearing it all up. I think its a good idea so far.
When I talked to the lady at the DOC she said thats everyone has been a bit confused on this. In some ways it is kinds like a calling card in the sence you purchase blocks from the commissary. She said the consfussion has been created because they are selling them in 3 differant amounts. That is the part that is causing people to think they are calling cards.

I dont know if you've ever had a inmate collect call to Twin Falls or not, but if so you can guess thats how much each call will cost with these cards.

The only part about this that sucks is the highest blocks they can get are 15.00 at a time. For someone like me who is local I can get 8 calls out of 1 card, but for those whos calls cost more it would be nice if they could get larger blocks.

For Jeremy's call to Twin Falls it costs $8.00 for 45 minutes. So I could almost get 2 full calls out of the $15.00 one. And it sure does sound a tad confusing because of all that. But thankfully I have somebody like you who has been very helpful in clearing things up on several different things.:thumbsup:

Well its seems the calling cards arent what everyone thought. I heard from someone the other day that the calling cards would have a hook up fee along with the per minute fee.

When I went to see Chris the other day he said something about this as well. He also said that the calling cards were supposed to come out Feb 1st then it was March 1st and now they are unsure when they are coming out.

He said the prison is saying it was MCI who raised the cost and not the prison.

I dont know if I wrote the name of who I finally ended up talking to down or not, but I will make some calls and see what other information I can get