Our invitation to you to send in your views on swapping filled our

postbag and we are still working our way through it! On these pages,
we've decided to give you a chance to air your views and to sound off on
the subjects on which readers have strong feelings - very strong, as you
will see from the letters that follow. Normally, we include only short
letters (or print the highlights of long ones). This time, however, we have
included two long contributions because they give quite different views
of the subject - and do so in no uncertain terms.

Dear Editor, if enough collectors cancel standing orders and

Below is a personal experience with a telephone refuse to order from BT and other companies perhaps
company in Bulgaria, though not exactly related to they will see sense and stop charging exorbitantly high
Collectors' Club services. prices - and killing the hobby, as well as the 'geese
I attended CardEx 95 in Maastricht, during which I that laid the platinum eggs'for them.
met a lady working for Betkom, Bulgaria. Prior to this,
I had ordered some phonecards from Betkom, sending Yours sincerely,
cash by registered mail. I received nothing at all after Vic Bowles, England.
waiting for afew months, nor did I receive any reply
despite several letters of enquiry.
The lady was not surprised to hear of my story but
she claimed that she did not receive my letters. I felt
very frustrated, having checked with the local post Dear Editor,
oJfice and confirmed that the letter did reach the You were kind enough to publish my Swap Shop
destination and that the address was absolutely request in your February issue. Not in my wildest
correct. It seems that there is nothing more that I can dreams did I expect to receive nearly 200 letters from
do to claim the order again. around the world! You'd be surprised at where your
magazine is read!
Yours faithfully, I had to make a huge eJfort to buy cards from other
Tse Wai Man, islands to please all those nice collectors with their
Hong Kong. requests. However, because card-swapping is not my
only job, I would like to ask all my new collectorfriends
to, please, be patient. I shall answer all the letters - it
willjust take a little while.
Dear Ralph, Please remember that the postal service in and out
With reference to your comments in the May issue of of our little paradise island is very slow and that it can
ITC. easily take a month for a letter to travel in either
I have just written to BT Phonecard Direct and told direction.
them to cancel my standing order. Why? I amfed up,
along with many of my fellow collectors, with being Yours faithfully,
'ripped off by BT charging two or three times or more Astrid C. Wenzke,
theface value for some of their cards. British Virgin Islands
Phonecards should be like stamps. A prepaid
receiptfor a service. Stamps arefor sending letters and Thanks for your kind letter, Astrid. It is nice to
phonecards arefor making phone calls. Once usedfor know that the response to our Swap Shop ads can
this purpose they become a collectable item. be so big. And it is very kind of you to go out and
Although some collectors, as with stamps, may buy cards to send to other collectors.
prefer to collect mint most, if not all, Postal Service
Philatelic Bureaus sell their stamps atface value plus
a small handling charge.
It appears that most phone companies sell their
cards at much over face. At CardEx '96 I registered Dear Editor,
with the New Zealand company and they have sent I refer to Roy W Pearce's letter in February's ITC
me many details of new cards, all at much overface concerningputting our house in order on the subject Qf
value. card exchanges.Ifail to see that we have a problem.

38
ITC August 1997
 The initial sending oj telephone cards to somebody
is a 'shot in the dark'. You do not know what type oj
collector he is, you do not know what cards he has to • Start the relationship slowly, clearly stating
offer, and you do not know what cards he has or what you have to offer£ and clearly stating what you
wants. This is compounded when sending mail to would like to receive and what you DO NOT want to
places like China, where the mail sorters and carriers receive.
may only have a rudimentary grasp oj English
language writing. Does your letter really have a chance • Having established a relationship, Joster it by
oj being delivered? offering some oj the rarer' cards that come into your
My address is in Georgetown, Cayman Islands. possession in exchangeJor some oj the rarer ones you
An appreciable amount oj my phonecard mail Jirst might want.
makes a trip to Georgetown, Guyana, where the postal
workers (bless them) careJully stamp the package • Forget lists - Black or White. A list implies that you
mis-sent to Guyana and then send it on to the are going to pass it on to others. Who needs that?
Cayman Islands. See how easy it is Jor mail to go Having established a relationship with a person in a
astray? specific country I want to keep that relationship
Three oj the letters I have mailed and where I have exclUSive,so that he wants all oj the cards that come
not received replies were sent to China, Cuba and into my possession and that he in turn will send me all
Albania, all places with low per capita incomes (how oj the cards that come into his possession.
can they afford the postage?) and probably unreliable
mail service. Yours faithfully,
I treat my first contact with a collector in another T J Haywood, Cayman Islands.
country as a trial. I will send between 6 and 12 cards
with a letter outlining my collecting habits and what I Thanks for such a detailed explanation. You seem
can offer Jor Juture exchanges. The cards I send to have set up a firm policy on swapping.
initially are ALL cards that I can afford to lose, and are A couple of comments regarding the use of
all cards that I haveJound in telephone boxes. My only English on envelopes: English is an official
outlay is the cost oj the postage. if I get no reply, I put language of the Universal Postal Union, to which
the loss down to experience. if I get an unsatisJactory almost all postal services belong, and there should
set oj cards back then I have the option oj continuing always be someone in a sorting office who
to exchange, or most likely I will terminate the understands it. In the case of China, which you
relationship. mention, (and where, by the way, the post is very
I normally restrict my correspondence to one person efficient) I am told that it is much better to write
per country. This minimises the number oj duplicate in English than in transliterated Chinese (Pinyin)
cards I receive. I do not proVide a wants list. Once I - as English is more lil~ely to be understood by
have established contact with a Jellow collector I will postal workers!
give him a list oj the cards I already have Jrom his
country, and leave it up to him to proVide me with
different cards.
I receive two types oj wants lists Jrom collectors. Dear Editor,
OneJrom obViously keen and dedicated collectors are I have read with great interest the comments
for some oj the harder and rarer Caribbean cards to published about the hazards oj swapping phonecards
find. Supplying cards Jrom that list is a matter for with correspondents who either do not respond or who
negotiation, so that I receive a card or cards oj similar advertise themselves to exchange and then cheat or
worth. I have received some pretty exotic wants lists stealJrom those who reply. Without a doubt, there are
Jrom people who are obViously 'trying it on' to get rare many cheats and thieves about and collectors are
cardsJor next to nothing. beginning to take matters into their own hands by
The final criterion in exchanges is where you are producing lists oj names and addresses oj such people
sending cards Jrom, and how rare are the cards that and circulating them Widely. I have been doing the
you are offering. Most collectors specifY that they will same in my price-lists - but only printing details that
exchange on a 1: 1 basis. The people specifying on that have been verified and proven to be true.
basis are normally writing Jrom countries where the What is causing me great concern is many oj these
printing oj phonecards is by the million. if you areJrom 'cheater or swindler' lists are including people who are
the UK and are sending away six to ten common BT not in that category. For example, I have just received
cards you are probably one of several people sending a letter Jrom Australia Jrom a collector who included
BT cards. You should not be too surprised that the such a list with a well-known dealer being described
person you are Writing to does not take you and your as "a thieJ, a crook and a liar", From my personal
wants list too seriously. experience oj the man in question, this could hardly be

40
ITC August 1997
jurther jrom the truth. Bejore people start accusing their problems if the dealer was a member - with some
others oj being frauds they need to be sure oj their hope oj action if the complaint were found to be
jacts. There is a lot oj thejtjrom the mail which I have justified. But it appears to me that most dealers are
fallen foul oj several times. The biggest offenders just not interested in any self regulation which is, in
appear to be Mount Pleasant Sorting Office in London my opinion, self destructive because too many
where overseas mail - particularly to and jrom the collectors are becoming disillusioned with being
Middle East - seems to disappear without trace, cheated time and time again. They then stop collecting
including Data Post and Registered items. Mail going phonecards and move to something else - with the
through Schipol Airport in Holland also seems to consequent loss oj revenue to the dealer and the
vanish qUitejrequently. magazines subscribed to. Whatever happened to
Ojten, I receivelettersjrom collectors telling me they BIPTA? The ADPS, partly on recommendation,
have sent material which I have never received. attempted to recruit card dealers a couple oj years
Usually I respond with a polite letter telling them to back, hoping to have a membership section devoted to
claimjrom their local Post Office as I have not received them. The response was totally negative.
their correspondence.In response, I usually receive an It is about time that dealers acted to protect their
abusive letter calling me a thiej and a liar! My livelihoods and the good name oj phonecard collecting
response is to invite them to prove this - if they cannot by jorming some kind oj projessional association to
rejrain jrom such abuse. My solicitors have already protect their own names and promote an ethical and
taken to task several people who dared to print such honest reputation jor those who are members. The
allegations without any proo]. Urifortunately, this hobby's magazines also need to do more to weed out
course oj action is not available to the average collector the unscrupulous who use the advertising and
who has been villified - and many people I know who swapping pages as a licence to cheat and swindle the
are honest and honourable have been treated in this average collector. if nothing happens then phonecard
way because mail has not arrived. Similarly, letters collecting will become doomed to be ajringe activity,
received and responded to never reach their like matchbox label collecting, because the enthusiasts
destinations. Who is responsible? Do I have to send oj today will become embittered and spread their
another package oj cards because some postal discontent to those who contemplate collecting, but
employee has stolen the original? In my exchange steer clear because oj the bad smell given to the hobby
terms all I offer to do is send exchange cards by the generally.
same method as received. There are quite ajew crooks
who do write and say that they never received Yours faithfully,
material, hoping that it will be resent in order to get C. Stanikowski,
two bites oj the cherry! Unless I know my Kuwait
correspondent very well I do not give them the benejit
oj the doubt. A very thought-provoking letter: how about it, you
Stamp collectors can usually approach projessional dealers: are you going to get together and sort the
associations like the PTS, UDPA, ADPS etc. jor their problems out?
complaints to be investigated. Such associations
produce their own black-lists oj dishonest people who As far as this magazine is concerned, we can only
are then rejused advertising space in stamp take action on an advertiser if readers tell us about
magazines. But I have noticed that many crooks get problems they have had. We accept advertising in
their advertising accepted in the phonecard magazines good faith and can only know if an advertiser is
and continue to rip off the unwary collector time ajter bogus or unreliable if we are shown the evidence.
time. A good example oj this was a 'black sheep' The problem of dubious cards is a different
dealer who had cards manujacturedjor countries that matter: it is not really for us to judge what people
had not up to that time issued cards.. His ads were are, or are not, prepared to collect and there are
splashed across two pages oj some magazines offering many who will be happy to buy a piece of plastic
these dubious pieces oj plastic. How many collectors with a pretty thematic picture. So long as the
bought these pieces oj rubbish and were ripped olf? advertiser is behavingly legally and honestly,
This particular person is well known to most oj the there is little we can do.
international stamp trade associationsjor his doubtful Youare right to recommend that people register or
business practices. Yet I still get phonecard dealers insure items of value. Then, anything that is really
and collectorswriting to me saying that they have been lost or stolen can be replaced without loss on the
ripped off by this person as he has not kept to his part sender's part. Recently, a lady who works for an
oj the deal. insurance company specialising in collectables,
It would help if there were a projessional told me that the countries that lead to the most
association with an ethical code oj conductjor dealers claims are Germany and Switzerland and that
to belong to and to whom aggrieved collectors could air items sent to Asia are rarely subject to loss!

41
ITe August 1997