Use Skype for Business

It is important to know the limits on your Skype unlimited subscription plan. There is a good chance your Skype account being blocked if you are not careful about your usage. You must stick to the fair usage of Skype. In addition, there are unpublished rules. Here is one of them, and it is based on the email communications of one of our customer with Skype support.

I wanted to use SKYPE to call a mortgage lead list everyday for my small mortgage office in the state of Florida (USA). I see that my personal account is limited to 10,000 minutes per month. This is per account on the USA unlimited plan.

I plan to use 4 people to makes calls for 7 hours a day and 5 days a week. At one call per minute (the average) that totals around 2,000 minutes per week for each person. That is around 8,000 minutes per month per person. I have no problem buying 4 seperate accounts for each person (as your website suggested) and giving them there own unique id, but I see there is no way to keep track of the minutes used? I want to make sure I don’t go over 10,000 just in case? Since you charge a “per minutes” rate for minutes over 10,000 there must be some way to keep track on your end. Is there a way to keep track on my end? I want to do it right the first time! I hope to hear back soon!

Skype reply: Thank you for contacting Skype Support. We apologize for the delayed response. Our goal is to respond to all customer e-mails within 72 hours, however due to a recent increase in inquiries it has taken longer to respond to you. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

We are sorry to hear that you are having difficulties with your subscription. We are sorry to inform you that there is also a daily limit on your subscription, not only monthly. Your subscription includes 10,000 minutes of unlimited calls to the destinations included in your subscription. This works out at approximately 6 hours of call per day, 7 days a week. After 4 hours of continually call, Skype will automatically disconnect the calling, this is for your safe (in case you have forget to stop the call). Also after 6 hours of calling a day your subscription become suspended. We monitor the use of subscriptions to ensure our fair use policy is followed. Also, if we detect any unusual calling patterns or activity we may temporarily suspend a subscription. This is primarily done to protect users from any possible misuse of their subscription occurring. Please be aware that your calls apply to our fair usage policy. For more information about this policy, please view the following page:
http://www.skype.com/go/terms.fairusage

In addition, please note that you have the possibility to see a detailed list of the calls you have made and their exact costs:

https://secure.skype.com/store/myaccount/history.html

We apologize for any disruption this suspension of your subscription may have caused.

Thank you for your quick reply. I certainly do not want to “break any rules” that Skype has which was the reason for my inquiry. Please confirm: I have the intention on using several unlimited accounts in the USA strictly for calling business leads. You mentioned that Skype monitors the account for “unusual activity.” Can I assume that this calling pattern is not considered “unusual” and is allowed as long as I do not go over 6 hours a day on my calls (per account) or 10,000 minutes per month? That as long as I stay within the “Fair Usage” agreement then my calls will not be stopped and my subscription(s) will not be suspended?

PS: I thought that the “4 hour rule” for Skype disconnecting a call was for a SINGLE call lasting that long…not multiple calls totaling 4 hours or more… Thanks

Skype reply Thank you for contacting Skype Support. We are very sorry for the inconveniences. You can use your account and the Unlimited subscription for calling about 6 hours a day. If you do longer calls the system will start to charge you. If you are stay within the Fair usage policy you will not be charged for your calls. We understand that you are interested in cumulating your free minutes from one month to the other. Unfortunately, the unused minutes included in your Subscription will not be carried over to the next month.