Your provider does not allow, or pass, the digits you press to our system. The pad of digits on your phone may be broken, and not generating the necessary tones. You may have your phone set for rotary dialing. If you press the buttons and hear a lot of clicking, you may need to change the setting from pulse dialing to tone dialing. If there is a lot of static, or noise, in your line, it may prevent our system from recognizing these tones, even when they are generated.
Sometimes the tones from your phone are dropped or unrecognizable by our system. Some reasons are:
Using a cellular phone in an area with low coverage
You are moving around frequently. For example:
Walking
Riding a bike
In a moving vehicle
You are inside a dense building
You are in an area where there are many cellular phones in use
Any reason that may cause dropped calls, could cause the system not to recognize when you press 1 for acceptance. With certain providers, pressing any button after receiving a call can cause the call to drop! You can only accept the call once. So you can press 1 multiple times if you believe the tones are being generated properly and the system is having trouble recognizing it. In all cases where you are having difficulties, you should test the phone with your provider before calling us to report it as a problem.DirectPay offers you financial control.
DirectPay bypasses credit checks during call setup.
DirectPay customers are not subject to the same terms and conditions as traditional collect call customers. Receive as many calls as your balance allows.
Most residential or cellular phone service providers:
Do not accept billing from service providers at Correctional Facilities
Impose spending limits or caps on collect calling, that you may find undesirable.
All calls to Customer Service representatives are recorded for quality assurance.
All calls placed from our facilities are recorded, and may be monitored.
We accept the following forms of payment for DirectPay
Debit cards from all major banks
Credit/PrePaid Cards: Visa, MasterCard, and Discover
A Minimum purchase of one fifteen Minute phone call, plus Taxes and Fees, is required.
Money Orders can be mailed or delievered to our drop off window
Phone Payments: (318) 746-1114
Mail or In Person Payments: 4501 Marlena Street Bossier City, Louisiana 71111
Please do not send cash in the mail
There are several reasons you may not be billed for collect calls:
Your phone may have a block placed on it by the provider for:
Non-payment: of your balance, fees, or other charges on your bill
Someone at your number called the provider and requested blocking of collect calls
You may be blocked by us for exceeding a preset balance. Any number able to receive traditional collect calls from a person at any of our facilities is subject to the following terms and conditions:
If you exceed $50.00 in a lifetime of collect charges your number will be blocked.
You will no longer be able to receive calls until you have a credit balance with your provider, of at least the amount that is owed us.
Once you have made a payment to your provider, give us a call and a live representative can verify that you have the correct credit balance with your provider. As long as the credit amount is at least what is owed us, we will allow purchase of DirectPay for future calls.
Once you have purchased DirectPay you will no longer be able to accept collect calls with your phone company for calls originating from our facilities.
You may be blocked through our billing company for charges rejected previously. You may be asked to pay City Tele Coin, Inc. directly for these charges, before you can purchase DirectPay.
There are several reasons you may be unable to receive calls:
If your account is set up for a cellular phone, you may need to change your ringback tone. Some ringback tones make our system believe the line is busy. If others dialing your number are hearing music, or something other than standard "ringing", the call may not work.
The person in the facility may not be waiting long enough. It can take up to 60 seconds for the system to place the call and your phone to start ringing.
The person has been transferred, or released, without first being able to contact you.
The facility may have locked out usage of the phones for the entire facility, or for just the person you are expecting calls from, without first being able to contact you.
The person may be attempting to dial your number more often more often than we allow, without you accepting the call. Usually, we do not allow calls from our facilities to you if the calls are not accepted more than 10 times in 24 hours. Some of our facilites have different settings for this feature.
Generally speaking, our system calls you when your balance is insufficient and someone has made an attempt to call you. These calls will not be placed if you do not accept the automated notification for the 3rd time in 24 hours. Some of our facilities have different settings for this feature.
Some phone providers block collect calls when you have forwarded your number to another number, or can have significant delays in processing the calls, which prevent the calls from reaching your number.
No.
DirectPay accounts are phone number specific. However, you may set up as many DirectPay accounts as you like (home phone, cellular phone, business phone) and each number is charged accordingly.
You will be notified when the person attempts to call and your balance is insufficient. You may contact one of our representatives between 7am and 7pm, Monday through Saturday, Central Time. Or Make a Payment through your Account Portal
NOTE:
It is against the law for our representatives to charge your credit card without your approval. If you want to use a credit card, you must call our office and request us to charge your credit card or set up your account for online access.
Yes.
With DirectPay, your number can be dialed from any of our facilities.
If my number changes, or I get a new number, how will it affect my DirectPay account?
DirectPay accounts are phone number specific. You can transfer the balance to another number.
If the person is transferred to another of our facilities, your account will operate normally once the person has moved. DirectPay accounts can be called from any of our facilities.
Contact one of our representatives and request a refund. When requesting a refund:
Any remaining balance will be refunded to you.
The process will take up to 30 days from the date you make the request.
Once the refund request is made, all further attempts to dial the number from any of our facilities will be blocked.
Inmate calling cards are facility-specific and may be used by an inmate to call any number that isn’t blocked. Cards are sold on-site and online, as follows:
On-site: There are two on-site methods for purchasing calling cards, and each facility may offer both options, only one option, or no option at all, so it’s best to contact us or the facility to find out which options are available per facility. The first on-site option is an inmate-purchased card: cards that are sold directly to inmates on-site are typically purchased by an inmate through his commissary account or from designated facility personnel. We generate the cards for the facility, and the facility sells the cards to the inmates. The second on-site option involves the visitor purchasing a card for the inmate at a CTC-branded lobby kiosk. Lobby kiosks will be located inside the lobby of the facility and cards may be printed or virtual. Not all facilities are equipped with CTC-branded kiosks.
Online: You can purchase a calling card through us, online, for an inmate at any of our facilities that is setup to receive electronic card transmissions. The inmate will receive an electronic notice that a card has been purchased in his/her name.
In either case, cards are available for immediate use and funds are withdrawn from the card whenever a call is placed. If an inmate uses a calling card to call you on a number that has already been set up for a DirectPay account, charges for the call will be deducted from the card, not your DirectPay balance.
Calling card rates may change from location to location. Calling card balances cannot be reloaded; once the funds are depleted, the card is no longer usable.
Calling Cards are non refundable
There is a monthly statement fee of $2.00 that each Active account is charged on the 1st of each month. The statement fee will automatically be included into the total charges for the payment. This is not an option that can be opted out of and the mailing address that is provided will be the address that the statement will be mailed out to.
We recommend having a minimum Download Speed of 10Mbps and an Upload speed of 3Mbps.
You can check the speed of your connection through speedtest.net.Your download and upload results will be at the top.
Having below the recommended conection speed can negatively affect the quality of the video call.
****City Tele Coin is not affliated with speedtest.net, any issues regarding their service must be brought to their attention.****
There are three ways to process a payment with CityTeleCoin. This is going to include a nonrefundable administration fee each time that a payment is made. Here they are:
Please Note: There is also a monthly statement fee of $2.00 that each Active account is charged on the 1st of each month. The statement fee will automatically be included into the total charges for the payment. Please advise the customer that this is not an option that can be opted out of and the mailing address that is provided by them will be the address that the statement will be mailed out to.
*** Be advised that City Tele Coin is a prepaid only service. We do not perform automatic charges to any card without the card holder calling in to request the charge and verifying all account information.
A transfer can be requested from the accountholder ONLY. Once the account is verified with the customer that it is indeed theirs, the agent will start the process for transferring the balance to the requested number. Please allow up to 72 hours for the transfer to be active for the new number.
Refunds may be requested from the accountholder ONLY. Once the customer verifies the needed information to request the refund, the agent will start the refund process. The refund will be refunded back to the customer within 30 business days of the request. Reminder........The administration fee is non-refundable. There must be a balance of $1.00 for the request of the refund to happen(CTC cannot write checks for anything less than $1.00).
Be advised that City Tele Coin will review reported dropped calls for refunds. If the issue was found to be a fault of the City Tele Coin equipment, that call will be refunded. PLEASE NOTE: Dropped calls on cell phones ARE NOT eligible for review or credit. Video Issues need to be reported through a recorded conversation with one of our friendly CSR's at (318)746-1114 for further troubleshooting.
Funds for tablet usage may be applied to an inmate’s media account either online at www.citytelecoin.com, or by speaking directly with one of our call center representatives at 318-746-1114. Once an inmate’s media account has been funded, he will be able to access the media features that are available via our tablets. Usage charges will be assessed in real time, and access will be denied once funds have been depleted. Inmates using the tablet for video and messaging services will only be charged for the amount of time they are on the device. The charges for the video and messaging services will be charged from the customer's account. All funding transactions include a processing fee that is based on the amount of purchase and are non-refundable. MEDIA/TABLET TIME PURCHASES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE AND/OR NON TRANSFERABLE.
$0 to $5.00: $2.50
$5.01 to $15.00: $3.50
$15.01 to $50.00: $6.50
$50.01 to $100.00: $10.50
$100.01 to $200.00 $12.50