Page Source for Cbs
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=head2 Prison Phone Number Forwarding
=head3 Description:
People in prison have restrictions on how they can make calls. They
usually can only make outgoing collect calls and are limited to 15
minutes. These calls can cost up to \$20 or more for a 15 minute call!
This is very expensive and usually the person in prison has no other
choice. Until now.
=head3 Solution:
Diamondcard offers local personal numbers/DID's that can be used for
forwarding of these calls. The person in prison can make a collect call
to the personal number which is then forwarded to the friend or family
member he/she is trying to call. The savings is about 75%!
=head3 Steps to take to start saving on outgoing prisoner phone calls.
1. L<Signup for a Diamondcard
account|http://www.diamondcard.us/did>. During signup you need to
buy a personal phone number/DID that is located in the SAME STATE as
the prison the call is being made from. For example, if the prison is
in Farmington, Utah you can buy a personal phone number anywhere in
Utah. Salt Lake City (801) will work fine.
If you did not buy a personal phone during signup you can buy one after
you already have an account. Login to your account and click on "online
shop". Then buy your personal phone number.
2. After you buy your personal phone number login to your account and
click "personal #'s" in the Telephony section of your Diamondcard admin
center. This page is where you will find your personal phone number and
configure it's forwarding. If you are forwarding to a USA number you
need to enter it as "15615551212" The 1 in front is the USA country
code. If you do not enter the 1 in front the call will not be forwarded
properly.
Once you know what personal phone number has been allocated to your
account you need to go to step 3. For this example, let's say your
number is 18015551212.
3. Go to L<Correctional Billing Services Web Site
(CBS)|https://www.correctionalbillingservices.com>. You need to call
them up to create a new account. Their number is 1-800 844 6591. Make
sure you give them your new personal number during the signup process.
This will activate the number and allow the person in prison to make a
collect call to your personal number.
After you have done these 4 steps the person in prison should be able
to make collect calls to your personal number and the call will be
forwarded directly to wherever you are.
=head2 RATES
In the above example a person in a Utah prison will make a collect call
to your Utah personal number and then its forwarded to wherever you
are. Let's say you are at your home in Florida. The Diamondcard cost of
the call will be \$0.022/min for the forwarding of the call. That's 2.2
cents per minute. VERY CHEAP! The total cost of the call is the
Diamondcard cost + the CBS cost which is described below.
=head3 Old Way of Making Calls
If the person in prison would make a collect call directly to your
house in Florida (561) the CBS cost would be \$3.95 for the first
minute + \$.89/min. = \$17.30 without tax for 15 minutes. Total with
tax is about \$20. This amount is charged directly to your account with
CBS.
=head3 New Way of Making Calls!
If the person in prison makes a collect call to your new Diamondcard
personal number in the 801 area code the CBS costs would be \$3.15 FLAT
FEE without tax for up to 15 minutes. This amount is charged directly
to your account with CBS. The good news is that it's much cheaper to
call an in state number than an out of state number. This is where
Diamondcard comes in. We provide the in state number even though you
are out of state! :)
You can see from this example you save approximately \$75%.
Approximately \$4 instead of \$20 cost from CBS + a negligible \$0.33
(15 minutes X \$0.022/min) cost from Diamondcard. BIG SAVINGS!
We have only analyzed the CBS web site and system for this process.
There may be other companies that provide similar telecom services to
prisons in the USA. If you encounter another service that needs a
different type of configuration to get the forwarding working please
let us know.
=head3 L<Click Here to Signup
Now|https://www.diamondcard.us/CustomerSignup>
P<ContactDetails>