• Moneycard Collector For Sale?
• Montreal Club News
• FAQ Update
• Press Releases
• Promotional Offers

Check out the latest phonecard auctions on Ebay. Visit Ebay at: http://www.cardmall.com/ebay

NEWS / COMMENTARIES

Moneycard Collector For Sale?

The top new story of the week was the possible sale of Amos Press, the company that produces Moneycard Collector Magazine. This is the main collector-oriented magazine being published in the U.S. The following statement was issued by Tom Williams, editor of the magazine, on CompuServe’s Moneycard Forum:

"Amos Press, the 122-year-old parent company of Moneycard Collector, Coin

World, Linn's Stamp News and a variety of other hobby publications and

newspapers, is for sale. The announcement was made Tuesday.

Chief among the reasons is that the next generation of this family-owned

business has decided not to pursue owner-management of the firm.

What does this mean for Moneycard Collector, or any of the other

publications?

It means business as usual. We are in the middle of producing the

November edition. We also recently upgraded our website at

and more archiving of past articles, and a version of our "Dealer

Directory" also now can be found on-line. We are well along in planning

the editorial calendar for 1999, as well as discussing advertising and

circulation strategies.

We appreciate the interest and support of all our dealers, collectors

and readers. While we cannot predict what a change in ownership will

mean, we are committed to continuing Moneycard Collector and making it

the best we can."

What Does This Mean?

Hopefully, nothing at all. There is still speculation that the magazine can be terminated if it changes hands (Amos also publishes Coin and Stamp magazines) – However, all of that is speculation. Any further news will be published here.

Montreal Club News

The following was submitted by Marc Binette, President of the Montreal CTQ Club.

We are a relatively new club in Quebec. The club was founded in December

1997 and officially registered in may 1998. We are currently 38 active

members and held meeting every third Thursday of the month. At our last

meeting, there were 15 members attending and as usual we have a great

auction to end the meeting. The membership is CDN 10$ for Canadian

resident, CDN 15$ for USA address and CDN 20$ for the others.

We also publish a newsletter every three months, we publish it in both

French and English. We are now producing our first chip phonecard with

the QuebecTel company, the card is showing a duck and is selling for CDN

10$ (we have a reduced price for the members of the club).

And finally, we are having our first show exclusively for the phonecards

and other prepayment cards. The show will be held in Montreal, November

8th from 9:00am to 17:00pm:

Ruby Foo's Hotel

7655, boul. Decarie

Singapore room

Montreal

There will be an auction starting at 16:00pm. The entrance is free

and many dealers, manufacturers and collectors have reserved there

table. A lot of door prizes and a final drawing at 16:00pm.

You can found more information about us and the show in our Web site:

We welcome you and your reader to come and see us in Montreal Expo or at

our web site.

Regards,

Marc Binette, president.

FAQ Update

For those of you asking what a FAQ is, it is called a Frequently Asked Questions document, and it relates to the rec.collecting.phonecards newsgroup. After three years, I did a moderate update. If you wish to take a look, it is located at:

http://www.cardmall.com/phonecards/faqphone.htm

I got a kick out of updating the "activation fee" section, since with the demise of Amerivox it is irrelevant now.

PRESS RELEASES

Interactive Telesis Signs Ameritech Calling Card Division

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 9, 1998--The company is pleased to announce that it has reach agreement with Ameritech Corp. of Chicago (NYSE:AIT - news) to provide interactive voice response (IVR) services to their prepaid telephone calling card division.

Ameritech is a global communications company providing a wide array of local phone, data, directory and other services to more than 12 million customers. Ameritech also provides cellular and security services to customers throughout the U.S. and Canada. For the six months ended June, 1998, revenues rose 7% to $8.42 billion.

The agreement calls for ITI (OTC BB:TSIS) to provide its recently developed caller survey application to Ameritech's prepaid phone card division. ITI's proprietary service will allow Ameritech clients to generate valuable and cost-effective marketing information from customers calling to activate their phone cards.

Until the advent of ITI's unique caller survey, prepaid phone cards had limited benefits to the issuing company beyond promotion and customer goodwill. Ameritech joins current ITI client GTE in offering this value-added service to their hundreds of corporate phone card clients.

Interactive Telesis recognized how utilizing its IVR technology could provide nearly instant consumer feedback on sales and marketing initiatives at a fraction of the cost of mail-based surveys. The data generated by ITI's calling card survey application are available on a real-time basis compared to 2-3 months, which is presently the industry's accepted turnaround time for marketing related reports.

To date, response from North America's major carriers and issuers of phone cards has been substantial. ITI's caller survey demonstration is an example of how Interactive Telesis is becoming the IVR services provider of choice for America's top telephone companies.

PROMOTIONAL OFFERS

Maple Leaf Phonecard

Until Next Time,

Alan

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