I have a personal Skype account which I set up ages ago outside the country and just recently registered for another account while in Taiwan for work. A few minutes ago I tried adding credit to my new account and got redirected to a pchome website.
The website was (1) in Chinese, (2) did not seem to offer a once-off prepaid Skype credit option (only monthly plans) and (3) requires non-citizens to fill in some personal information for “social security” reasons including sending in a copy of ID.
(1) So I contacted Skype regarding the Chinese issue using their web-chat support function. They said if I wanted an English interface for buying credit I would have to leave Taiwan and create another account. Unbelievable. I really would have expected a more thoughtful solution than that. Jeepers.
(2) Weird. I have no problem at all buying credit whenever I need it on my other account and don’t have to commit to some monthly payment death trap. Must be a Taiwan product scope limitation.
I think you have the PChome version of Skype installed. The version I have allows for me to use English, not so sure about plans, there were options, but I choose do not automatically take a new payment.
Try uninstalling Skype then go to the official Skype download site [skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/](http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/) and install from there.
[quote=“Mick”]I think you have the PChome version of Skype installed. The version I have allows for me to use English, not so sure about plans, there were options, but I choose do not automatically take a new payment.
Try uninstalling Skype then go to the official Skype download site [skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/](http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/) and install from there.[/quote]
Thanks, but already tried this trick. When going to My Account and trying to add credit I still get sent to PC Home’s site. Looks like it is unavoidable if you did any kind of Skype installation while located in Taiwan… Not sure if that is an accurate statement, but appears to be the case.
[quote=“snowy”][quote=“Mick”]I think you have the PChome version of Skype installed. The version I have allows for me to use English, not so sure about plans, there were options, but I choose do not automatically take a new payment.
Try uninstalling Skype then go to the official Skype download site [skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/](http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/) and install from there.[/quote]
Thanks, but already tried this trick. When going to My Account and trying to add credit I still get sent to PC Home’s site. Looks like it is unavoidable if you did any kind of Skype installation while located in Taiwan… Not sure if that is an accurate statement, but appears to be the case.[/quote]
Skype works fine for me in English without going to PC Home. I’ve only ever used Skype in Taiwan so your problem can’t have anything to do with where you installed it.
Thanks cfimages. Are you using SkypeOut and did you initially set up your Skype account while in Taiwan? If so, I guess the person at Skype had no idea what she was talking about and I’ll need to try find another solution.
I also set up my account in Taiwan and it operates in English. You could try setting up a new account under a different email address. A good skype-like app for iphone or ipod is wetalk if that helps at all.
I set up my account (10+) years ago. I’ve been out of Taiwan for six years but still able to make calls and add credit… But recently I started getting the same redirect to PCHome/Skype Taiwan and wasn’t able to add credit just using a credit card. A Taiwan ID was required – it asked me to send scans. The same thing happened to a friend earlier this year.
We got the same advice from PCHome/Skype – create a new Skype account in another country! Grrrr
So now if I want to use Skype (called Skype Out in the past) to call phones/send SMS’es, I need to sign out of my regular account, login to a new one, call from there, logout, and log back in to my regular account.
Really, really inconvenient. I suppose it has to do with some government regulations. But they should allow moving the account to another country.
I guess one option might be to export the contacts, delete the account and then create it in another country, and import the contacts back in…