Localphone Reviews 167

Unlike many reviewers, I have had positive experiences with localphone. I am based in the UK & notice that other positive reviews tend to come from the UK so maybe that is a factor.

I have been a customer of their VOIP service for a few years and have found it works well with software apps as well as proper VOIP hardware such as Yealink phones.

localphone make it clear that they cannot be relied on in emergencies and so you cannot count on them for making 999 calls. I noticed that they were down one Sunday morning but they seem to be up and running most of the time. And as the reliable analogue landline service is closed down I am not sure that localphone are significantly less reliable than my mobile and broadband connections which also suffer outages from time to time.

I suppose I could sum them up as cheap and cheerful but some of their features are surprisingly good. They have comprehensive facilities for whitelisting and blacklisting both incoming and outgoing calls which I found worked very well. I also like that everything is prepaid - so if someone got access to your phone, or signed in as you, they could not run up a huge bill - they would be limited by the credit you had prepaid.

They have some of the cheapest call rates and, until recently, renting an incoming number was also a bargain at 90p per month - however that has recently increased to £3 and there are cheaper offers available from other providers. Of course you don't need to rent an incoming number if you only want to make outgoing calls and are happy to use an existing mobile or landline for incoming calls.

Unlike some other reviewers I have had good experiences with support. On one occasion I encountered a problem with setting up a whitelist and was very quickly given a workaround. On another case I spotted a fault that could potentially affect many other customers. I had a response within hours and was advised of a software fix within a couple of days.

My account closed for fraud even if i didnt used the account.

And when i tried to topup they didnt accept my payment

They wants id for account closuare

Absolutely unacceptable, disgusting service, cannot call a number I used to be able to, have sent contact details for customer service using their form NO RESPONSE . HAVE credit I want it back for a refund.!!!! It's a joke

The app couldn't call a landline number in Portugal. The customer service essentially told me to get lost and avoided taking any responsibility. Then they've stolen my credit and locked the account. I have filed a dispute with my bank.

The app used to be great many years ago. Not any more. The customer service is a joke too. Instead, I've made my calls with Viber for free.

I've used Localphone for many years, certainly at least 10.

Never had an issue with them when calling Croatia.

Having seen some other reviews complaining of credit running very quickly, or it not working, that isn't my experience with 1st world countries.

I have had issues with lesser countries, but that is more of a problem with that countries infra than anything.

IF you place a call and don't connect, then you may be charged for a minute. That's common to all competitors similar Localphone though.

I installed the Localphone app in order to speak with my elderly mum in her care home back in the UK, whilst I was working in Bermuda.
Calls through my regular provider would have been £5 per minute so I welcomed the idea of $1.5 a minute and a free 5 minute call to begin with.
There were lots of hiccups whilst setting it up (eg. the free 5 minute call got ‘accidentally’ removed) but, after numerous emails to the support team, I was finally able to attempt my first call which was the 5 min free call, remember …!
After exactly one minute, the call cut off and I received a message from my provider telling me that my £5 spend cap had been reached.
So, despite using the extremely complicated app to make the call, it had STILL gone through my provider and cost me £5 for 60 seconds.
I just wish I had read all of these one star reviews prior to going ahead with Localphone.
Be warned …… steer clear …… it will end up costing you WAY more money than you anticipated.

Their US numbers are not capable of receiving calls. When I asked them about the issue, they immediately closed my account. This seems to be a high level of consumer rights violations here. I will report their fraud to the government agencies in the UK soon.

Compared to other companies, Localphone is awesome. Quick to respond, site is easy to use. If I could give 6 stars I would.
Thanks localphone team for all the hard work you put in to make it easy, Simple. :)

I had used Local Phone a long time ago and the need has just arisen for me to use it again. I need to set up a new credit card, but their website rejects my password which I have recorded in a secure password manager. Their password reset doesn't respond, their login doesn't respond, and all my attempts to contact them are just ignored. Their callback service still functions but my account has no finds. Their service worked well for me years ago, but now I can't get any communication from them, So I do not recommend them.

I phone rep of Ireland a lot. But I won't be using localphone again as they have put there prices up from 15p a min to mobiles to 43p a min

I’ve used Localphone for a while and found the call quality to be average. My main issue is their policy on unused credit: if your balance isn’t used for 12 months, they forfeit it. When I contacted customer support, they refused to reinstate my balance, stating that I agreed to this in the T&Cs at signup. Disappointing experience — be aware that any unused credit can be lost after a year.

I have been nothing but impressed by Localphone. For a start after switching over to them I have not noticed differene between this and when I had a landline. However, I have noticed a huge reduction in what I pay as Localphone are so cheap with respect to my only landline. Their support can't be praised enough, before the switch they warned me that I may need to talk to my existing provider to unbundle my phone and broadband because not doing so would drop both when I asked for my phone to be transferred from Plusnet. I was told Plusnet would probably not warn me about it, I would just find my service gone. So that saved me a lot of pain.

solid company that offers DID numbers at a good price. some countries have pretty steep call rates (example being lithuania), but it's pretty good overall

i never had the experience of being stopped and asked for all my documents
(since all of my info matches up with my account, the reason they would ask for such info is because VoIP companies are vulnerable to fraud, make sure that your info matches up so they don't ask for your documents)

their PC app, however, hasn't had a download for years now. i recommend using SIP when it comes to calling on pc or mobile

the only issue i have is the fact that us numbers can only send but not recieve SMS, which is unfourturnate

Finally, I found a usable Skype replacement!. For the last month or so I've been using LocalPhone as the VOIP provider with the 3CX softphone on my Win10 PC. Setup could have been a bit easier, but Localphone support was excellent - mercifully free of chatbots and staffed by people who went out of their way to understand my (occasionally dumb) questions. Particular thanks go to Alan Smith and Rikki Agustin. I deposited £10 as initial credit as I have a UK bank account (you can choose USD, EUR or GBP but can't change currency after the initial deposit).
This weekend I received my first detailed statement by email: 29 UK calls since May11th, amounting to almost two and a half hours - 27 were to landlines and almost half of them were non-geographic numbers such as 0345 and 0870(even Skype was picky about those!). My account now shows a credit balance of £7.40. I need to confirm that is a "live figure" but as as it includes the the £1.50 cost of getting a virtual UK number for the caller ID I think the cost per minute is looking good. Call quality was consistently good with only one minor exception when the person being called said they heard a faint echo when speaking - I guess that's a VOIP issue because it happened with Skype to phone from time to time. Finally, For those reviewers complaining about having to provide ID, I think you will find this is a regulation set by ofcom (the UK telecoms regulator) for those registering a UK number or phone account. For the moment I am very pleased with the LocalPhone/3CX arrangement.

Attention! They gather your very valuable data and provide no service.
I gave them nearly everything: picture of my id, creditcard number, address… only to receive this in the end:

Hello Alan,
We have received an update that your end-user details have been rejected by the Legal department. Unfortunately, no further information has been provided.
Due to this, we are unable to provide you the service, so order has now been cancelled, your balance refunded, and account closed.
If there is anything else that we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Best regards
Rikki Agustin
Sales Manager

Just to be clear: I paid 12 € and got 10 € refunded. AND gave them all my data.

have used Locaphone for over 10 yrs until 2020 & had to use again in 2025 May to call a landline in srilanka as hospitals govt institutions use landlines . work fine got thru spoke for about 20min . thought of writing a review as its very difficult to find services to call landlines in foreign countries from uk

They asked me to send utility bills and a good quality scanned copy of my driving licence or passport.
This is the first time in Canada during last 10+ years I am being asked such documents for a credit card payment.

The security numbers, expiry date and other information (address, full name, etc.) are meant for verification and the businesses cannot ask identity documents.

They told me that the name on my account is not complete (and each of them is only one letter length). But for privacy reasons, I don't want my name being shown on my account in their profile. This is not my official government account and I don't want my full name on it.

I offered other methods of verification (my academic email, my LinkedIn profile, my Canadian phone number, etc.), but the guys are not much responsive.

This was just a hassle and wasn't worth trying.
I installed Textme, which is much easier and is FREE.

Have been a customer for many years. recently my incoming number is ringing busy to any and all calls.
Getting nowhere with customer support to get this resolved.

Absolutely awesome!

I need to call various numbers in Los Angeles from the U.K.
It's easy to establish new contacts.
The calls reach the intended party quickly.
The line quality is good.
AND IT ONLY COSTS HALF of 1p PER MINUTE!
Rarely does one find such good value.

Very unreliable, my calls were being re-routed to wrong destinations and their staff's attitude made me sure this is a just an online scam