funlovinkid

No, not Ganja shops, the entire thing will be a weed farm

After having had my Skype number for more than 15 years, I opted to port the number to Vyke, and so far, I'm experiencing no real problems. I simply downloaded the Vyke app from the Play Store, and sort of followed the bread crumbs. Apparently Vyke can only port USA-based Skype numbers (which applied to me, fortunately). The process of porting the Skype number must be initiated by Vyke through my request to them - not the other way around. Because my phone SIM uses a Thai phone number, the Play Store denominates any of my financial transactions in Thai Baht. So, when I decided to pay the annual $19.99 fee for the continued use of the old Skype number, I did this using the Vyke app, and discovered that this translated into an 800THB charge. Vyke uses its own formula for foreign exchange transactions, which I learned are nowhere near market rates. And payments for topping-up the account can be made either on the app, or via the Vyke website. I learned that it's preferable to use their website for this purpose, because the transactions are charged in USD - which is good for me, because I can make these payments using a USD credit card. Not sure if any of this is useful to others (who might have different circumstances), but I figured I'd share it anyway. Based on my brief check of the Vyke foreign exchange formula ($8.49 becomes 475THB using the app), I'll stick with the website for topping-up my account. Once I had topped-up the account via their website, and the transaction was accepted by my credit card company, I very quickly noticed the updated account balance on my app. So I called a buddy in the US for a long-overdue conversation, and to test the functionality - which seemed fine, although I did notice a slight delay. Afterward, the balance on my Vyke app was reduced accordingly. The Vyke rates for calls to the US are 1.2c/minute, less than Skype was charging. And most importantly, now I can receive phone calls (and now, international text messages as well, which are supported by Vyke) from my US-based financial institutions.

Yeah, my existing Skype number is a U.S. number, as are my financial institutions. But from my past experience with Skype, I learned to request a phone call from the bank rather than a OTP via SMS, and their automated voice services have been very reliable. I haven't ported my Skype number over to Vyke yet, but I'm leaning in that direction.

"I ONLY care about being able to get bank codes and OTPs. " With regard to this, it's been my experience that you can still receive a OTP from the bank by receiving a phone call from them, and they share the OTP with you verbally, through an automated voice caller. So, in the past, when I have been contacting banks/financial service companies for this purpose, it's always been via their website, and they have always given me the option of requesting the OTP either via SMS, or voice call. I always choose voice call for the reason that you highlight above (Skype unable to receive SMS messages to a Skype number). Since all of this is essentially soon to be retrospective, I'm not sure if this information will be useful to you, but it still might apply in future situations, and I think it's good to know that you can still receive the OTP from the institutions without relying on the capability of receiving SMS messages.

I'm in the same situation as you. Have you looked at Vyke?