Prepaid telephone calling arrangements

Sec. 3-27. Prepaid telephone calling arrangements. "Prepaid telephone calling arrangements" mean the right to exclusively purchase telephone or telecommunications services that must be paid for in advance and enable the origination of one or more intrastate, interstate, or international telephone calls or other telecommunications using an access number, an authorization code, or both, whether manually or electronically dialed, for which payment to a retailer must be made in advance, provided that, unless recharged, no further service is provided once that prepaid amount of service has been consumed. Prepaid telephone calling arrangements include the recharge of a prepaid calling arrangement. For purposes of this Section, "recharge" means the purchase of additional prepaid telephone or telecommunications services whether or not the purchaser acquires a different access number or authorization code. For purposes of this Section, "telecommunications" means that term as defined in Section 2 of the Telecommunications Excise Tax Act. "Prepaid telephone calling arrangement" does not include an arrangement whereby the service provider reflects the amount of the purchase as a credit on an account for a customer under an existing subscription plan. (Source: P.A. 91-870, eff. 6-22-00.)