If you have family overseas like I do, you might be buying a phone card.
Tips for consumers buying them include: compare prices for the maintenance fee, fee to dial the access number, fee to call a mobile number, and fee to end the call.
Also buy cards for a small amount, check the expiration date, and make sure the card has a customer service number.
For details, see Consumer.gov’s “Buying and Using Phone Cards.”
If you have a google voice account they will set you up like an old-time secretary or switchboard and place your call and then call you at your number and patch you through for free for US & Canada and a penny a minute for international.
Another option is Skype which allows you to make international calls, not video calls, for 2 or 3 cents a minute. Problem with Skype is Microsoft bought them for $8 billion at about the same time Snowden released documents show NSA bragging about new unlimited access access to world’s largest video calling service. Microsoft denies it of course but Skype has been sucking my computer resources dry ever since Microsoft “updated” the software to always run in the background so I removed it entirely!