Joe Issa The Life-changing Innovator

There was a time when you couldn’t call anyone without a coin in your pocket or your house keys or car keys; and it’s because of that scratchy, finger-dirty phone card. Today, thanks to Joe Issa we have island wide availability of the ‘EZ Card’.

 

The ‘EZ Card’ redefined the calling card business in Jamaica by creating an online network that allowed easy and immediate access to calling cards wherever you are across the island.

 

And when the then Cable & Wireless upgraded its products and introduced its prepaid electronic calling cards, which company was one of the first to sell these cards over an electronic network? You guess right. It’s Issa’s Cool Cards Complete Calling Card Centre, of course!

 

Moreover, the Cool Card Centre was able to sell both the Digicel Flex E- Cards, which it was already doing successfully, and C&W’s cards from the same Cool Card Verifone terminals.

 

In addition, the ‘EZ Card’ brand of electronic calling cards worked on all Readi Cellie phones and replaced the popular Classic prepaid calling card.

 

Issa’s Cool Cards turned it up a notch when it invested $126 million to established point-of-sale terminals across the island to sell calling time without the use of a card.

 

The new initiative placed e-business hardware and software across the company’s terminals and this created a network which obviates the need for physical cards. What this meant was that the customer bought pre-paid calling time and was given a slip instead of a card, to punch in the access code.

 

The system enabled the customer’s information to be stored electronically on a Cool Card serve. With the use of the cordless service, the number of retailers could more than triple from the then 300 locations within a short period of time.

 

At the time, vendors were given point-of-sale terminal, with $25,000 worth of talk time, of which $15,000 was Cable & Wireless and $10,000 Digicel. Special attention was given to any perceived vulnerability of this technology to fraud and theft.

 

Another first was Cool Card’s distribution deal with Carib-Tel, a company that resells international calling minutes.

 

Cool Card also introduced “Win $10,000 a week” giveaway to purchasers of prepaid electronic calling cards, which was authorized under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act.

 

A top calling card distributor in the region, Joe Issa’s Cool Cards resonates in the market as it takes mobile calling cards to new levels with innovative marketing and distribution methods.