Lexington Computer Repair Blog

We’ve been Skype users since 2003 and have used it all over the world to conveniently talk to and see our family and friends back here in the US. We even feel a special bond with Skype because we’ve known Niklas Zennström, the inventor of Skype, socially and even had dinner at his flat in London with he and Janus Friis the Skype co-inventor. But Skype, no longer under Niklas control, has a business practice that I think is worthy of making them “Not Recommended”.

I’ve worked in telephone company billing and software development for many years, I know how billing works. As good as your software is, sometimes you get things wrong and the wrong calls wind up on the wrong bills. This is why, universally in my experience, telephone companies are pretty good about crediting customers with mis-billed calls. But not Skype.

Last week, I got over $100 worth of fraudulent calls billed to my Skype account. I called Skype the very next day, discussed it and they agreed that the calls were fraudulent (they were successive 2-hour calls to a Taiwan mobile number). But they refused to take the calls off my bill. I don’t want to go into a rant on this here (well, really I do, but I’ll resist the temptation) so I’ll try to focus on my concern. If you give Skype your credit card information, and for whatever reason fraudulent calls appear on your bill, you are responsible for them. This gives you an almost unlimited liability if you have the auto-recharge feature (which is selected persistently by default when you give Skype your credit card information) and no recourse if there is a mistake or fraud. That is simply too risky.

We still like the technology of Skype for their free video services, although we will keep a sharp eye out for alternatives. But we are very uncomfortable with giving Skype access to our credit information. You could make this even worse by using their recommended link to PayPal as PayPal encourages you to link that account to your bank account. This is basically a door to your bank account with a welcome mat that says, “Come on in Fraudsters”. For heaven’s sake, please don’t link your Skype account to PayPal!!!!

We’re huge Skype fans here. First we used it for international calling back to the US when we were living in the UK, then we loved it for its great video conferencing when we were in India. I’ve installed it on two Windows 7 implementations (both on the same machine) and have had problems with the sound card both times. Here’s the problem and fix:

Sometimes, when I would answer a call, instead of picking up, Skype would reject the call and give me a message that says: “No sound – There’s a problem with the sound card inside your computer. Try plugging in a USB headset for this call” It does this even though there is absolutely no problem with the sound card. The problem is intermittent but once it starts it’s hard to get rid of.

The solution I’ve found for this is as follows:

1. In Windows 7, right click on the little speaker in the notification area (lower right of desktop)
2. From the menu, select “Playback devices”
3. On the “Sound” window, disable any sound devices that you don’t have or don’t use then select the one you want to use for Skype, it probably is called simply “Speakers” with the name of your sound card underneath it.
4. Now click on “Properties”
5. Next click on the “Advanced” tab
6. Uncheck the box that says “Allow applications ot take exclusive control of this device” then click “Apply”, then “OK”
7. You should now be back at the “Sound” window, click on the tab that says “Recording”. Highlight the microphone that you use for Skype and click on “Properties”
8. Go to the “Advanced” tab and do the same thing you did for “Speakers”
9. From the “Sound” window, do the same thing for the other microphones on your computer
10. Reboot.

This should fix your Skype sound problem. Enjoy.