But 855 isn’t as well known

08/30/2010

Someone said that 855 numbers aren’t as well known or recognized yet so they weren’t sure if it was worth it. I think the question you have to ask yourself is would the 866 be worth it? Because you can’t wait until it’s well known to request it. If you wait until 855 numbers are well known, you certainly won’t be able to get anything nearly as good as you can now!

You're in the right place at the right time!

Comparing sites that offer to get 855 numbers

08/25/2010

We charge a fraction of the Price.
We’re the only company getting 855 numbers for customers, that’s doing it for the same price that we always charge for numbers from the available pool. We’re not gouging or raising our prices for 855 numbers like everyone else just because there’s a higher demand for new 855 numbers.

We do more for customers than anyone else.
We’re the only company that’s also giving your request to your regular phone company too. Having multiple companies requesting numbers for you is one of the surest ways to increase your chances of getting the number you want. We also think this is good for the whole industry and helping all phone companies as well as the customer. It may decrease slightly the number of numbers we get for customers but we do this because we’re more concerned about increasing the customer’s chances of getting what they want than we are about maximizing our profit.

There’s much less risk.
Everyone else charges an average of about $50 just to try to get a number for you, even if they’re not successful! We’re only charging $8.55 which includes giving your request to your local phone company, which even the companies that charge thousands of dollars to get you a number don’t do.

We’re not trying to sell numbers for as much as we can get.
We’re not auctioning off 855 numbers which we believe is clearly against the FCC regulations about brokering 800 numbers as some companies are doing. I definitely think the auction process some services are doing would probably be considered brokering and would be illegal if the FCC reviewed it.

We’re not trying to get numbers for ourselves.
We don’t claim ownership of numbers and rent toll free numbers at all. Because if a phone company claims ownership of and rents out their own numbers, then even if they say you get ownership of the number, you’re essentially competing with them. They’re not going to put your request in front of any of their own requests that they think are worth more to them than you’re paying them for the number you want. We also don’t have outrageous terms of service, designed to screw customers as much as possible.

We have 15 years of experience and more satisfied customers than anyone.
We’ve helped more customers get vanity numbers than any other vanity number business because we have better 800 lookup tools and focus on the customer’s needs first. We’re literally the only major company for 855 numbers that’s charging based on the time and effort it takes, rather than the value of the numbers or how much people might be willing to pay.

No Early Request Process for 855? WRONG!

08/24/2010

Someone sent me an email that a representative of one of the top phone companies sent them saying “There is no Pre-Release Request process as has been claimed by some companies.”

I think it’s clear that the representative was confusing the word REQUEST with RESERVE. It’s certainly true, there’s no way to RESERVE 855 numbers before the opening on Oct. 2nd. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to submit 855 REQUESTS to your phone company before then, which would be stupid. Some phone companies don’t have any public way to submit requests, but most phone companies do or at least will at some point. And it’s ridiculous to make a blanket statement that, no phone company is collecting requests.

That’s kind of like saying you can’t give someone your Christmas wish list until Christmas day. It may be true that you can’t give some their Christmas gift until Christmas day, but it would be pretty dumb for someone to say that you can’t tell anyone what you want or hope to get for Christmas until Christmas day. If you waited until Christmas day to say what you want for Christmas, you might get a few leftover things that nobody else wanted, but you’re certainly not going to be able to get anything good!

Read more about why you not only CAN submit your requests ahead of time but you SHOULD!

Good 800 Numbers

08/23/2010

A lot of people are just looking for “GOOD” 800 numbers that don’t spell anything, and just have a nice ring to them. The hard part has always been defining good. It’s easy for them to give the most extreme example of totally unattainable numbers. These aren’t just good numbers, they’re utterly fantastic numbers, which of course are also utterly unattainable.

We’ve worked at this for some time and come up with almost two hundred possible definitions of “Good” numbers. We can’t give out the details of this system or give out the whole list, because almost as soon as we do, it wouldn’t be any good any more. But we’ve come up with a way to show a selection of these with each search now. Every time you do a search now, you’ll find a new group of 45 numbers at the bottom of the second Possibilities box. Just click on any number you like to check it live like you would any other number in that section.

Read more about our new Good 800 Numbers

Area codes matter: 212-Lust

08/19/2010

212 t-shirt avail at zazzle.com

Caroline Waxler wrote a great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday called 212 Lust, about how 212 numbers are the most coveted new accessory on the New York tech scene. We obviously focus more on toll free numbers than local numbers here but the article shows very clearly how the area code matters and gives a certain image.

As we’re getting ready for a whole new toll free area code of 855 numbers, this article shows the importance of the image a phone number. 212 and 800 have a lot of analogies, although the image certainly matters more in a commercial setting than it does in the personal settings in her article. The purpose for getting a toll free number is to look like a big established industry leader, which a real 1-800 number definitely does, more than other more common toll free numbers or local numbers.

We’re adding local vanity numbers to the toll free number lookup soon and we’re also trying very hard to evaluate all numbers based on their value so this definitely helps to remind us about the importance of certain hard to find local area codes too. 212 may be the best example of this, other than 800, but there are several other places all across the country where this happens to a lesser extent.

Aren’t 855 Numbers, First Come First Served?

08/18/2010

Yes and no. 855 number reservations are issued by SMS800 database to phone companies on a first come first served basis starting at Noon eastern time, on Saturday October 2nd. Most regular phone companies also put their 855 requests in on a roughly, first come first served basis too. But some phone companies are carrying turkey platters up to the buffet line instead of salad plates and some phone companies have a team of people going up to the buffet and some have just one or two people.

The ones with the turkey platters and the most people aren’t the biggest phone companies either, they’re the vanity number resporgs. That’s because vanity number resporgs get to keep the value of the numbers they get for themselves, so can afford to pay for more access than any regular phone company could possibly justify.

So while the 855 numbers are issued by the national database on a first come first served basis, and phone companies may be putting in the requests in the order they’re received, the vanity number resporgs don’t have to wait for customers to request numbers, they are just going straight for all the shrimp and lobster off the buffet. So be smart about what you request and make sure you pick up a few hamburger numbers too, not just the filet mignon.

Auctioning 855 Numbers = “Brokering”

08/17/2010

Yes, I just wrote about Ebay openly auctioning off vanity 800 numbers, so maybe resporgs auctioning off numbers directly is just the next step. I don’t think this has ever been done openly before, though. Maybe it’s just a signal of where the industry is heading?

Loren Stocker of Vanity International is offering to get 855 numbers for customers, but if anyone else wants the number you requested, if he gets it, he’s going to auction it off to the requestors OR ANY THIRD PARTY! So he gets to “SELL” any toll free number that more than one customer wants. In my opinion this directly violates the phone company rule of issuing numbers on a first come first served basis, and can only be described as “Brokering” 800 numbers.

What do you think would happen if AT&T took requests for numbers and then instead of activating them for the first customer that requested it, turned around and publicly auctioned them off to the highest bidder?! First of all, AT&T would NEVER do anything like that, but if they did you can bet that the FCC would be all over that as clear number brokering, which is supposed to be against the FCC regulations ( see FCC Sec. 52.107). You could argue that this goes on behind closed doors at some vanity number resporgs, but to state publically that you’re doing this could be risky and sets a dangerous prescident to allow a phone company to openly auction off 800 numbers.

Increasing your odds of getting 855 Numbers

08/16/2010

We do more to get you the 855 numbers you want than anyone else! There are other people in the vanity number business that are willing to try to get the new 855 number requests for you but they definitely aren’t giving your request to your own phone company too. That’s because they want you to have to pay THEM to get it. Their goal is to maximize the money they can charge, not to maximize the service to the customer. We’re the only ones truly trying to maximize the customer’s odds of getting you a new 855 number reserved.

This is a Gouge Free Zone!

08/10/2010

Other vanity number resporgs are offering to get 855 numbers. They are charging between $500 and $5,000 (for the same thing we charge $8 or $49). To be fair I hear the company charging $5,000 (CustomTollFree) has lowered their price to $2,995. It’s not easy to tell though, because they obviously don’t want to put a price right up front. I don’t blame them. If I was gouging people like that I wouldn’t talk about the price very much either. I’d probably just make up lots of reasons why they were so much better at getting numbers.

I guess some people may just assume that if they’re charging that much more they must be doing a better job at it. The truth is, that they just have a very different business model. I’m sure they’re getting at least a few customer requests, but vanity number brokers aren’t worried about customer requests anyway. Vanity number resporgs don’t need customer requests to go after anything they think would be valuable. They just suck up as many numbers as fast as they can.

I run my business very differently. I don’t think it’s ever appropriate to gouge customers even if the demand is so high that they think they can get away with it. I run my business differently and simply charge a small fee based on the time and effort required for it. We’re charging a whole $8.55 to submit your request to your regular phone company and then we’re going to charge the same $49 we always charge if we can get it for you too (minus of course the $8.55 you already paid). There’s simply no justification for charging more, other than a few people may be willing to pay it. If you’re desperate, and willing to pay thousands of dollars, you can find someone to take your money. I prefer to charge an honest price even if the demand goes up and everyone else thinks its smarter to gouge! That’s why I say this is a Gouge Free Zone.

Ebay allows Selling Vanity Numbers

08/09/2010

Sure, there are FCC regulations against brokering toll free numbers but Ebay doesn’t seem to have any problem listing them. At one point they removed a couple listings but they clearly don’t care at all about it any more. I’m sure they have bigger things to worry about. One broker blatantly claims to have sold more than anyone else on ebay and clearly doesn’t hide anything whatsoever. This isn’t a secret. I think it’s time to say that Ebay clearly allows people to sell toll free numbers and nobody else in the government seems to care at all either.

I’m not saying this is an entirely bad thing. I believe a free market is helpful in some ways. I’ve been watching toll free listings on ebay for quite a while and will put together several of the hundreds of listings I’ve seen into a resource that might help show the perceived value of numbers. Although I think a lot more numbers are listed than ever sell. But one thing is for sure. There’s no need to pretend that you’re marketing something else of little or no value along with a toll free number on ebay any more. Ebay doesn’t care in the slightest whether people list toll free numbers for sale there.