We give you free temporary service for the first 30 days or 100 minutes of use. But even if that expires it’s still your number and it’s still waiting to be transferred to whatever company you want to use it with. We also give you free parking for a year. After that it’s $18.95 per year to hold it for you. And after two years if you haven’t paid the parking it gets disconnected.

Bill

Is there any time limit or ongoing charge for holding the numbers after the initial $49.95 activation fee? I believe that it is just a one-time activation fee, but one of my associates is asking, so I thought I would verify.

Thank you,

We don’t provide the ongoing service. You can get a one time extension for $25 if you get stuck, but we really don’t provide the ongoing service. If we did, we’d ultimately be trying to keep customers here while at the same time insuring that you have the right to transfer your number away. I call that the “Kids guarding the Cookie Jar” dilemma. I might do also good job but in the end many small companies wind up wanting to eat the cookies rather than guard them, when push comes to shove.

Anywyay, there’s no one service that’s the best for everyone, no matter what someone trying to sell you that service wants to tell you. So rather than promoting a specific service, I’m trying to build a system to get the best number and the best service too. And the key to getting the best service isn’t some perfect comparison tool, but your ability to transfer the number. That’s what keeps them honest and guarantees you’ll ALWAYS get the best service and price.

Bill

Thanks

Jeff Bonte

The temporary service will end after 30 days, but it’s still your number and you can certainly transfer it to whatever company you want the same way whether it’s in t first 30 days or not. If you leave it for an excessive amount of time, (like a year) we may charge a parking fee before you can transfer it, but other than that there’s no issue. We’re in the business helping customers get good numbers, not of taking them away.

There is one but to this answer though. People sometimes ask if they can wait and keep the number on our free temporary service for a while, until they’re ready to start their advertising. They usually ask this because they imagine that this might be helpful and save them some expense. In reality it saves them almost nothing since they mainly pay for the use on the number and before they advertise it they would have hardly any use. On the other hand trying to wait until the last minute could cost them quite a bit in several ways.

Procrastinating would mean more work when you are busier trying to launch everything, missing some potentially important calls and worst of all, it could wind up taking longer than expected and hold up your whole launch. Occasionally some numbers also get wrong numbers either from a previous customer or a similar neighboring number. It’s much better to find that out before you launch than after. So please just transfer the number over to your carrier and get it set up as soon as possible so you’ll have one less thing to worry about or go wrong later. And a good toll free number is also a great way for a new business to Fake It Until You Make It.

.Bill Quimby.