If you looked at a list of homes there’s no way to know just by looking at them who would be interested in or willing to sell you their home if you negotiated for it. But people are used to buying and selling their homes and they know roughly what their home is worth and whether they might have thought about moving. It’s also not too hard to tell who makes the decision most of the time and even if you can’t reach them at the home, you can look up who owns a piece of property in the town if necessary.

Read more about why it's even harder to tell who will sell you a toll free number than real estate.

In the past four days I’ve had three separate people tell me essentially that CustomTollFree.com Locked Up their 800 number, just because they searched for or checked a number on their website. They don’t show you their exhorbenent rates or explain that THEY own the number until after you search for the number and they automatically reserve it so you can only get the number from them.

This is especially despicable since Customer Toll Free is actually a shared use company, not a regular phone company, although they certainly act and look like a regular phone company to the unsuspecting visitor on their website. They use their power as a phone company to reserve the number after a visitor does a search for it but then they pretend to be the owner of the number and offer to rent it to you as if it was now THEIR number. I’ve written about how they want to have both the rights of a phone company and the rights of the end user at the same time in an article on the Dark Side of Shared Use.

They don’t make the form to check numbers the biggest thing on their website for no reason. They know that if they can get you to enter something there, they have you trapped. It’s wrong but they love trapping people like that, and if you think you’re trapped now because they’ve reserved your number, wait until you’ve got it in all of your advertising. Because the more you advertise THEIR number, the more at their mercy you become.

Read more about what to do if this happens to you.

We’re adding more about the people behind our service in the about us section. Most about us pages are designed to make the organization sound big and impressive (almost aloof?) without really saying anything at all about anyone. Our about us section is the opposite of that, written to show you that we’re a very small organization of real people and to show you as much about us as possible. We’re small and we love being small, blowing the doors off of the big companies at finding good numbers for our customers and being able to do it from the kitchen table, the hammock chair or out by the pool.

Read more about Bill and the whole team behind TollFreeNumbers.com

If you’re just starting a new business it’s often a little harder to know what to look for in a toll free number. They don’t have their message and the theme for their advertising yet. New businesses tend to think the only thing they can compete on is price, and they look mostly for generic terms for their toll free number.

New businesses don’t have much advertising to draw from in looking for their message or theme. They haven’t worked out slogans or figured out their real value proposition yet. That’s when I tell them to let their fingers do the walking and look through the yellow pages from other parts of the country outside of their market, especially in large highly competitive markets.

Don’t copy them but look for phrases that stand out. Think headlines, think benefits and especially creative slogans. You can use any type of advertising, but I like to look at yellow pages because it has high impact, short phrases that have been tested and refined in almost any category. This will ultimately help you with not just your phone number but all of your advertising.

I was writing a response to a Businessweek article that suggested that numeric toll free numbers may be better than vanity numbers and I came up with an great analogy for this political season.

People often say when they’re surveyed that they prefer positive political ads over negative ads, but when push comes to shove politicians always use the negative ads for one reason, because they work better. The same thing is true with vanity numbers. Regardless of what you personally prefer or think other people prefer, if it’s important to you to get more calls then it’s important to get a number that incorporates some memorable word or phrase related to your business.

We are one of the only people in the vanity number business that can actually help you in both directions, whether you’re searching for vanity 800 numbers that spell things or for premium easy to dial numeric numbers. So we’re not pushing either one. But the bottom line is that making your front door to new business memorable is more important than making it easy to open once you get there. Sure it’s nice for it to be easy to open, but that doesn’t make any more or less people open it. But making it more memorable definitely does make more people open the door, just like making the rest of your advertising more memorable does too.

Holiday weekends are slow, especially in the summer so starting at 3pm Thursday through 11pm (est) Labor day, we’re putting all the Premium numbers on sale! 4, 3 and 2 Star numbers are $100 off and 1 star numbers are only $88.88. We know you’ve labored really hard and want to reward people that take the time spend a few minutes of their holiday with us.

So read this recent article about how to find good premium numbers and save a few bucks this weekend. This doesn’t apply to regular activations or backorders and we can’t extend the time. All orders must be in before 11pm eastern standard time. Also please be patient since it’s a holiday for us and we’re also going to be traveling this weekend as well. So have some cake (this pic was from my daughter’s first birthday earlier this month) and if you find a nice numeric number this weekend you’ll save a few buck too.

There are been a couple reports of the FCC enforcing their regulations against selling numbers lately on smsgov.com. One post claimed an eBay Seller was “Busted” trying to Auction an 800 Number and another post claimed “Man Fined After Trying To Sell 800 Number.” These certainly sound like authoritative posts, but for some reason the articles are very light on facts and the whole website is made to look legitmate like it’s governmental but it’s NOT!

News articles are supposed to include if not start with the WHO, WHAT, WHERE and WHEN. Maybe they cover a little of the what, but none of these articles include any who, where or even when. They don’t say what number was being sold and one article mentions that a “man” was fined after TRYING to sell a number. The only thing I can think of that it’s a crime to try to do is murder. Otherwise attempting to break a law (or FCC regulation) isn’t really a crime, is it? And what police are these that are “arresting” people for “trying” to do something. I’m not saying the FCC doesn’t have regulations or that they don’t care. But it’s been my experience that the FCC might have lawyers conduct inquiries but they don’t just show up and arrest people like their article is claiming.

You'll want to read this whole story because the SMSGOV.com website really smells pretty fishy to me!

We’re not a big company and we’re proud of it. We’re in an industry filled with big companies that do a lousy job at actually helping the customer. We know our niche in this funny vanity number business and we’re the best in the country at what we do. We definitely don’t have a “Big Company” attitude. We don’t have anything against big companies but it’s just that, as you get bigger and bigger, you need more and more administration and support, and it becomes harder and harder to provide the level of service, support, and training you did to get big. And the things that made you successful and grow often get lost in the shuffle. We can work from our homes or anywhere on our cell phones and laptops and we love this crazy vanity number business.

Read more about how we provide the best support by empowering you!

If you just got your number from and want to transfer it to a different name than you registered it in, the easy way to do that is to fill out the resporg change form for the new company in the new name and include your information on the margins or bottom of the form. That won’t get entered anywhere with the new phone company but when they fax it to us, we’ll see that even though it’s in a different name, it’s actually coming from the right people and we can release it. Otherwise we would probably have to verify with the person that activated it, that it is correct.

Using a different name isn’t uncommon. You might have done it for your company but put your personal information down, for a client or you might just decide it needs to go to a call center that requires you to use their carrier. All of these are legitimate reasons why you might need to use a different name.

Most phone companies will tell you that everything has to match exactly on a resporg change form. But that’s because most phone companies are looking for an excuse NOT to release numbers. We’re the only one’s trying to release our customers 800 numbers as quickly as possible. So as long as we see that it’s actually coming from the right person we can release it even to a different name and address if you’ve added the original information too.

I talk to a lot of people who don’t know or are unable to put into words what distinguishes their business or why someone should buy from them over their competitors. They don’t ultimately know the message they’re trying to build. So if their company name or the first generic term or description they thought of isn’t available, they’re at a loss. But if you know your ‘message’ all of your advertising tends to fall into place much more easily, including your toll free number.

Knowing or finding your message is harder for startups and they especially tend to think only in terms of generic terms in looking for their toll free number. They think a generic toll free number will mean that they have to do less advertising for people to know what they do. Unfortunately you have to do more than let people know what business you’re in to sell today. The only one who will buy from you just because they know what business you’re in is your mother. Anyone else needs to know what makes you better than anyone else and that’s your message.

When you know your Unique Value Proposition (UVP), why they should buy from you and all of your advertising becomes easy. That doesn’t guarantee you’ll find a number available but having a clear message does tend to make it easier, especially if that message is more creative and not just a generic description of your business.

Be bold and say something people will remember.

That’s essentially what Ameristar, a large casino operation, is doing to a small business owner. They generate wrong numbers to a tax filing firm called Mr. Refund on their number 866-MR-REFUND which is one digit away from the casino number 866-MORE-FUN. The casino essentially creates the problem which Michael Kolar, the owner of Mr Refund has to pay for.

The lawyers from the large casino company are suing Mr. Kolar for answering the phone improperly, and are asking a judge to take Mr. Kolar’s number and give it to the organization that created the wrong numbers. This is how big companies literally bully and strong arm small businesses who don’t have tens of thousands of dollars it costs to defend themselves against these ridiculous claims.

A big company shouldn’t be able to take a small business owner’s number because of the wrong numbers they generated but Ameristar is trying.

Even random ‘800’ numbers are very hard to get any more these days. You can’t get them from regular phone companies any more. But we have a number of random ‘800’ numbers available that we will activate and help you transfer over to any other phone company quickly and easily.

You can use the Instant 800 Lookup on the top of the page to search for 800-***-**** and it’ll give you some random numbers and the second box on the results page also gives you several random ‘800’ numbers available.

We have a list of 200 random 800 numbers available.

The best numbers are usually the ones in backorder and it’s not common for people to order multiple numbers in backorder. First of all you don’t need to place multiple backorders for each number individually.

You can place multiple backorders at a single time with a single backorder request by just listing the additional numbers in the comments field. We aren’t worried about getting $4.95 for every backorder. We’ll confirm the numbers and then do the research to see when they come out of disconnect and we can try to get them for you.

We can try for multiple 800 number backorders

I’ve written a number of posts about several different mistakes that people make regarding toll free numbers so I figured it was time to write up a wrap up of sorts. This started as the top 10 mistakes but it’s up to 16 now. So here there are in no particular order.

1. Searching for a vanity number on the wrong website.

This is a common mistake and it’s easy to do. But unfortunately the look up tools on most websites lock up whatever number you enter so you have to buy it from them and use their more expensive service and in some cases pay them rent for the number that they just pulled out of the spare pool because of your inquiry. This is absolutely slimy but happens more often than anyone realizes. The only safe websites to search for numbers on are ours and AT&T’s.

Read all of the top 16 mistakes so you can avoid them!

Most people on our site look for vanity numbers related to the keywords for their business. But some people look for nice numeric numbers too. We have a section of the site that explains and goes into these easy to dial numbers and how they break down. But I wanted to share a tip on how to find the best numeric numbers for your business.

Read the rest of the tip to combine Words and Repetitive digits.

Some visitors look for a toll free number to match their existing local number. This can look good on your business cards and give you some additional credibility. But it’s really only memorable to people that already remember your number. Matching your local number is certainly better than getting a random number, although it doesn’t create the image or memorability of a vanity number that spells something relevant. But sometimes if you can’t find any memorable vanity number matching your local number is still helpful and we can definitely help you find a good number to match or almost match.

3 tips you can use to find numbers to match your local number.

One of the best ways to get a number centered on a generic term is to add some type of geography to it, usually by adding your state abbreviation in front of the generic term.

This separates you from everyone else in your business chasing after that generic term and increases dramatically the likelihood of getting a number using that term.

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Adding your state initials will give you a home field advantage.

The August database and numbers is out today, and there are a lot of great numbers available right now. The updated reports 800 Watch reports are all sent or on their way to about 36,000. So let the race to get the best numbers begin!

It’s the 14th and time for our monthly summary. It’s by a very busy month. Traditionally the summer slows down for us but this summer has not only didn’t slow down but seems to be speeding up. And stay tuned because within the next couple weeks we’re going to be announcing our biggest change ever in the web based search tool too.

In terms of the website, in the past month we’ve had 23 unique new articles or posts on our website, during the past 30 days. They cover, Shared Use, Our Biggest Sale ever, Random 800 numbers, voip, Phone companies Stealing numbers and locking them up, as well as several articles in the Simplified series about Search, Transfers, Premium numbers. We pretty much have a new article ever day, so make sure you check back or get our RSS feed.

See the list of all 23 posts for the past 30 days.

One of the things I’ve heard is that we have a lot of great information but it gets a little confusing. That comes from writing more and more about all of the different aspects of toll free numbers, our service and related topics. So to simplify things especially for new people, I’ve been writing simplified summaries of several of the main things we do, such as Activations, Backorders, Premium Numbers, Transferring and Searching for numbers.

We’re also making videos later the end of August, to go with these posts that explain the basics. These will be linked from a variation of the Easy Button to make it ‘easy’ for visitors to find the basics.

Building your business on a shared use rented number is like borrowing money from a loan shark or even the mob, to start your business. They may look nice in the beginning like they wouldn’t take advantage of you, but any time you put your business at the mercy of someone else, it creates a bad situation.

800 Number Portability is what keeps them honest.

When you’ve narrowed down the list of potential toll free vanity numbers down to a handful, one good thing you can do to figure out which is the best for your project is to take them for a “toll free test drive.”

A toll free number isn’t a car so you obviously can’t drive it, but you can put it into your actual use and see how it feels in context. Make up a mock flyer or ad, or commercial and put the number into it. Make a couple versions and show them to a few people. Sometimes a certain number will flow better or sound better or fit in with the rest of the advertising better.

Even something as simple as putting the prospective toll free numbers onto your business cards and showing a handful of people will give a mini focus group and may make it easier to know which one or ones to go with. So pick the best couple numbers and put them into your actual advertising and see how much more memorable they make your advertising.

Toll Free Day (8/8/8) was more than a huge success. The $8.88 activations were even a bigger hit than we had anticipated, probably too good. We didn’t just set a record for orders, we did over 5 times more than we have ever had in a single day. Customers saved over $15,000 on numbers in that one day sale but I think we nearly killed our selves doing it!

We’re working as fast as we can and on all of the processing but some of the last activations and toll free manuals should be done by the end of the day on Monday. We’re sorry for the dealy and appreciate your patience.

It was fun doing something crazy and it was good because we saw a lot of people we haven’t seen in a while. We really have a lot of great customers and we were very happy to give so many people so much value. So thanks to everyone and as always we’ve very happy to get you great 800 numbers for your business.

I wanted to post something here though so that everybody understands I’m not making this decision just for them. Our 888 day sale was obviously a popular sale and a GREAT deal. So it’s natural for people to want to bend the rules a little to slip in afterwards. That’s a compliment and there’s nothing wrong with asking. I probably would if I missed it.

However I’m posting this here so everyone who asked to be let in afterwards knows that I’m not just picking on them. After the door closes on this sale, the door is closed. I’m not deciding to let some people in and not others based on how many they have bought or anything like that.

If you know me I’m a very straight forward up front person and I try to run my business that way. You don’t have to wonder about whether I’ll take the number you want and offer it to someone who’s willing to pay more money or rent it to you like other websites. You don’t have to worry whether I’ll sell your email address or whether there’s some hidden fee or fine print to take advantage of you. And for the same reason you don’t have to worry that I’m giving someone else more access to better numbers or specials either.

That may not sound like an advantage if you’re trying to get the sale price after it ended. But I think you’ll agree that not bending the rules is the best way to run this business and does help people more than bending them for you in this case really would.

Today only from 12:01am till 11:59pm on August 8th, 2008 (aka 888) all regular activations are just $8.88, instead of $49.95. Yes, we’ve probably gone crazy and are definitely losing money on this. This is the only time we’ve ever done anything like this before and we’re definitely NOT going to do this again. There’s a strict limit of 8 numbers per customer and this ONLY applies to standard activations that say they’re Currently Available in the Instant 800 Lookup.

Just use the regular activation form on our website at TollFreeNumbers.com and there’s no codes or tricks necessary. We’ve just changed the price (to less than our cost!) for one day. There won’t be another toll free day like 8-8-8 in our lifetimes so we figured it’s OK to be a little crazy. And it’s a Friday so we can work all weekend if we have to, to catch up. But at midnight the prices goes back to $49.95 so don’t delay!

We all know ‘800’ numbers are preferable. They’re a brand name, like the .com of the domain name business. They give credibility and make you look like a larger more established company. They’re the best and in higher demand but that’s probably also why you can’t get them from most phone companies and there haven’t been any ‘800’ numbers at all, even random 800 numbers in the spare pool during the day for over a year.

We’ve even experimented by releasing a random ‘800’ number and trying to re-reserve it and it gets taken in less than a second every time, at any time of the day. There are some Resporgs that have literally set up an automated system to submit requests for any ‘800’ number all day long. When they come out at night they are taken within seconds and we’re lucky if we can get one request through before they’re just gone.

We have some random ‘800’ numbers immediately available if you need them.

People often ask if they can point a toll free number to their voip line or port a toll free number they get from us to a voip company such as Vonage. The answer to the first part is YES definitely. You can certainly point or forward your toll free calls to a voip line such as Vonage or any voip company.

The second question about porting or transferring the toll free number over to a VOIP service so they are the ones getting the calls to your local number is a little more complicated. The short answer is that YES, we will release the number to ANY phone company, voip or otherwise. However voip companies are usually pretty dumb about toll free service and may give you some very strange answers.

Read more about the options for 800 service to a voip number

Click to listen to the message then click the link on that page.

This came up recently in an email and I thought it was worth posting since people probably feel this way sometimes even if they don’t say so. Statistically some people are not going to get the numbers they’ve backordered. It’s worse than just the mathematical averages too in many cases for several reasons.

If you’re not getting the percent of backorders you had expected, there are several possible reasons.

1. You haven’t done a large enough sampling to go by the %.
2. You are in a competitive category.
3. You are looking for above average phone numbers.
4. You’re trying to get mainly ‘800’ numbers.
5. You’ve just been unlucky.
6. We’re not really trying to get your numbers for some reason.
7. The system doesn’t really work like we say it does.

The issues listed above are basically in the order of popularity or probability. Numbers 6 and 7 aren’t really there because there’s any reality to them, but I just wanted to include the theoretical possibility because that’s what customers sometimes think. We really do our best and do get a lot of good 800 numbers from Backorders

1. Any toll free number can be transferred to and serviced by any toll free service within the US or Canada by filling out a Responsible Organization Change Form (Resporg form) and does NOT need to be carried by the company that provides the local line.

2. Along with the resporg form you get from the new company, you just send in the Toll Free Birth Certificate™ we email with the toll free manual after the activation if the phone company requests a phone bill as the proof of ownership.

3. The customer information is pretty easy since that’s just your info and the only other information that probably need to fill out the transfer form is our phone company name Resporg.com and the ID code is QZA01 and you can add our resporg fax number 800-FAX-0095

4. Unfortunately, when trying to follow up on a transfer request, most phone companies tend to say that a number was rejected or something along those lines simply because it hasn’t gone through, as their standard response, regardless of whether it’s been sent all the way through to the releasing company or not.

5. The quickest companies that we work with get the numbers transferred and set up in two days or so, but most phone companies take at least a week to two weeks and you can’t assume that it will be done simply because you sent them the paperwork.

6. Most phone companies will reject a transfer request if the slightest thing doesn’t match because they don’t want to give up customers, but we are the exact opposite and much more lenient and we usually release toll free numbers the same day we get the request, much faster than anyone else in the industry.