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!

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.

2 comments

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

2 comments

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.

1 comment

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.

3 comments

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.

3 comments

Nice Numeric numbers can be broken down into three main types, Zeros, Repeaters and Patterns. Zeros and Repeaters are pretty straight forward and can be queried with the look up tool on the top of the page at TollFreeNumbers.com. Patterns are harder to search for, but that also means there are more possibilities too because most people can’t really search for them as readily.

Patterns can be further broken down into Keyboard Patterns, Sequential Patterns, XYXY Patterns, and ABC-ABC Patterns. These patterns require complex analysis and multiple queries so the only way to find them is to research and prepare a list for each pattern. Unfortunately lists get out of date very quickly but I’ll do our best to keep them up to date, and give you as many good options as possible.

See the full list of Good Pattern Numbers!

In 2009 when the SMS/800 released 22,000 new ‘800’ numbers that were converted from exchanges that used to be set aside for RCC numbers, one company got over 10,000 of the 22,000 numbers in just over a minute. This same or the recently took 500,000 toll free numbers from the available pool in just over a month. With 855 numbers coming out October 2nd, this raises the question, “Just because some companies CAN take 10,000 per minute should they be allowed to?”

The analogy I’ve come up with is an All You Can Eat Buffet of 855 numbers. There will be 8 million numbers put out for the first time at the buffet. The SMS/800 will give them out on a first come first served basis. But some companies have bigger plates than others. In fact some companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to get plates that are hundreds of times bigger than other resporgs. So some companies go to the buffet with salad plates, while other companies run to the buffet with giant turkey platters. Some companies also have as many as six resporgs. They’re filling six giant turkey platters at a time, at the 855 buffet. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that, All You Can Eat Buffets, tends to lead to over eating!

That’s why I believe the FCC has to impose a daily cap of no more than one thousand 855 numbers per day per administrator just for the first 15 to 30 days. That’s not per resporg, it’s per Administrator, because some reporg administrators have spawned multiple resporgs which are ultimately for the same organization. Nobody should be allowed to bring multiple plates up to the buffet. And 1,000 numbers is clearly enough because that’s more than even the largest phone companies do on average per day in all toll free area codes.

An Anti-Hoarding Cap clearly won’t hurt anyone except companies trying to hoard an excessive amount of the best 855 numbers. It’ll help insure that the SMS/800 doesn’t get as overloaded, and will insure that every company has a fairer more equal opportunity to get 855 numbers.

The FCC ordered the opening of the new 855 area code to be delayed from October 1st until October 2nd at 12:00pm (noon) ET.

The FCC has suggested in letters that it may ration 855 numbers when they come out but hasn’t confirmed or specified how this will be done yet. I wanted to take a moment to explain why this isn’t just important, it’s absolutely critical to the process, and to all real customers.

I wrote a detailed post yesterday about the differences between vanity number phone companies and regular phone companies because that’s necessary to understand why rationing is so critical. When 866 numbers came out in 2000, vanity number resporgs were the exception rather than the rule. Sure there was a mad rush and the whole system bogged down. But regular phone companies weren’t competing against Vanity Number Businesses who’s whole purpose is to suck up numbers as fast as possible.

Vanity number businesses get to keep the value of the numbers they get, where as regular phone companies just give the numbers they get to customers without any real payment for the acquisition at all. Many regular companies use the volume of calls to subsidize the set up cost, so they actually spend money getting new numbers for their customers, they don’t make any.

That means that the vanity number businesses can afford way more connections and capacity to get numbers from the SMS/800 database than even the biggest phone companies could possibly justify. They also have more experience at sucking up numbers too. So without rationing, the vanity number businesses would literally suck up a humongous amount of numbers before regular customers at regular phone companies even had a chance. Rationing the numbers means that even smaller phone companies will at least get to submit some requests before the vanity number businesses suck up everything IF the rationing is done in small enough increments.

Read more about how we need strict 855 Rationing with DAILY limits.

When Vanity Number businesses get access into the national 800 database (referred to as Resporgs) don’t have the same business model as regular phone companies. They literally play by different rules. I’ve been in this business for 15 years and I’m going to share some of the biggest secrets of the vanity number business. This will make a lot of people very angry with me, but it’s time to pull back the curtains in a few dark areas of this crazy little business.

1. Vanity Number Resporgs don’t have to wait for Customer Requests.

Regular phone companies wait for customers to request numbers and then check to see if they’re available. Vanity number resporgs not only don’t have to wait for requests, but they look at what’s coming out ahead of time and grab good numbers the same second they become available or in some cases even before they’re available through the old phone company. So over time, vanity number companies get almost all of the good numbers coming out.

2. Vanity Number Resporgs get to keep the value of any numbers they get.

If a regular phone company does get a valuable number for a customer, the customer gets the value, not the phone company. And the same customer will switch to another company to save a penny per minute. Regular phone companies literally have no incentive to get good numbers for their customers. Vanity number companies have a huge incentive to get valuable numbers because they get to keep the value of their numbers.

Read the rest of the story, with 4 more secrets of the Vanity Number business!

5 comments

There are a lot of otherwise very attractive websites and toll free services available on the internet that are trying very hard to trap you and your business.  Most customers don’t realize how important portability is.  Your ability to transfer the number is what keeps them honest and unfortunately most internet services don’t like customers having the right to leave them.  They use tricky legal terms that ultimately claim ownership of your number.  So after you’ve printed the toll free number and got it in all your advertising you suddenly find out that the more you advertise THEIR number the more at their mercy you become.
 
That way if something better comes along, or they don’t do a good job or provide poor customer service, you can’t do anything about it.  This leads to doing a good job of getting customers started, but gives them an incentive to provide the cheapest customer service possible in the long run and no incentive to stay competitive on price.  They all look good on the website and when you’re getting started, but the only way to insure you have the ability to transfer your number away is to get it independently and transfer it to them.
 
The worst of these companies discourage customers from getting and transferring numbers in too.  They’ll say you don’t have to do all that work, that they can get you whatever number you want themselves.  But what they can’t get you or at least they don’t want to give you is the ability to transfer your number away.  The more they try to discourage you from transferring your own number over, the more you should look somewhere else for the service, no matter what a salesperson says.

Claims ownership of numbers:

RingCentral.com
CustomTollFree.com
Accessline.com
Phone.com
My1voice.com
Onebox.com
PhonePeople.com
eVoice.com
VirtualPBX.com
MyTollFreeNumber.com
Easytel.net
PATlive.com

Doesn’t list terms:

Tollfreenumber.org (because they don’t provide the service)
FreedomVoice.com (doesn’t list them on their site)

Read the exact terms of service for most of these companies from their own websites.

1 comment

People often ask for “Nice” or “Good” numbers, but unfortunately you can’t ask a computer database for “nice”. We have a section with various levels of Premium 800 numbers, but there are millions of numbers in the database but none of them are marked Good or Bad. That’s why we’ve tried to analyze the different types of niceness. There are actually at least 6 to 8 different types of “nice” numeric numbers.

In order to keep things simpler for the users we’re grouping premium numbers into 3 main groups, Zeros, Repeaters and Patterns. We’ll have more about them and their basic definitions on the website soon. We could have just grouped them all into one list, but this way hopefully we’ll be able to give customers more exactly what they’re looking for and it’ll keep the lists fresher too. Because one of the issues is that if we make a short cut to the good numbers they’ll all be taken and it won’t be a shortcut. In the mean time, if you need something specific in terms of nice numbers give us a call or check back soon because we’re going to use this new analysis process to make it easier to find so called “Good” toll free numbers.

Yes, Paypal did their absolute best to kill our business. I suppose they probably weren’t trying to, but they honestly couldn’t have done any more damage to us if they had been trying. Right out of the box they made it almost impossible to work with them, because their system literally didn’t work the way it says it does on the website and the documentation. Their higher level techs admitted that they knew it didn’t but didn’t seem to care.

When we launched, things definitely went from bad to worse. Their system caused issues with multiple orders and didn’t track the orders properly and left us with a over a thousand orders that had to be reconciled manually. We upgraded to a different system that we could control more at the paypal reps suggestion only to find that a few days into it, some stupid accountant in their risk depart read a totally fake attack article on a scam website. It’s clearly a scam website for a government related organization about toll free service that doesn’t exist and only goes back to a fake address in the Netherlands. It’s clearly a scam site with the phone number 800-000-0000 etc and no names of any kind. Yet Rochelle didn’t look at the source at all and shut us down completely without any notice or so much as an email, which is apparently what they do in some cases to scam websites. She didn’t contact their account rep or research anything she just shut us off cold because of her own mistake.

Then a few days into it, Rochelle, a young clerk in their risk depart read a totally fake attack article on a scam website. It’s clearly a scam website for a government related organization about toll free service that doesn’t exist and only goes back to a fake address in the Netherlands. It’s clearly a scam site with the phone number 800-000-0000 etc and no names of any kind. Yet Rochelle didn’t look at the source at all and shut us down completely without any notice or so much as an email, which is apparently what they do in some cases to scam websites. She didn’t contact their account rep or research anything she just shut us off cold because of her own mistake.

Read the full article about how a single girl at paypal made a mistake and shut our business off cold and then made it even worse by lying and trying to cover it up.

The FCC has regulations against hoarding and brokering. Hoarding is defined as taking more numbers from the Available pool than you have a legitimate business need for. Brokering is taking numbers from the Available pool for the purpose of reselling them. I’ve explained why I think the danger isn’t abuse by end users but by phone companies. Plus toll free numbers are also invisible and have no physical presence so very few people ever see how many numbers each phone company has.

For various reasons, the FCC hasn’t been overly aggressive in enforcing this type of abuse, combined with the inability of anyone to see or appreciate how many numbers different companies have, is enabling some companies to take advantage of the situation. I obviously can’t do anything about the FCC, but I can make toll free numbers more visible, and expose just a little of the possible abuses of the system.

I don’t do this to condemn anyone, but with 855 numbers coming out the danger of major abuse will be exponentially increased. In the mean time I’m going to show the volume of numbers activated and controlled by some companies. For instance, the fact that one company recently took over 400,000 numbers at one time, doesn’t prove that they are hoarding or brokering numbers, but at some point it has to be at least a little suspicious. If you’re wondering why we’re running out of toll free numbers, take a look at the amount of numbers activated by CallSource.com. Over the past two years the volume of numbers available has decreased by about 3 million numbers, while at the same time CallSource alone, increased by almost 1 million numbers, (from half a million to one and a half million numbers!)

See a chart of the growth in numbers held by CallSource.com

14 comments

We monitor the 800 supply very closely and have tried to explain the shortage of toll free numbers in words, but I think this graph shows it much mroe clearly than any words could. This graph is based on the numbers below and you’ll notice that there’s literally ZERO 800 numbers and very few 866 numbers. That’s just because there haven’t been any ‘800′ numbers in the spare or Available pool for a couple years.

I’m not sure why there are so few 866 numbers, except that it may be because the SMS database gives out 866 numbers first when someone doesn’t specify the area code. But whatever the reason, there haven’t been many 866 numbers available for a while now either. It’ll be interesting to see how 855 numbers are received and how quickly some of them get taken. Next I’m going to graph the toll free numbers active with a couple companies too which should be very interesting!

I’m not a big fan of government intervention or lawyers, and I love this business. But if I ever go out of business I’m gonna go work as a consultant for the FCC! They really need some help from someone that knows (and loves) the toll free business, and has crunched the amount of data that we have. I know they have good intentions and I’m also not trying to hurt anyone. But there are definitely some business that are doing things which may be in their best interests, but they are really hurting the toll free business.

Everyone has a different take on 855 numbers. I saw someone today reserving 855 domain names. http://www.855domainnames.com/ They probably aren’t as marketable as people might assume because they will ultimately only appeal to a single party who probably will also feel like they own that name. It may be a little early to register domain names because it really won’t give you much leverage in terms of getting them when they come out. I also don’t think 855 is quite the brand name that 800 is, but it’s something to think about.

When the last new toll free area code came out in 2000 people had cell phones but their cell phone wasn’t what it is today and the cell phone was usually just for talking when they were in between their office phone and their home phone. Today the world of phones is getting more and more diverse to say the least. There are 10 new voip startup companies every time you turn around, and your ISP is offering phone service. Google is now a phone company, sort of. The lines are getting more and more blurred for everything in the telecom world every day.

So who do you request an 855 number from?

Unfortunately all phone companies aren’t equally good at all things. The way we created the list of phone companies for 855numbers.com was to analyze our log of phone companies that we’ve released toll free numbers to over the past two years or so. The logic was simply, if no customers had transferred numbers to them they wouldn’t need to be there. There are certainly a lot of “phone companies” that don’t do much with toll free numbers. Cell phone companies for instance almost never do anything at all related to toll free service. Some voip companies fall into this category as well.

Read more about what phone companies not to request an 855 number from

2 comments

Loren Stocker, one of the vanity number brokers, is already complaining to other resporgs about what we’re doing at 855numbers.com. I guess that’s to be expected. Allowing regular customers to put in requests for the numbers they want with their phone companies hurts people like Loren who has a resporg just to grab numbers for himself. You can bet that he’ll be one of the first out there trying to grab up as many of the best numbers for himself as possible, not for end users.

Another big vanity number shark, CustomTollFree.com, is offering to get people 855 numbers for a $295.00 request fee and $5,000.00 additional fee if they are able to get it for you. You could say we’re competition but they’re clearly going after a different market, so I’m not even knocking that. Now that I think about it, it would probably be alot easier to get 50 numbers for high paying customers (which I probably know too) than it would be to deal with 30,000 customer requests at $8.55, but I think helping more people like this, not to mention the phone companies s better for the industry as a whole. (Although I have to say I didn’t appreciate how many questions and issues 30,000 customers would ultimately have!)

We have had some issues and I feel like my email will never be possible to get through any more. But that’s what happens when you stretch and try to do something nobody has ever done before and rush it as much as we did. So I have to apologize that I can’t get to every email at this point, and that we had to rush so much to get this out (mostly because of the FCC moving up the time frame). But I don’t apologize for trying to help as many people as possible, get their requests to their phone company as quickly as possible. I don’t get to sleep very much right now, but I do sleep soundly and feel good about my business model and that I’m helping not only my customers but the industry as a whole, much more than any of the vanity number brokers and sharks ever could.

2 comments

The response to our mailing has been overwhelming. As a result, we had to move the 855numbers.com site to a much bigger server. There also appears to be an issue with some browsers, so I would ask that you only use Internet Explorer as well. I apologize that there are a few bumps in the road, but I really pushed everyone (including myself) to get this out as fast as possible. Phone numbers are supposed to be issued on a first come first served basis so it was important to get this up ASAP. The site will go “live” at 8:00PM (eastern) tonight! I sincerely apologize for the delay and we’ll all look forward to helping you!

~Bill Quimby

12 comments

A quick word of advice on what 855 numbers to request. Go for the good second round draft picks, not just the most obvious first round picks. The vanity number sharks will get their requests in faster than regular phone companies. That’s just life and our present reality. Their business model requires them to get bigger and bigger connections to the SMS, much bigger than any regular phone company could possibly justify or use. So if you’re only requesting 855-LAWYERS and 855-DIVORCE etc, even if you’re the first at a specific phone company to request one of those the chances of getting it are lottery ticket small.

That’s why I think the smart money is going after what I’m calling the good second round draft picks. Those are numbers that aren’t in the top 1000 most valuable numbers. They are much more likely to be successful and are still very valuable. I’m not saying don’t go for the long shots, just make sure you have some backup options. You can always drop them if you get your long shots.

3 comments

I wrote a little bit about why we set up 855numbers.com in the 855 ebook, but someone asked that again and I think this was a better explanation. In order to simplify the rationing, just imagine that every phone company gets to take 100 855 numbers on the first day. We would only be able to help 100 people get numbers, just like every other phone company. But by building a system and essentially opening it up to every phone company and then giving them the list of their customers requests, we can help customers get in the top 100 numbers on 100 different phone companies. So in a sense the rationing is what made this necessary.

Rationing also means that no matter how much I promote 855 numbers to people, I would only be able to get 100 numbers in the above example. So why would any individual phone company spend much time or effort promoting 855? But this way not only do I have an incentive to promote it, but I’m almost the only one that does.

I’m also the only one in the toll free business not trying to sell toll free service. So I can do this in a way that doesn’t push any one company, just to help customers get their request on the list with their existing company and help the whole industry. So we’ll definitely be doing some significant PR to get the word out about 855 numbers. But back to the first point above, I didn’t want to do much promotion outside of my existing customers because I wanted to give them a head start first. So I guess I am pushing one business, my existing customer’s business!

8 comments

The most common 855 question we’re seeing about the new 855 numbers is, “Can we get this number or numbers for me.” Some customers are asking this because they have a list of numbers and want to know if they put their request in before the opening, or to ask if we can let them request a large list of numbers. Some people are asking this because they want to know if we can put the request in for them and some want to know if we can activate it right here to start.

For all four variations of this question the answer is, No. We can’t process a list of numbers at a time because with hundreds of people submitting at a time, doing a single number at a time is hard enough. Having all of those people submitting lists of numbers at a time would probably make the computers little processors fry!

Read more about why we can’t put 855 requests through ourselves, for the customer!

16 comments

Last Friday June 25th at 4:30pm, the FCC quietly announced that they had moved up the release of the first new toll free area code in a decade. 855 Numbers will go into operation October 1st. They had previous suggested that they would open 855 sometime between October and March of 2011. They also announced that there would be rationing of new 855 numbers although they didn’t specify the method yet.

We have been working quite hard lately to develop a site that customers can use to request any number they want with any phone company they want it with. The Pre-Release Request process begins on Tuesday July 6th at 3:00pm EST at www.855numbers.com. Customers will be able to request any 855 Numbers from the phone company of their choice for just $8.55.

I haven’t written much on the website recently because although I’ve been writing a lot, I didn’t want to put it on the website until I had something really complete. I’ve prepared a brand new 15 page ebook about the 855 Window of Opportunity, that explains the process and everything you need to know to take advantage of this great opportunity. I’ll start putting about this on the website over the next couple days but you should definitely start with this ebook right away.

This is clearly the biggest opportunity in the vanity number business in years and it costs almost nothing to get started. You just have to be at the right place at the right time and that’s Tuesday July 6th at 855numbers.com at 3pm. Mark your calendar and get your list ready for the 855 Landrush.

2 comments

As of 6/1 there were 3,392,802 toll free numbers in the Available pool. But how many of them are really “good”? Unfortunately there’s no good definition of good that a computer can use to filter or sort 3 million numbers. We can however determine how many of them are bad in terms of vanity numbers. There are no letters on the 0 or 1 key. And the 9 key is almost as bad, since it’s only got a WXYZ, so numbers with 1, 0 or 9 are certainly not going to be much help as far as vanity numbers.

Out of 3.4 million numbers there are only 100,073 numbers or about 2.9%, that don’t have a 1, 0, or 9, which could be potential vanity numbers. That shows not just how few numbers there are but how picked over they are. There are more options if you consider partial vanity numbers. You may have to put a couple astrixes in front of the word you want to find a combination of numbers and the word. This works best with short words. Even this doesn’t work for popular words though. We’re just reaching the bottom of the barrel, and literally running out.

Stay tuned for 855 numbers which will be coming in a couple months. And the good news with them is that the pent up demand and unavailability to get anything else, will probably work to benefit the usage and acceptance of 855 numbers.