What happens if I forget to transfer my number?
When we get you a toll free number we give you free temporary service for the first 30 days or 100 minutes. If you don’t transfer your toll free number, the free temporary service will expire but you won’t lose the number. We give you free parking for 1 year, just waiting for you to transfer it to whatever company you want to use it with.
It’s really not very hard or complicated to transfer a toll free number. All you need to do is get a transfer form, usually called a responsible organization change form, or LOA (for Letter of Authorization) from the new company you want to transfer the number to. Fill that out and send it back to the new company with the Toll Free Birth Certificate™ that we send you in the toll free manual, which we can also resend to you if you need, by the way.
Our toll free manual comes via email usually within 24 hours of activating your number. It includes your proof of ownership and explains the transfer process. It also includes a couple of the best options that are probably cheaper, and quicker and easer than almost anyone else. We’re trying to empower you to be able to go anywhere but also to make it as easy as possible for people that don’t know where to go to.
Can I leave it with you if I don’t need it right away?
We give you free parking for a year. After that it’s $18.95 a year and if that’s not paid after two years it can be considered abandoned and may have to be dropped if we don’t have any communication. People who usually ask this are imagining that it will cost them a lot of money to have the toll free number active and they want to avoid this until they launch their advertising. They are forgetting that will probably get calls along the way and that a toll free number is one of the best tools to fake it till you make it.
With a toll free number you basically just pay for the amount of calls you get, so when you’re not advertising it, it costs you almost nothing, maybe a couple bucks per month. If it was a more significant fixed fee waiting till the last minute would make sense. But since it costs so little to have it ready and there’s also a much higher downside of waiting till the last minute than most people realize too.
That’s why I always recommend that everyone move their toll free number to a regular carrier right away. I know it’s easy to procrastinate but even if you are sure you’re not going to need it, you’re still better off transferring it now because the cost of waiting is much higher than people usually realize and is well worth the couple bucks it’ll cost you in the mean time. If your local phone company often charges more (they usually do which is one of the reasons we recommend using a more competitive carrier) try one of the cheaper ones we recommend. You really are better off just taking just a couple minutes and getting it up and working with a good company now so you have one less thing to worry about or have issues with down the road.
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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Rhonda Alexander says:
April 29, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’m actually having a problem with porting my numbers over to the current carrier. I thought they would have ported the numbers by now but they say they are still in the process of doing so. In the meantime, the numbers I have are no longer accessible (per the message callers receive when they dial). Is there any way that your office can afford me the accessibility for a couple more weeks until my carrier has informed me that the port has taken place? Thank you in advance for your help.
Rhonda
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
April 29, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Hi Rhonda,
The free temporary service has expired on those numbers but you can still transfer those numbers to any carrier you want. If you were asking for an extension because you thought you needed that to be able to transfer them there’s no problem. If you wanted an extension because you already have advertising on them and are missing calls, then give us a call and we can give you an extension of 250 minutes of use or 30 days for $25.
We don’t want you to miss any calls if it’s important. We will also contact the carrier to see if they are ready for us to release them. That is the better long term solution. So we’ll definitely help you any way we can. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help with anything else.
Bill
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
February 27, 2009 at 12:33 pm
We set up a more formal parking policy. We give you “Free Parking” for 1 year from the activation at no cost. If you leave the number for more than a year, we charge $18.95 per year to park or hold it. If you don’t pay for two years of parking, we have the option to drop the number or re-issue it.
So the first year is free, and if you leave it more than 3 years without any payment, it’s considered abandoned. We’re not doing this to start taking anyone’s numbers away. We just needed to set some policy rather than just leaving it open ended.
Bill
Mark Taylor (1 comments.) says:
July 24, 2009 at 6:33 am
Regarding your very reasonable parking fee: does it make sense to re-park some of the numbers that I am not using at Freedom Voice Systems back with you? They charge $60 per year per number. However, this is somewhat random in that some numbers are not charged in this way. I wound up releasing my ownership of some of the numbers to them because of this.
Thank you for your great and educational service!
Mark
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
July 27, 2009 at 1:09 am
Hi Mark,
We really don’t transfer numbers back to us except in special circumstances. But you can use a service that only charges $2 per month, like Telcan.net or Kall8.com or Get1800.com.
Bill