What happens if I forget to transfer my number?
If you don’t transfer your toll free number, the free temporary service we give you will expire after 30 days or 100 minutes of use. You won’t lose the number and you can still transfer it to whatever company you want to use it with the same way.
All you need to do is get a transfer form, usually called a responsible organization change form, from the new company you want to transfer the ongoing service 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.
The toll free manual comes via email usually within 24 hours of activating your number. Part of it is available online and we can resend that to you if you need it. It also explains the transfer process and includes a couple of the best options that are probably cheaper, and quicker and easer than almost anyone else. They also make it easier for us to follow up for you too.
Can I leave it with you if I don’t need it right away?
We don’t have a specific deadline, although eventually it can be considered abandoned and will have to be dropped. 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.
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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 (510 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 (510 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