Onebox charges Vindictive Fees!
You wouldn’t normally think of a phone company as being vindictive. Big companies like AT&T and Verizon are huge organizations and obviously don’t and can’t respond like individuals. But some of the smaller enhanced voicemail “phone companies” do get a little defensive about losing customers and some even build in what I call the ‘Vindictive Fee’. That’s what I call the fee to release a toll free number, which is just another one of their ‘hidden fees.’
Onebox.com and evoicereceptionist.com both charge a $40 to $50 fee to transfer numbers away.
No regular phone company charges a fee to transfer a toll free number in or out. I admit that regular phone companies aren’t very quick or responsive but these j2 companies aren’t doing a better job either. It’s simply not a priority for most companies to be good at releasing numbers. But that’s not because it takes a lot of work or effort. It only takes about two or three minutes to receive the request via fax or email, verify that it’s from the correct customer, switching the number to the new phone company and changing one field. We actually do a little more and also send out an email to the owner of the number telling them their number was released but it clearly doesn’t take $40 dollars worth of effort to release a number or we could never search for a number, activate it and give you free temporary service, proof of ownership and then release it too, all for $49.
They have the right to charge anything they want to, but this is obviously a big red flag telling you they’re going to be vindictive if you want to leave. It’s also a kind of sneaky way to claim ownership of their numbers to keep people from being able to transfer away, AND at the same time charge you an extra fee if you do try to leave. In my personal opinion (I have to say that before saying anything strong about people who have lawyers) when they combine the vindictive fees with claiming ownership of all numbers, it’s a huge red flag warning you that although it may be an attractive service, they have rigged the game to screw you as much as possible.
There may be more and I’ll add them if I find them. But the only companies I’ve ever seen with this type of fee are eVoiceReceptionist.com and OneBox.com.
Related posts:
PhonePeople holds customers hostage at TollFreeNumbers.com
Why is ownership of your toll free number so Important?
j2 doesn’t want me to tell people what they’re doing
Big Companies behaving badly
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Kirby Witmer says:
April 10, 2009 at 1:11 am
I was reading your website about how onebox has been treating their customers. I used to be a tollfreeexpress customer and now that onebox has taken them over my toll free number just rings busy.
I was wondering if you can give me any tips on how to transfer the number away from them?
Thank you,
-Kirby Witmer
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
April 10, 2009 at 1:29 am
The first thing you need to do is cancel the credit card they have if possible. Next you’ll have to fill out the transfer form at http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/rcf and fax that to us at 800-FAX-0095 with a copy or print out of your bill from TFmax or TFexpress. We can yank it out of them and help you transfer it to any company you want for the ongoing service. It’s free if you got the number from us originally and we have to charge $49 the regular activation fee since it costs us to yank numbers like that. But we’re happy to do it in order to protect people’s rights and stop them from getting away with stealing your number. It’s just wrong what they’re doing and they get away with it because there’s nobody to really stop them.
Bill