We give customers a lot of information and recommendations in the toll free manual that comes with the Toll Free Birth Certificate™ via email within 24 hours after you order. We provide that to people after ordering because unlike other companies where you have to know ahead of time that you are willing to commit to using their service, ours are the only numbers that you’re not committing to use when you order it with us.

Read more about our toll free recommendations

A lot of people have been asking me how can a company make money with wrong numbers? The easiest way to explain this is to point out how a lot of websites make money from typos. They use a domain name that people might type in by mistake and they set up pay per click links so no matter what people click on they make money from the visitors. That’s very similar to what the Mass Misdial Marketing companies do.

If 1 out of 100 wrong number callers wound up spending $22 with the phone sex service you promoted (or the over priced directory assistance you promoted), you would make more money the more wrong numbers you got. And if you got wrong numbers based on how many good 800 numbers you had, how many good 800 numbers would you want? The answer is simple, as many as good 800 numbers you can get! You would want to get the best numbers, and do it quietly, so that nobody realized how many numbers you had. You would probably want to break into several different resporgs or companies to hide what you were doing.

Regular phone companies don’t get to keep the value of their numbers they get and don’t care much about vanity numbers so you would have an advantage competing against them. The money you make from the misdials would also give you the ability to pay for much more bandwidth and capacity into the database than regular phone companies could ever need or justify. Sure there are regulations against hoarding numbers but if you make enough money you can get a lot of lawyers to argue that you’re just using the numbers to promote your business, no matter how sleezy it may seem. The more wrong numbers you get, the more money you make, the more bandwidth and numbers you can afford to get, to make even more money. It becomes a vicious cycle.

1970 is the default computer date when there is no date and it essentially means that the number is RESERVED, or at least was at the beginning of the month. (more…)

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We got a large block of real ‘1-800’ numbers and were able to make them searchable both on the website and the emails that we send out each month. Look what at some of the golden 800 numbers our customers already found! Each of these numbers was just a one time fee of $79. To us they were just random numbers. But to our customers they may be literally 1-800 A GOLD MINE!

800-A-GOLDMINE
800 I-LUV-HOUSES
800-USA-CHEAP
800-ASAP-SELL
800-TO-LASIK
800-UPPER-BACK
800-TO-HAVE-FUN
800-PRO-DELIVERY
800-I-LUV-TOLLFREE
800-4-WORKOUT
800-4-ESTATE
800-GO-SPANISH
800-4-TECH-SUPPORT

Do some searches and dig around a little for yourself on our website and see what you can find related to your business. There are more options available today than there’s ever been before!

The FCC rationed 855 Numbers for the first 30 days but as of noon today, the rationing should be over. 855 Numbers were $89 during the rationing but now go back to just $49.95 like all activations. You can use the same 855 link or the regular order form again. So let the 855 rush begin again.

This might also be a good time to go over volume discounts. If you order 10 numbers at a time we give you a 10% discount and 25 numbers a 20% discount and 50 numbers at a time, a 30% discount. These discounts are not in combination with other discounts especially when those discounts are for volume purchases, but do apply to some sale prices.

To get these volume discounts you should email us the list of numbers and place the order over the phone or get a special code to be used online. Larger volume orders also don’t get the temporary service or seperate manuals for every number.

Paying for a Name?

Big companies like AT&T and Verizon typically cost about twice what the more competitive companies do for toll free service. That’s because you’re paying for the name with the big name companies. People often think they have to go to the big name companies because that’s who they use for their local service or that’s the name they fee safe with. And no business is going to be more competitive than they have to be, to get your business.

I personally don’t think it’s necessary to pay for the big name companies because I don’t think they are any better, any more than I think the big name airlines are better than the more competitive price slashing airlines. They fly from the same point A to point B and their customer service isn’t necessarily that much better. But I do understand the desire to go with the recognized and safe names too.

I know the toll free business so it’s easier for me. For the person that doesn’t know the industry, at least the big name companies not going to be intentionally screwed by a big name company. In this business small companies especially, do tend to get away with a LOT of crap. Big name companies may not be quite as cheap, but at least you know what you’re getting and they have a name and reputation so they can’t get away with as much as a company you’ve never heard of before can or that’s only an internet site can.

The new data is up, and between the tons of 855 numbers and the random 800s coming up I can’t believe how much fun I’m having sitting here just playing with my own lookup tool. I’ve just registered two domain names to match things I found for myself and one for my trainer. (Don’t bother requesting 800-4-WORKOUT if you see that one) You almost can’t help but think of cool new ideas and find great things right now. I admit I’m a phone number geek and enjoy this part but it’s been a long time since I had this much fun at it. I hope you enjoy it too, but be careful this could be addictive!

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We just added a huge supply of new ‘800’ numbers. We also changed the programming to allow them to be searched and show up in all of the queries. They will show up in the Available list if any of them match what you’re looking for. They’ll be in the Advanced Keyword Lookup or 800watch emails we send out. And they’re even in the GOOD numeric numbers section at the bottom of the Possibilities box (if you can scroll down that far).

There are some real gems in these virgin numbers. For instance I helped someone with the business name Finishing Touch this morning. We found them 800-FOR-FINISHING, which was in the Available list. It’s a Random number that’s immediately available for just $79 but it happened to spell something great for them! They lucked out, wandering in when this big pool of numbers came out, and everyone certainly won’t find things like that. But play with it and look through the results carefully because there just might be some gems like that out there for you too if you work at it right now.

For some reason it seems like almost every small business that starts looking for a toll free number assumes that they need the most generic term for their business. It’s probably because when people start a business, they think that the purpose of their advertising is to let people know what they do. They forget that people don’t buy from you just because you’re in that business.

They use 1-800 FLOWERS as their reason to pursue a toll free number with the most generic term they can think of. They forget that Jim McCann spent 7 million dollars for 1-800 FLOWERS, over 20 years ago, in 1987, and that they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising. This isn’t 1992, and even though most people know that they can’t get a generic .com domain name, you’d be amazed how many people call up expecting to be able to get a pure generic 800 number.

Look for something more unique and specific for your business

Everyone else shows you rates so you expect to see that here. But everyone else is trying to sell you their service and you have to be sure it’s the best deal ahead of time, because once you get the number from them you’re probably stuck with the wrong company. We do show our one time fees but we don’t list per minute rates or monthly fees because we don’t charge any! We don’t sell the ongoing service so you’re not committing to our rate like you would be with anyone else.

We’re empowering you so you can always use whoever is the best, not just who you think is going to be the best after looking at a couple one sided comparisons designed to sell you someone’s service. This is the ONLY way to guarantee that you always have the best rate and best service, not just based on what they tell you up front, which isn’t always the whole truth. Hind sight is 20-20 and with us, you have the ability to leave any time you need to, and that’s what we give you that they try to take away!

Read more about how we guarantee you’ll always have the lowest rate by giving you the ability to change it any time you want to.

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Primetel and National A1 Advertising offices were raided by the FBI and IRS yesterday. A stream police, IRS agents, FBI and the US Attorney’s Office arrived at 9am on Wednesday and cataloged and carted away a U-haul truck load of material from their office yesterday. The agents refused to say what they were looking for but there is speculation that it is prostitution related to Escorts.com or HotMovies.com which is reportedly a 20 million dollar per year business in it’s own right.

Being in the toll free business, we’re naturally curious about Primetel’s biggest asset, which the agents probably aren’t able to carry out in boxes, their Billion dollars worth of toll free numbers. Primetel has 1.9 million ‘800’ numbers alone, or about 25% of all ‘800’ numbers, including literally hundreds of multi-million dollar numbers on par with 1-800 FLOWERS and tens of thousands of numbers worth well into five figures.

We think this may be very important for the toll free and vanity number business and will certainly have a lot more about this as the dust settles. This may lead to some interesting opportunities. If you’d like to see a sample list of some of their numbers or be notified if any of their millions of numbers may become available sign up for it here.

Related Articles about Primetel’s Raid:

Porn-center offices raided in Center City, Philadelphia Daily News

Federal investigators continue Philly porn raid ABC channel 6 video

Center City Porn Office Raided

National A-1 Raided By The FBI & Other Law Enforcement

Agents raid porno giant in Philadelphia

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As of Sunday morning (10/24), 114,532 of the new 855 numbers are “In Use.” Actually half are still reserved but they’re pretty much as unavailable in terms of getting numbers, as numbers that are already working. This means that only 1.44 percent of the total universe of 855 numbers have been taken and 7,865,468 numbers out of the original 7,980,000 are still Available! (twenty thousand numbers are blocked because there’s no 555 or 911 exchange)

That means there really are Tremendous Opportunities! You probably wont get your first choice, if it’s an obvious number but all is takes for most terms is a 4, 2, or GO, GET etc, in front of your word to get it. If you sell GUTTERS for instance, you won’t get the word GUTTERS by itself, but try putting your state initials in front. Or better yet just try your company name. You don’t need the domain name Gutters.com to have a good website for your Gutter business. It only takes a little bit of creativity to find things when 98.6% of things are still available!

This is actually the perfect timing because there is still rationing, but we’ve worked through our backlog and can now reserve things in real time for customers. And watch what happens the first week of November because once we have 855 numbers in the monthly data our look up tool will start doing the creative searching for you and the system that was designed to find good numbers scraping the bottom of the barrel will suddenly start finding barrels full of good numbers!

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Someone asked me this question today after being told by their phone company that it would be three weeks before they’re able to get or even check for an 855 number. If we’re going to the same pool, why are we able to get things so much faster, provide better documentation and do it so inexpensively?

In regular phone companies there are multiple layers of information dilution and confusion plus less direct access to the people in control that know what they’re doing and have the ability to make it happen. We also have better search tools available right on the website, and don’t have the overhead of a big phone company. We don’t do any advertising or have expensive offices.

We just built a better mouse trap and have a huge following and great reputation for being the best in the vanity number business. To regular phone companies this is an after thought of an after thought. We’re number geeks and dream in 800 numbers. This is our passion. Regular phone companies just aren’t very passionate about anything.

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Our original $8.55 fee was simply to try to get your request to the top of YOUR phone company’s list. I designed my original plan for 855 numbers with the idea that there would be a limit on the amount of 855 requests that each phone company could put in per day. So I would have a limited amount of numbers available and a lot of people requesting them. But your local phone company may not have had as many requests. It was a way to help more people than I would be able to get numbers for personally.

Read more about the 855 request fee

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Today, Sunday may be the first day we actually have enough 855 requests available to get everything everyone orders. So search today while the site is faster and order anything you want and we’ll be able to get it immediately. Monday and during the week probably won’t be as easy to search or assure that you get them right away.

We’ve been doing 855 number activations for just $49, the same price that we always do regular activations because I didn’t think it was appropriate to raise rates dramatically because of the demand. But fortunately or unfortunately we simply haven’t been able to keep up with the processing. It just takes a significant amount of work to process each number and we can only work 20 hour days for just so long. We’re a very small organization and we’ve simply been taking twice as many orders as we have the capability to process each day.

I’m not raising the price because of the value of the numbers, or the fact that nobody else does what we’re doing like this for anything close to what we charge, or even because we’re trying to capitalize on the situation. When I launched our 855 plan the end of June, I realized one of the biggest benefits was that it would allow us to prove our place as leaders and the best value in the toll free business. But at the same time, I simply can’t keep doing this to the people that make our business so special. The people that work with me are my best friends and they would do anything for me and I have to do this for them. So for 3 weeks, starting just after midnight on Friday, October 15, until November 8th, when the rationing ends, the price for 855 numbers will be $89.

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With the FCC imposed Rationing, we’re only allowed to take out 100 855 numbers per day. That means we simply can’t just try to get every number that was requested and then give the customer the option to activate it if they want it as we had planned to do. We encouraged customers to put in multiple requests and backup requests too. So it wouldn’t be fair to assume that they are automatically willing to pay $50 for every number they requested. And if we take numbers out that customers haven’t specifically confirmed that they want to order, then we would be wasting our ration and slowing down all of the other customers that want to get numbers too.

Read more about the difference between 855 Requests and 855 Reservations

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Automatic opening doors makes a store easy to go into, but that doesn’t make it easy to find. An email address that’s easy to type doesn’t mean more people will email you. And if you did get 855-666-7777, you probably wouldn’t want to use 6667777.com as your domain name. That’s because being easy to type doesn’t equate to being easy to remember and no matter how nice a number is, if it’s not relevant to your business, it’s ultimately not going to be memorable in the long run.

If you want nice numeric numbers, use *s and put in a query in the Toll Free Search Engine on the top of the page, like 444-**** (see Premium Numbers for more examples) or look at the GOOD Numbers list in the search results, in the bottom of the second box.

I thought it was crazy busy getting everything ready ahead of time, for 855 numbers but things have been absolutely nuts. I haven’t slept more than 3 or at most 4 hours per night for probably two weeks. But it’s definitely been worth it! I think it was John that came up with the Analogy of Black Friday. It’s a crazy mad rush but you get some amazing deals on what you can grab quickly. It’s not just Black Friday though, it’s Black Friday WEEK, because the rationing is dragging it out all week!

It seems like every day we fall two days behind in processing, which we’ll probably be doing for at least a week. It’s kind of like the checkout line on Black Friday, so bear with us. We will be processing things but we have to do them in the order they were received to insure that everything goes to the right people.

One of the most gratifying things we’re getting, are stories of customers getting their numbers from the phone companies we sent their requests to. They are so satisfying because we not only had a hand in getting their request to their local company, but because we also had a hand in getting the rationing, which allowed all of the little local phone companies to get a lot more. I don’t look at those as lost customers or sales, I look at that as customers we were able to help despite our daily limit on 855 numbers!

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I worked all night preparing and sending out status updates. I’ve sent out about half and will keep sending them out between calls. We will have limited availability via the phone today because Rosemary and Gloria have to continue processing orders as fast as possible. Bill and Hope will probably be the only ones available on the phone today.

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Day 1 went pretty smooth, but Day 2 seems to be stuck. We’re all pulling our hair out staring at the computer, for 35 minutes now since noon. We’re doing nothing but timing out waiting!!

Update: At 12:45 the system came back and the logins that were stuck seemed to have gotten the numbers on the list that was stuck. We instantly used up our 100 again.

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One interesting thing that we saw looking at the results today was what we called the Rise of the Little Folk! There were some of the usual suspects, the large vanity number resporgs that know what they’re doing and of course went after the very best numbers as you’d expect. But the interesting thing was the real variety of resporgs we saw looking up the numbers customers have requested. The resporg IDs are an alphabet soup of combinations we’ve never heard of, or seen before. I guess that was kind of the point of rationing, but it’s interesting to see how it worked in real life.

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Wow, we had a great day and got a lot of GREAT 855 numbers for people. We were expecting it to be slow and make you sit and wait every time you hit submit, like it usually is at the nightly drop when numbers go back into the pool. But it wasn’t slow. It went very fast and everyone’s yelling, I got four, I got 8 more, I got a bunch. It was chaotic and a real adrenaline rush, and after you use up your ration, we all kept looking things up going but… but…. all these good numbers!

Overall, we got over 60% of the Premium Requests. I’m writing up an email for the positive and negative results. If you had a premium request you’ll get an email this afternoon! Then we’ll check the next batch and get more ready for tomorrow, starting the regular requests. If we see any interesting patterns or have more feedback I’ll definitely post it.

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Our main site TollFreeNumbers.com is in 855 release mode at this point. We’re all set and ready to go, just waiting for the 855 Release! We stopped checking 855s just against our own requests and taking requests until they are out. Actually we’re going to wait a little past noon to start checking because the SMS system will just timeout at least for a little while. I’ve scheduled it to start checking at 1pm (eastern) but can move that up or delay it if necessary.

If you want to check to see if we have a request for a number yet and put in 855 number requests you can still do that at 855Numbers.com That is still checking just our requests, and let you place a free no obligation request for it if we don’t have an 855 request for it yet. If we can get it (in turn as we work through the cue) it’ll be a one time fee of $49, with no other fees or strings at all. We’re the only indepdent resporg that’s not trying to sell you the ongoing 855 service and gives you proof of ownership, empowering you to go to any phone company you want!

If you requested 855 numbers, we will say it’s not available any more in order to protect you and also because there’s no point taking additional requests for the same 855 number. Even if it’s not actually taken yet, it will be in the near future. But that also means that you can’t really tell if it’s been taken in the national database on our site either.

So if you want to check an 855 number that you requested from us, to see if it’s still available in the national database, use the AT&T 800 lookup. Most other 800 websites automatically grab what you find available because they want you to have to get it from them but AT&T doesn’t do that. They’re also probably big enough that they won’t have a problem with the surge of use and traffic either. They won’t find a lot of the additional things that we do, but in this case they will probably be helpful if you’re trying to figure out if the number you requested is still available or not.

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We had to cut off the Premium Requests, (right before midnight). We got a surge at the end but need to have time to review and prepare the list. We are also going to be using some the allotment from another resporg to insure we have enough capacity for the requests we got, which were just over 200.

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The new toll free area code, 855 will open up in less than 24 hours, tomorrow at noon, eastern time. The FCC limited every phone company to just 100 numbers so we’ll be submitting the first batch of Premium 855 requests right at noon Saturday. Those first 200 requests are almost sold out and will be closed this evening regardless.

We’ve sent out emails to the first batch of 855 requests are taking the confirmations and lining up those requests. We’re only doing that for the first batch of requests because I think probably 75 to 80% of the requests will be taken already after the first two days. There will probably be 75,000 numbers taken in the first two days by the 400+ resporgs who can each take 100 numbers. Hopefully your local companies have some of your requests in their top requests as well. That’s why we worked so hard getting your requests to your phone company early on.

We will be sending out emails all weekend to let people know if their numbers were taken. We’ll also have a list of the requests remaining on the website and send out links to confirm the remaining numbers.

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The 855 Release is being done in slow motion, starting on October 9th, but the FCC is limiting each phone company to just 100 numbers per day. The first days requests are the Premium 855 requests but we will start going through the list basically as they came in by Sunday, the second day. A high percentage of the requests will be taken by the time we get to them so even though we know how many numbers we’ll get per day, it’s impossible to tell how many days it will take to get through the list to get to you.

Each day we will check all of the outstanding 855 requests and notify customers when their number is gone and tell you what phone company got it, (in case it was your local company that we submitted your request to for you). So even though you might initially be thousands of requests down the list, many of them will be gone by the time we get there so you could easily move up a thousand or more requests per day, even though we can only get 100 numbers. We may also get some available requests from other resporgs that aren’t using their allotment which could speed up your request too.

You also have to realize that this hasn’t been done in a long time and they never did it this way before. So there’s ultimately no way to tell ahead of time, exactly how long the backlog will take to clear or it will be until we get to your request or whether it’ll still be there by that time. The only thing I can say is that we will do our best to communicate where you’re at and what’s happening through out the process. I can say that the rationing goes for 30 days, but I don’t think the backlog will last that long but I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes for at least two weeks.

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I’d like to do something special to thank the 66 customers that took the time to write the FCC and request that the 855 numbers be rationed. They’re part of the reason that the FCC created the limit of 100 numbers per day on each phone company. This limit will probably help at least 100,000 to 250,000 actual customers get better numbers. The vanity number resporgs play by different rules but they won’t be able to grab hundreds of thousands of numbers in the first few minutes, before regular phone companies can submit their requests for regular phone companies.

It seems only right that the people who helped accomplish this, should actually benefit from it. So I’m going to bump up the requests of our customer’s who wrote to the FCC to request the rationing to the second day’s ration of numbers, right behind the Premium Requests. This should increase dramatically their chances of getting their numbers.

I realize that many more customers tried to contact the FCC but weren’t able to get through properly. It wasn’t easy to get through their website and my email wasn’t all that clear about it either. Ultimately we have to draw the line somewhere, but I appreciate the effort. The rest of the regular requests will be submitted after these requests, in the order they were received, each day until we reach our daily 100 number limit.