You’ve got to keep it up!
In order to “own” a toll-free number, do I have to have service on it even if I am not currently needing it (for example, I have a couple of numbers where I pay $2-5/month to Kall8, but I really won’t need those numbers till 2010 or 2011).
What should I do in order to ensure that (a) I continue to “own” the number but not pay $2/month, and (b) “park” it at a place (such as you) so that when I am ready to use it. I would like to be able to move some numbers from Kall8 to you so that I still “own” them, but I am not paying for monthly service. Is it possible for me to do that?
Thanks,
Sanjay
Unfortunately, there’s no more free lunch out there. The toll free services with no monthly fee have pretty much dried up and changed their policies recently because of the economy and because of new policies at Google which required separate phone numbers for each “location” in their local search. Some people were trying to get 1000 toll free numbers that they weren’t even going to use, just to list them as their toll free number for a “location”.
You do need to keep a toll free number Active in the database for it to be yours. What that means for each phone company may vary slightly. You can play games a little pointing it to a fax machine for example, blocking most of the country or pointing it to a disconnected number somehow. You can even send the calls to someone that can make something from the wrong number calls that it gets, especially if you have a large volume of numbers or a number that gets a particularly high volume of calls. But that gets into different issues and questions about hoarding 800 numbers. The best advice would be to keep it active, paid up and test it regularly.
It costs any phone company (including us) something every month to have a toll free number in the national database so if you don’t have a volume of calls to justify it, there has to be some type of fee to have a good long term relationship. I’ve let that slide here for a long time, but we recently added a parking fee of $18.95 per year as well. So although it’s a little less than the cheapest companies monthly fee, it’s really not worth the hassle to switch things around to save $5 a year.
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If I cancel service can 800pbx keep my number? at TollFreeNumbers.com says:
April 23, 2009 at 12:22 am
[...] You have to keep them active somewhere. You can’t just cancel them without transferring them some where else. I may own season tickets at the Yankees but just because I own them doesn’t mean I own them forever. You do “own them” and they’re even willable from generation to generation. But if you stop paying for them they will of course become available and be given to someone else. [...]