Do some phone companies steal their customer’s numbers?!

I recently got a call from someone that had gotten a number from us, with a problem which I included in a post about 10 examples of Stolen 800 numbers. He had transferred it to a phone company you see on the Internet. Just over two months later when he went to use it he found that they had taken it off his account. They claimed there was a billing issue and that it had been reassigned to another customer.

This company claimed it was on an account with a car rental service in Hawaii. Yet when the customer called and tried to rent a car from them he recognized the voice of the representative he’d been dealing with at the phone company so he acted like a customer and tried to rent a car from them. It was funny because he kept changing where it was located to try and avoid it and couldn’t even answer what type of cars they had because it clearly wasn’t a real business.


This wasn’t just a random number, it was a very good number and the customer had it in something like $30,000 of advertising. I believe there may have been a billing glitch, because anyone can make a mistake. But to have a phone company pretend to assign it to a fake customer in order to take it for themselves would clearly be more than just wrong, in my opinion.

I’ve heard and seen a lot of things lately and this is definitely not the only type problem a number of customers have had. There are a couple companies I recommend people to avoid including this company. That’s obviously just my opinion, but all of the money they’re spending on marketing and a nice looking website is wasted if the people behind the company do stuff like this.

    1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
    Loading ... Loading ...

    2 Comments »

    Navin says:
    June 9, 2010 at 10:38 pm

    Did you get your number back? Thanks for heads up I will not be going to them at all.

      Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
      June 9, 2010 at 11:54 pm

      Yes, I helped him take that one back. If you catch it quickly and have documentation, you can sometimes take them back. In this type of situation, Ringcentral or whoever doesn’t usually want to make an issue, especially when they don’t have any documentation.

      Ringcentral is definitely a company to avoid at all costs, at least in my experience!

      Bill Quimby

        RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

        Leave a comment

        Random Testimonials

        Testimonial 1603 out of 1983

        What a great service you have! It was so easy to understand and the results were awesome. We needed a 800 number quick, and instead of waiting for, who knows how long, we were up and running within hours. We wanted to use something with our logo/ and or trademark. We found 877-CURETIME, which goes perfect with our HOURDOC.com "Curing Time". We would recommend your site to anyone. a scalable, web-based labor management and scheduling solution

        Brian Smith
        Hourdoc.com
        877-CURETIME


        Testimonial 701 out of 1983

        Thank you for you assistance in obtaining my 800 number for my Web Hosting Company. You site is very useful and easy to understand. Your site help me get my 800 carrier also through Opex Communications which the rates are FANTASTIC! Thank you so much!

        Richard Futrell
        World Hosting Central


        Testimonial 1174 out of 1983

        Bill and his staff made acquiring our new toll free number (1-877-55BISHOP) easy and provided a great amount of resources to help us through the process. We'd recommend them to anyone.

        Bishop Kevin J. Foreman, Pastor
        Urban Word Church International
        www.uword.org


        Testimonial 957 out of 1983

        I was very pleased at how quickly and easily I was able to use your website to find a toll-free number that "worked" well for our law firm. In addition, I was absolutely astounded at how quickly the toll-free number was up and running and ringing in on our local number. It was virtually instantaneous. It was also very reasonably priced. Keep up the terrific work!

        Cindy Salvo
        The Salvo Law Firm, P.C.


        Testimonial 212 out of 1983

        Thanks for making a very daunting task a breeze. I really appreciate the advice and awesome service.

        Jonathan Banks Ministries


        Testimonial 1716 out of 1983

        Bill,

        I just want to thank you for helping me get two fantastic 877 numbers.

        I am a manufacturers representative company selling commercial and industrial HVAC equipment (replacement commercial A/C coils) + other products and services. When I found your site and began searching for an 800 number - I was looking for a particular number that I wanted for my company. Your search engine quickly determined that all of the different #8 beginning area code numbers were taken.

        When I ran into this snag I called your company for help and immediately got through. Amazingly I got you personally on the phone! All I can say is WOW what customer service! My products are technical in nature and I always take pride in personal communication with my customers. When I am the customer I like to get the same service. This level of service has been lost in many US companies. You usually end up getting someone in another country. Not with you. I appreciate all your help and advise.

        Well after some coaching you put me on the correct path. I ended up finding a great 877# that works perfectly for my business 877-OEM-COIL. It took several searches before the idea came to me to search for this number. I simply followed your advise of "... don't give up". Because of this new number and the ease of obtaining it - this caused me to think of other areas of my business and my future plans to expand and break off certain product lines that I have to create other companies as web based businesses all under the umbrella of my main business. I went back and searched again and found another number 877-EZ-FILTER for my A/C filter line. I followed your advise on your main page that you are the "GO DADDY" web site for #800 numbers and I ended up purchasing two numbers form you and two brand new .com web sites that match for future expansion of my business!

        Jason Turner
        877-OEM-COIL to match www.oemcoil.com and
        877-EZ-FILTER to match www.ezfilterstore.com


        Testimonial 1316 out of 1983

        Thanks for the follow up. We obtained access to the number through the group you sent me to. I appreciate your help, and you are always our first choice for toll free searches.
        IMG
        Best regards,
        Lisa Jackson, Vice President - Marketing
        Integra Marketing Group, llc


        Testimonial 716 out of 1983

        Your service helped me get the 888 # that spells my name. I have done a lot of research and have seen that no other site does what you do (& person for that matter)!!

        THANKS!
        Adam Castro
        www.AdamCastro.com


        Testimonial 1228 out of 1983

        I deal with my clients on the same personal, professional basis that you do, and my competition is much like yours: impersonal, unavailable, and only interested in "the initial sale". With such a huge amount of competition in helping business owners to get set up and take credit cards for payment from customers, all of the "good" numbers were already taken. Instead, I took a different tact, and tried to find a number that would not only be easy to remember, but that would proactively push them to make the call while it is fresh on their mind. 877-2-DIAL-NOW is working perfectly for me.

        Thanks for your help and one of the best web sites on the Internet!
        David Bookhardt, your BestCreditCardGuy.com


        Testimonial 1375 out of 1983

        Thanks Bill, your service is impeccable!!
        Arizona medical air transportation
        Wendy Gores
        AirStar Arizona, Inc.