“Locking Up” a number is the term we use when you do searches on the wrong website and a number that was previously available is suddenly reserved by them without a specific request to do so.

We’ve written several posts about companies that do this such as The Dark Side of Shared Use, and we’ve put up some warnings about searching for toll free numbers on other websites too, such as Searcher Be Ware. But this still happens to a lot of people.

Some of the worst offenders

Unfortunately slimy companies like CustomTollFree.com, CallSource, Dial800, OneBox, TollFreeNumber.org and GotVMail.com don’t post any warnings and most look very legitimate, but they’re Fake Pone Companies and as soon as you search for an 800 number there, the number you wanted gets sucked up and suddenly isn’t available anywhere else. In some cases if you talk to them they will even reserve other neighboring numbers as well to make sure you can’t get anything else either.

This is obviously a very slimy tactic to say the least and should probably be illegal. It verges on the edge of 800 number warehousing because their website reserves numbers without an actual customer request to do so, so it may actually be against the regulations. At a minimum it’s one of the biggest red flags which indicates a potentially dishonest company that you should certainly avoid. Big name brand companies like AT&T or Verizon don’t do this for a reason. It’s only the smaller companies you haven’t heard of before you searched on the web that feel they can get away this crap. They may look good and justify it as a way to protect you, but the bottom line is that they are only doing it to try to lock you in to their more expensive 800 service. And if it wasn’t more expensive, why would they have to do this to get customers?

The two main sites that I know are safe and aren’t Locking Up numbers are ours and AT&T’s lookup. AT&T’s doesn’t do many of the additional things that our site does, but sometimes it’s nice to have a back up or place to double check things safely.

Shared Use companies are the worst

Shared use companies are definitely the worst because they aren’t just making you use their service. They act like a phone company but they’re also claiming to be the end user and they claim THEY own the number and you can only RENT it from them for $49 a month per area code or something like that. Forget that you could have gotten it for just a one time fee of $49 for the whole country forever from us. Whatever the fee is for a shared use number, you can guarantee it will go up at some point in the future if you advertise it. Because the more you advertise and promote THEIR number, the more at their mercy you become, and they know it.

Not every number that was recently taken was “Locked Up” like this

There are some potential explanations, such as someone else just asking for the same number at another phone company. On average, 8 thousand numbers get activated every day. You may also be looking at our emailed list or the Alternatives box in our Search Results, which operates off of a cached database from the beginning of the month. This increases the frequency of numbers that aren’t available any more, especially later in the month. Every lookup also has a hold time. Ours is set as low as possible but it will still hold a number for a minute after a search was done so that if you repeat it too quickly within a minute or two, it won’t be available. This gives phone companies time to reserve a number that was available, and it allows you to search with wildcards without the same numbers coming up repeatedly. So every number that was available but was taken recently, wasn’t Locked Up. We can check and verify this for you if you email us the number.

We want to help you if you’re a victim of “Locking”

So if you suspect your number has been Locked Up, do NOT contact them or inquire about the number. That will only cause them to activate the number and hold on to it. The best way to get it is to say and do nothing to them. Instead, email us the number and we’ll show you the resporg history showing exactly who took it and when, so we can tell you if it was just reserved by a company known for locking up numbers. We will also calculate the exact day the reservation will automatically expire. If they don’t activate it in the mean time, which they usually don’t, if it’s not something other people would search for or want. So if you don’t say or do anything else about it, it will often drop back and we may be able to get it for you.

This is similar in a lot of ways to our 800 number backorder process. We do it right after the backorders but we only charge the regular $49 activation fee. We don’t mind doing the extra work to get those because we hate to see customers get screwed like that and we love sticking it to the slimy companies that do Lock Up numbers like that. You may also want to post something here or somewhere on our website about it to warn other visitors too, and you can mention the website that Locked you up, but don’t mention the number. And I will usually change the date on those posts too in case they happen to see it.

If you do go to other websites DO NOT give out any information about the numbers you’re looking for.

This is an abdominal practice and the sites that do it are totally wrong. And we love sticking it to them and helping customers get those numbers. Unfortunately that takes a few weeks to wait for it to drop. If you can’t wait, try our Keyword Lookup to see if you can find some other alternatives, because we can often find something just as good that is immediately available. We’re real people and we do NOT lock up numbers on people and we do want to help anyone that has had their number Locked out from under them!