I got a tough letter from a lawyer (Aaron P. Morris Esq.) today on behalf of TollFreeNumber.org complaining about the two recent posts I’ve written Hidden Fees and Is TollFreeNumber.org lying about the date they began. They claim that they don’t charge any fee to transfer or release a number. I did feel based on the way their rebutal on my website was written that they were hiding something. However, this letter is more straight forward and denies that. So I’m going to apologize and assume that what they are saying is true unless or until I have proof to the contrary. It seems like I may have been given incorrect information about that so I am sincerely apologizing and correcting that. I am however calling their bluff on back dating the age of their organization.

The point of the first article titled Hidden Fees is actually still valid though because some companies DO charge hidden fees, which was clearly the point. I relied on a customer’s complaint to me, rather than finding out for myself and that may have been incorrect. So I apologize but I will continue to investigate it a little further and will post a final follow up on that after I’ve researched it more thoroughly myself.

They don’t dispute or explain the dates at all.

Even their attorney’s angry letter didn’t claim anything I said about TollFreeNumber.org being registered in December of 2002 was untrue or even attempt provide any explanation at all.

This is essentially their whole response regarding my post Is TollFreeNumber.org lieing? I’ve posted the full response on the web since we’re both internet businesses and this arose because of a web post. The lawyer’s letter didn’t mention anything about being confidential so I think being up front and discussing open is the best approach. I didn’t edit it or leave anything out in order to claim that they didn’t dispute anything. This really is the only reference to anything specific regarding this issue in the two page letter. You can read the whole letter for yourself here: Aaron P. Morris’s full TollFreeNumber.org response.

Turning to the specifics of this matter, you post the query on your site, “Is TollFreeNumber.org lieing [sic]?” TollFreeNumber.org states that it has been “assisting businesses and families since 1999.” You apparently make the leap in logic that because the website was not registered until 2002, the business could not have been operating prior to that time. I hope I do not need to explain the fallacy of that logic. Just as I was practicing law long before I ever posted a website, our client was in the toll free number business before it began using the name TollFreeNumber.org.

The portion of the attorney’s letter about the age which I quoted above is interesting for what it says, but even more for what it doesn’t say. It suggests that it’s possible that TollFreeNumber.org existed before the website was registered in December of 2002, but it does NOT actually claim that is the case. In fact the attorney’s letter doesn’t even state that anything in my post is incorrect. They merely claim that it is “defamation” without any specifics at all.

I believe Aaron P. Morris Esq., the attorney for TollFreeNumber.org makes an even bigger “leap in logic” by assuming that because a company could have existed before their domain was registered that somehow proves that they did exist before the evidence of its existence, without even explaining anything.

Their attorney states that an organization can exist before the web, which of course is true. However no company would ever be named whatever.org before the .org domain name was registered. If they existed under a different name, what was that name? And why would an experienced attorney respond like this without even saying anything I said was even untrue or providing even a single thing to contradict what I said.

No company with a .org name existed before the internet

With 13 years of experience in the toll free business, I can state with authority that my business could definitely not exist without the internet and neither could TollFreeNumber.org. The toll free business is too small of a niche to make a store front or proactively market just toll free service in any regular business model. The internet however, allows a small niche like selling mailboxes, weathervanes or toll free numbers to develop into a thriving business because if you do a good job and specialize in one thing, the worldwide web’s worldwide market place will make even a small niche into a successful business.

So it is true that a law firm can exist without a website as Mr. Morris points out. However a business that markets almost exclusively via the internet really couldn’t exist without even having a website or registering a domain name. Large phone companies with a significant customer base and salesforce already in place, could sell toll free service along with everything else. But you couldn’t hire a salesforce to go out and sell just toll free service by itself.

Plus if you use Archive.org and look at the first actual website that they had in 2003, right after they registered it in December 2002, you can tell that with only a couple simple keyword stuffed text based pages it wasn’t much of a presence. Their website didn’t start to improve until they partnered with California Online Internet in 2005, which incidentally is when they suddenly started mentioning 1999 too.

Could a toll free number company exist without even having a toll free number?

Before they partnered with COI, TollFreeNumber.org used the toll free number 800-753-2360. That number wasn’t reserved and activated until November of 2002, right about the same time that their domain name was registered. You can claim that they existed before they had their domain name, but how can you claim a toll free number company existed before they even had their own toll free number? If they had a different toll free number before that one, tell me what number it is and I will show the history of it. But to say a toll free number company existed before they had a toll free number seems kind of dumb to me.

Here’s the Resporg History of 800-753-2360

Here’s the date their Domain Name was registered.

Archive.org listings

If I’m wrong just show us some documentation.

You say you can’t prove a negative in the case of the hidden fees. Well I think I have done a reasonable job of doing just that in the case of their back dating. But if I’m wrong show me some documentation or evidence. If I’m wrong you could certainly prove that if you wanted to. But having an attorney respond without even providing any evidence or even disputing what I said speaks volumes.

Their whole website says repeatedly that they have been assisting businesses and families since 1999. It’s not just in one spot on an out of the way page, it’s in large letters on the top of their home page as well as throughout their website. If they are using Clinton-esq language to mean that one of the people involved with TollFreeNumber.org had worked somewhere else then this is clearly very misleading even if it’s not an outright lie. The implication is clearly that the company has been helping customers since that date.

One person might have had business cards made that mention toll free service or gotten a referral fee for referring someone to a friend that worked at a phone company in 1999 while. But I stand by my assertion that the business itself was NOT started in 1999 and that your client’s statement is clearly very misleading if it’s not an outright lie. I will be happy to retract this and apologize as a bonus. I’ll even turn every mention of them in the recent posts to a live link if they show proof that the business which became TollFreeNumber.org actually operated in 1999. (They obviously want live links since they comment spammed my site to try and add links to their site.)

The question I have is what type of a person or organization makes something up like that and then features it so prominently in their site. What else have they made up or exaggerated about? And don’t make an issue out of something that you’re wrong on and you aren’t even disputing. Mr Morris, if you have any proof disputing or explaining any of the above referenced facts it’s time to provide them. Otherwise I’m sure you (or your organization) will do the ethical thing and remove all unsupported references to your business in 1999 from your site immediately.

I’m only interested in the Truth

Mr. Aaron Morris, you claim that to represent the side of justice. That sounds nice but it is a little naive, to think that a client is always right about everything, don’t you think? I changed my position on your hidden fees based just on your testimony. I hope you and your client will have the same integrity to change your website in light of the hard evidence if you don’t have anything that documents it.

I’ve been in the toll free business for 13 years and as one of the leading authorities in the toll free world, people come to my website and contact me with a wide range of questions and issues related to toll free numbers. And I do have an agenda, it’s called the truth. I love this business and I feel an obligation to not only be honest but to be a flash light in the industry as much as I can. This is a small industry and there isn’t a lot of oversight so a lot of businesses tend to get away with a lot of crap. People come to me because I’m honest and I tell it like it is even to an attorney. And honestly the facts don’t look like they support your client claims. So I am calling on TollFreeNumber.org to either simply show some evidence that supports their claim or to remove it.