3 problems with the Dark Side of Shared Use
01/11/2008
Someone recently asked me why I was so against “Shared Use.” I’m really not personally against “REAL” shared use. I do compete in some ways with shared use so naturally some of my material positions me as the alternative to shared use. But I’m actually all for real shared use, which is taking a good number, building it into a real promotional tool and allowing it to be used by multiple businesses in their local area. When I first got into the toll free business I was doing shared use. But unfortunately shared use has a dark side, with some very serious downsides too.
They’re trying to have it both ways.
There are three main things about some company’s definition of shared use that I have a problem with. First of all some “shared use” companies look and act like phone companies, even becoming Resporgs and allowing customers to request numbers from their website. That’s why I warn people not to use multiple lookup tools too. But when an unsuspecting customer calls or uses their website to ask for a number in the spare pool instead of reserving it for them, they reserve it for themselves and offer to rent it to the customer for a much higher monthly fee. They picked it out of the pool because of the customer’s interest or request (acting like a phone company) so it’s clearly dishonest to say they own it and try to rent it to the customer.
Some will even reserve all of the neighboring numbers in order to pressure that customer who thought they were a phone company, into renting their number for dozens of times per month what they could have gotten it for from a regular carrier. In this case, the shared use company is using their phone company image and capabilities, and acting like a phone company but pretending they are the end user so that the phone company role and it’s regulations don’t apply to them. They want to have it both ways with the best of being a phone company and the best of being the end user, and they make some money but that’s clearly wrong to say the least.
It’s not shared use if they’re not really “sharing”
I also don’t think they should be allowed to call themselves shared use companies if they have less than 1 unique customer per number. Some “shared use” companies “rent” numbers out to one customer nationwide and call that shared use because they keep Alaska or Canada. Or they have thousands of numbers they sucked up and aren’t using, just hoping someone will call or come to their website and want it. (And setting up a sister company to hold them all doesn’t count as a unique customer or fool the FCC or anyone) If you’re not “sharing” numbers how can you call it “shared use”? Many companies seem to use shared use as a camouflage for hoarding and brokering and this is easy to distinguish if the number of real monthly customers is greater than the number of toll free numbers they are holding.
Absolute power tends to corrupt even the best intentions
The third and perhaps most important problem is with removing the customer’s right to select the carrier or toll free service of their choice and or raising the rates based on the customer’s use and need for the number. If the free market and competition doesn’t apply to an industry, the rates always go up and the service goes down, whether it’s the medical industry, education, or the cost of a shared use number. All shared use companies don’t raise the rates ridiculously on their customers once they are hooked, but some certainly do.
Shared use has it’s place and can be a real win-win deal. I’m all for real shared use because that takes a scarce resource and improves it and makes it available to more people. That is good for the industry and good for all or at least most of the participants and even the caller. But when the line between phone company and end user isn’t maintained or when it’s used as an excuse to get around the regulations against hoarding and brokering, or to lock customers into contracts that leave them at the mercy of the number owner, that’s the dark side of Shared Use and it makes the whole toll free industry look bad.
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Bill Quimby (510 comments.) says:
January 22, 2008 at 10:14 am
Sandy was upset or annoyed that some numbers which were available previously said they were available aren’t any more. I’ve changed her name and removed her message with the numbers in order to prevent the people who reserved them from realizing what numbers we’re referring to.
Sandy,
I’m going to guess that you talked to Dial800 on the 21st. Because they are the ones that grabbed all of them from the spare pool at the same time.
It looks like you may be an example of the first point about shared use companies acting like phone companies to get numbers from the spare pool based on customer requests and then turning around and pretending that they were shared use numbers just so they can charge astronomical monthly fees and rates. Right now they are all reserved and will drop out of reserve on 3/6/08.
I really want to help customers in this situation and stick it to anyone doing this type of crap. So if you still want them we can get them for you when they drop if you contact us around 3/4 or 3/5. They would only be $49, but we can’t get them until they are released.
.Bill Quimby.
Bill Quimby (510 comments.) says:
January 22, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Bill,
Chalk it up to my naivety. I did call them based upon their GOOGLE listing. There wasn’t a heck of a lot of info on pricing. But geez, when they came back to me it was something like $99/month PLUS 9 cents per call! It just seems like they are not playing fair. I even GAVE them the phone number because I didn’t know how to reserve it!
Is there any way to get it before March? Or am I opening up a can of worms…you know, let sleeping dogs lie?
Sandy
Bill Quimby (510 comments.) says:
January 22, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Sandy,
Unfortunately there’s no good way to get numbers that someone else has reserved like that before the reservation expires. Because if you call them, they will probably just activate it so it won’t drop back into the spare pool at all. The only way to get a number like that is to pretend you don’t want it and quietly ignore them. Even calling them and telling them you don’t want it will only make them think you want it. Unless you don’t mind paying $1200 a year and three times as much per minute just because you told them about the number you wanted.
The sad part is that they do this because they make SO MUCH money just ripping people off.
So yes, let those sleeping dogs/wolves? lie and I’ll try to get it for you for a one time $49 fee. And I’ll be glad that they hate me for shining the light on this extremely shady practice! They should honestly be ashamed of themselves and this type of thing is why they give the whole industry such a bad name.
.Bill Quimby.
PS. Their obnoxious comments will continue to be removed from this and any other part of our website!
Bill Quimby says:
February 6, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Here’s a good analogy. Imagine if you went to a website that looked like a domain name registrar that allowing visitors to search for domain names. But instead of registering domain names in your name, they registered every domain name in THEIR name and offered to rent it to you for $1000 a year. Oh and by the way, you have to use their over priced hosting too. That’s what several companies are doing to people.
I guess they don’t need to get very many numbers to make the same money that the people doing it for $10 a year do….
Buyers Beware! says:
March 18, 2008 at 10:33 am
DO NOT USE customtollfree.com! This company is a scam - if you enter a number to search for its availability, they will automatically reserve it, effectively making it UNAVAILABLE to all other toll free number service providers (Responsible Organizations, a.k.a., “RespOrgs”). If you are suckered into paying them for a number, you will be charged OUTRAGEOUS fees, and THE NUMBER WILL NOT BELONG TO YOU! You will only be RENTING it from them. Of course customtollfree.com does not explain most of this to you on their web site. How do I know? A telephone company I was considering using went to customtollfree’s web site to see if the number I wanted was available, without my permission.
How do I know the rest of this stuff? I called tollfreenumbers.com and spoke directly with the company’s founder, Bill Quimby. Unlike most business nowadays, I got right through, was not put on hold, and did not have to navigate through 29 menu selections to speak to a live person. Bill is extremely knowledgable about the toll free number business - he took the time to explain my options, made some suggestions, and strikes me an honest and sincere businessperson - a rarity these days. If you’re looking for a toll-free number, don’t waste your time shopping around anywhere else (I regret that I did) - this is the place to go: tollfreenumbers.com