While brainstorming with someone for ideas for toll free numbers, we came up with an interesting factor to measure the creativeness of ideas. You have to look for something that makes your wife nervous. I know it’s not 100% but I think most successful entrepreneurs have someone who tends to be more nervous, to balance out their excitement and enthusiasm. Whoever that is for you, look for a number that’s so edgy that it makes a normal person go hmmm. Your consumer or customers, 5 years from now are only going to have more demands and be harder to get through to, than they are today. So start by looking for a unique theme or slogan with personality. For great marketing, think outside the box and say something that makes people raise their eye brows, and makes your wife nervous.

There are a lot of otherwise very attractive websites and toll free services available on the internet that are trying very hard to trap you and your business.  Most customers don’t realize how important portability is.  Your ability to transfer the number is what keeps them honest and unfortunately most internet services don’t like customers having the right to leave them.  They use tricky legal terms that ultimately claim ownership of your number.  So after you’ve printed the toll free number and got it in all your advertising you suddenly find out that the more you advertise THEIR number the more at their mercy you become.
 
That way if something better comes along, or they don’t do a good job or provide poor customer service, you can’t do anything about it.  This leads to doing a good job of getting customers started, but gives them an incentive to provide the cheapest customer service possible in the long run and no incentive to stay competitive on price.  They all look good on the website and when you’re getting started, but the only way to insure you have the ability to transfer your number away is to get it independently and transfer it to them.
 
The worst of these companies discourage customers from getting and transferring numbers in too.  They’ll say you don’t have to do all that work, that they can get you whatever number you want themselves.  But what they can’t get you or at least they don’t want to give you is the ability to transfer your number away.  The more they try to discourage you from transferring your own number over, the more you should look somewhere else for the service, no matter what a salesperson says.

Claims ownership of numbers:

RingCentral.com
CustomTollFree.com
Accessline.com
Phone.com
My1voice.com
Onebox.com
PhonePeople.com
eVoice.com
VirtualPBX.com
MyTollFreeNumber.com
Easytel.net
PATlive.com

Doesn’t list terms:

Tollfreenumber.org (because they don’t provide the service)
FreedomVoice.com (doesn’t list them on their site)

Read the exact terms of service for most of these companies from their own websites.

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The new data is out and monthly emails are going out. The Sale this month is numbers in the disconnect aging process. You can backorder these and we will try to grab them for you when they come out.

You only pay the one time fee for them and own them with no strings, IF we’re able to get it for you when it comes out. 800 numbers are $200 off and only $595 instead of $795 if you backorder them before July 12th. 888 & 877 numbers in disconnect are both $100 off, so they are $495 and $295 respectively. 855 & 866 numbers are still only $195 if we’re able to get them for you when they come out of disconnect. Only one customer can backorder each number too, so if you see a good number in disconnect be sure to backorder it right away!

This sale ends at 9 pm on 7/12 and sale prices are not combined with any additional discounts.

Here’s an email I got the other day which is typical in a sense, so I figured it might be helpful to answer it here for everyone, on the website.

I am looking for an available easy number for a small business i am setting up. I am looking for something like 1800-444-4444 or 1-800-400-4000. Numbers that are easy for people to remember. What could you find for me that meets my requirements?

Unfortunately, the answer is simple. With requirements or even expectations like that absolutely nobody is going to be able to help you. The person writing that hasn’t really analyzed or thought very much about what they’re asking for. There are 8 possible numbers like each of those, since the first number can’t be a zero or a one.

So the request is basically like contacting someone in the domain name business and saying that you’re a small business and want a short easy to remember domain name, something like A.COM. (with just one letter.) Nobody in their right mind would think that a domain name with just one letter would be available. Yet there are 26 letters and another 10 numbers, or 36 domain names with just one letter. That’s twice as many as there are of the toll free number they were asking for. So you could argue that what this customer was asking for is twice as hard as a single digit domain name.

Read more about how to respond to customers with unreasonable expectations.

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It’s very hard to match an existing local number, but if you haven’t gotten your local number yet, this is a great way to try to get a matching local and toll free number.

Ask what exchange is available from your local phone company or cell phone company. Then enter that exchange (the first three digits) into the Toll Free Search Engine on the top of the page at TollFreeNumbers.com. Then in the top of the second box in the search results, you’ll see a section that says “We found some True 800 #s that contain…” your digits. It’ll also show you if any of the following four digits that are available spell things.

Ask your phone company or cell phone company if any of those numbers are available and you’ll probably be able to get those digits in an ‘800’ number and your local or cell phone number. It’ll look really nice on a business card and you were going to have to get a number anyway. So why not get one that matches to give you more consistency.

There were over 400 articles about Primetel recently, and how they had almost 3 million toll free numbers, mostly just to make money from the wrong numbers. This surprised a lot of people but it’s perfectly understandable when you look at the Mass Misdial Marketing business model. If your income was based on the number of wrong numbers you got, and the number of wrong numbers you got was based on the number of good toll free numbers you had, how many toll free numbers would you want? The answer is easy. You’d want ALL of them or at least as many as you could get your hand on to.

The Mass Missdial Marketing business inevitably creates an ever increasing demand for large volumes of toll free numbers. This demand makes it almost impossible for new customers to get ‘800’ numbers any more, forcing new customers to advertise 855 numbers. This ironically increases the amount of wrong numbers from consumers who overlook or forget the 855 area code and dial the defacto toll free area code, ‘800’ area code.

So it’s actually very little surprise that we ran out of toll free numbers and had to open the new 855 area code, or that regular phone companies can’t compete and get ‘800’ numbers from the spare pool any more. The competition has increased to the point that regular phone companies simply can’t get ‘800’ numbers at all any more. The FCC already has regulations against hoarding toll free numbers. They simply have to say that Mass Misdial Marketing is NOT a valid use of toll free numbers, and that any company found to be using toll free numbers for MMM will be considered to be hoarding numbers and may be subject to fines and/or auctioning off their numbers.

I found a number for a customer and they asked me if what we were doing for $49 was the same as what evoice was doing for $30. The answer is simply that it couldn’t possibly any more different, and even if they were willing to PAY YOU literally hundreds of dollars to accept a number from them you’d still be better off paying for a number yourself and transferring it to them, so you have the right to transfer it away for any reason.

Most people assume that because they charge you something for getting a number that it’s the same as paying us to get you a number. But despite how the salesperson wants to make it sound, just because you pay a fee up front doesn’t mean you’re not essentially renting THEIR number, instead of owning it. This is literally a Trap! You have the right to transfer YOUR number away to another service at any time if you get it from us. But no matter what the salesperson says, if you got it from them, you’re stuck with them even if their service turns out to be nothing like what you thought it was going to be. Your ability to transfer the number is what keeps them honest and even if they were paying you, it would be just plain dumb to waive that right for any price.

This sale was extended! Everything is on Sale 10% off but ONLY UNTIL MIDNIGHT Wednday 5/11/11!!

Unfortunately the question isn’t whether we can get you the perfect number. You’re about 15 years too late to find the perfect number. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a good number if you’re creative and thorough. Our goal isn’t to find people the perfect number but to find the best numbers available.

You’ll have to do a number of searches because unless you’re really thorough you won’t know whether the one you find is really the best. That’s why we give you the best tools and make it easy to do as searches as you want. And unlike most other websites, we don’t automatically lock up the numbers you find. Beat on the lookup tool and let us know if you have any questions.

Having a small family business has several benefits and one of the best for me has been being able to work with my mother. (more…)

The new May numbers are out and we’re putting EVERYTHING on SALE for just a couple days. We’ve never done this before but we just lowered the price of Regular Activations, True 800 numbers, Premium Numbers (all levels), and Backorders. This is the first time we’ve ever done this and it will only last until 5pm EST on Wednesday 5/11. There is no codes necessary and even the backorder fee if we’re successful in getting a number will be lowered by 10% if you backorder it during the sale. Search the new numbers, use the new search features and grab the best numbers at the best prices now too.

But wait, that’s only half of the story. Every customer who orders by Wednesday will get their own preferred customer code for a 10% discount on future orders. We’re making everyone a preferred customer that orders in the next couple days. This can’t be combined with existing preferred customer discounts. And will last for either 3 years or we finally get the affiliate program going, since that will replace the preferred customer program. There are a lot of new numbers just showing up and we want to get you a good number and make you a customer for life.

I get calls from people sometimes thinking that the simplest thing is to just call and ask if the number they want is available. This morning a real estate agent called and of course asked me to look up the number they wanted. I did it and as is almost always the case, their first choice wasn’t available. That’s no surprise since it’s not the early 90s. Everything obvious has already been taken quite a while ago.

I explained to the real estate agent that if the perfect house someone had always dreamed of was freely available, it would be easy. They wouldn’t have to think about it, just take it. But since the obvious choice is virtually never “available” you have to be extremely creative to find anything even reasonable. And even after that you have to play with the look up tool enough to know that it’s really the best option. And you can’t truly know that without checking a lot of possibilities any more than you can look at one house and know it’s the best without knowing or seeing anything else.

That’s why our look up tool errs on the side of being almost TOO thorough and why you can’t just check one or two numbers, especially over the phone without being able to see all of the alternatives. So as much as you may think it’s easier to call and ask us to look up something for you, it’s actually more than just the yes or no question you’re thinking it is. So beat on our Toll Free Search Engine as much as possible and if you have any questions or problems, that’s when to give me a call at 1-800 MARKETER. Computers are better at doing the searches and taking the order, and real knowledgeable people are better at answering questions, and explaining or fixing things.

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I’ve talked to a number of reporters now, and after 400+ articles out today, it looks like the cat is officially out of the bag, on Primetel’s millions of toll free numbers. I call them the Black Hole, because they suck up everything in the world and nothing ever comes back out.

Unfortunately toll free numbers are invisible so it’s hard for people to understand and appreciate how many numbers they have. That’s why we made the Primetel Lookup. Just send an email to prime@tollfreenumbers.com with SEARCH FOR as the subject, followed by the word or words you’re looking for. You’ll get an email back within a minute with an amazing list of the “8-0-0” numbers Primetel has related to your terms.

One of the main questions I get a lot of, that isn’t really answered in the articles I read today is simply, “How did this happen?” The simplest way to explain this I’ve come up with over the years is this. You’ve seen companies that make money from the equivalent of wrong numbers on the internet, with domain names. They make a few cents per wrong click or mistyped domain name. Mass Misdial Marketers, like Pimetel do the same thing but with toll free numbers.

If the money you made was based on the number of wrong numbers you received, and the number of wrong numbers you received was based on the number of good toll free numbers you had, how many good toll free numbers would you want? The answer is simple when you look at it like that. Anyone in the Mass Misdial Marketing business would clearly want all the good toll free numbers they can get. They’d just have to do it slowly and quietly enough that nobody realized what was happening. Well that’s how we wound up in this situation where one phone sex business winds up with more ‘800’ numbers than all of the AT&T customer’s combined.

Next I’m going to talk about another part that most of the articles today leave out, what can be done about it?

Yes, some resporg change forms (or LOA’s) are confusing. And yes you may be able to interpret the name field on them, or the “Company Name” to mean the phone company name. But we certainly don’t need to see our own name to release a phone number. And one of the only reasons we reject transfer requests is when the customer puts our name and address down where the Customer information is supposed to go.

The best rule of thumb is, if they ask for the address, then they are referring to customer information. I don’t care how sure you are that they are asking for our address, if you put our name and address on the form it will be rejected. It has to be because we aren’t the customer and we would have no way of knowing if we were releasing it to the right party.

Imagine if instead of keys to unlock your car, you had to give the customer information, the name and address of the owner to open it. That’s not great but at least it’s something. If you only to give the manufacturer’s information how much less secure would that be. It would be totally ridiculous. Well that’s how ridiculous it looks to us to get a request for your number with our name and address on it.

During the last week of November 2009, Signal One transferred 166,569 ‘800’ numbers to Primetel. Then again in February 2010 they released another 100,000 ‘800’ numbers again to Primetel. And in July 2010 they transferred 52,600 numbers to Primetel. I’m not making any assumption or comment about the transfer. I just hadn’t seen a direct connection between Signal One and Primetel before and thought it was interesting and worth pointing out.

TollFreeNumbers.com has been the leading website for searching the national 800 database and a variety of different types numbers for over a dozen years, but we’ve just added something new that nobody else does. We’re tapping into hidden pools of ‘800’ numbers that aren’t officially available but we can get, on other resporgs, in other phone companies.

We’ve also had to add a lot of different programming to search them effectively and we have to pay more for these so these TRUE ‘800’ numbers will be a one time fee of $99. But they’re still $79 for repeat customers and multi-number orders.

The new database with these numbers will go live on Monday morning. This means there are not only more ‘800’ numbers available, but there will also be some real gems just waiting to be uncovered. You’ll find numbers with popular terms that wouldn’t otherwise be available. There will certainly be a lot of competition for the best numbers and unfortunately we can only give them out to the first customer that requests them. So do some searches and grab them as quickly as possible.

Yes it’s “possible” to contact the phone company or even the owner of a toll free number to see if they would be willing to give it up. But just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s easy, or necessarily the smart thing to do, or worth while. That’s up to you. The analogy I use for men is to say that those women are married. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get someone to leave the person they’re with and go with you. But it’s smarter to ask out single or available girls than try to get someone that’s not available to become available.

For women I use real estate and say it’s easier to pick a house that you like which is for sale, rather than picking the house and then trying to get the owners to sell it to you. It’s actually a lot easier to do that way for real estate because people are used to buying and selling houses and there are more fixed values etc. None of those things are true for toll free numbers, which makes it even harder.

Either way, you get the idea. It may be “possible,” but it’s definitely a long shot and isn’t usually the best direction to go. As the saying goes, once you realize you can’t necessarily get the perfect number, there are a lot of other fish in the sea. And even if you do figure you’ve got to try, you should find the best available option as a backup in case the long shot doesn’t pan out. We’re kind of like Match.com, not the old fashioned matchmaker, if you know what I mean. If you can give us the characteristics you’re looking for, we’re good at coming up with all of the possibilities for that. Our look up tools are extremely thorough because it makes it much easier to make a decision when you’ve got ALL the options on the table too.

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We just added a new feature to make it easy to email yourself or someone else, a search result. I often find myself wanting to keep track of certain results when I’m searching for things. You can copy and paste it but now it’s easy to just email yourself the ones with possibilities that you need or like.

On the search results page you’ll see a button that says “Send me a one time email of my Search Results”. This just sends you the one page of results you’re on. You enter your email address and can then just click the button to have any future search page emailed to you as well. We won’t use your email address for anything else or give or share it with anyone else. We hate spam but want to make it easy to hold onto just the results that you need.

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We added a big new batch of Random 800 numbers which means there’s a new batch of GOLDEN numbers. Unfortunately the numbers that stand out to you, also stand out to other people too. That’s probably why you wanted it. So let the easter egg hunt begin.

800-2-HOSTING
800-2-LONDON
800-BY-HEALTH
800-FOR-SALONS
800-FOR-SKIS
800-FOR-QUICK
800-FOR-UNITED
800-GO-SOCIAL
800-GO-SURGERY
800-GOT-MAGIC
800-GOT-NEW IDEAS
800-GOT-TEXAS
800-4-SALT LAKE CITY
800-LOCALIZATION
800-IMPORTING
800-NICE-MED
800-MY-RAINGEAR
800-RING-AMERICA
800-TO-BUDGET
800-TO-DISCOUNTS
800-USA-SOLAR
800-WATER SOFTENERS

Unfortunately because of the size and nature of the databases we can’t update them in real time. So we update the system every few days, which means there is a short period of time that a number may still show up as available but already be taken. In the mean time I figured I’d show the list of best gem numbers that have already been found in the new list in just the first 24 hours.

December 16, 2010

I know that God is blessing you, too, for your generous heart.

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When a number is disconnected, it’s in the aging process and you can backorder it. Usually it’s $4.95 to place the Backorder Request. But until 1/16, the backorder request is only $1.00. The cost if we’re able to get the backorders is also $100 less than usual for most numbers too.

Backorder Sale Prices: 855 & 866 #s are $195 as always. 877 #s are only $295 instead of $395, 888 #s are only $495 instead of $595 and 800 #s which are usually $795 are only $695 if we get them for you, and they were backordered this week before 1/16/11.

Someone asked if we offer volume discounts for Random800 numbers. And I’ve answered this in a couple places but since the availability and even the answer itself to this has changed slightly I thought it was worth mentioning again. We did stop offering volume discounts for True 800 numbers before for a while but we have developed enough to offer the same discounts we do for regular activations again. So we give a 10% discount for 10, 20% for 25, 30% for 50 and 40% for 100 numbers at a time. (100 is the max volume discount) This applies to Random 800s again as well as regular activations, at least while supplies last.

We also treat volume orders slightly different and try very hard to make sure they go through smoothly and easily.

We’ve always been the best at finding great toll free numbers but we just added something brand new that nobody else like this has, an effective search process for LOCAL Vanity Numbers. Now when you use the Toll Free Search Engine on the top of the page at TollFreeNumbers.com, it will not only look for good toll free numbers it’ll also search the pool of local numbers that we have information on and help you find great local vanity numbers too.

It’s important to understand the differences between toll free and local numbers. For local numbers we can’t look up or track down specific numbers. Each different phone company controls and runs their own local numbers. So if you say you want one specific number in one specific area code, we probably can’t help you. We only have access to a couple million numbers which spread around the whole country isn’t a very high percentage of the numbers out there.

We also don’t set them up for you. We are simply referring you to the company that does have that number. We’re trying to make it easy by giving you a simple request form which we will submit to the right place. You’ll have to pay them to get the number, whatever their fee is. We don’t charge anything for using our look up tool, and we’re just referring you to the proper phone company to get the number. The price is set by the company activating the number for you and we don’t have anything to do with it. But I can tell you that most of the numbers we have initially are from a company that can set them up as a prepaid cell phone number for $99 and then it can be transferred to any other cell phone or local phone company you want to use it with.

Local numbers have some advantages today and I think are definitely going to get bigger and bigger over time. One huge advantage is how few people have been able to search for local numbers which means there are a lot of very valuable local numbers available for the asking. So make sure you look at the options and consider them because with more and more cell phones and voip phones your callers aren’t paying per call any more and geography doesn’t matter as much any more, either. So I think more and more, a good local number may be a viable alternative to toll free numbers and may be a great marketing tool for your business.

Many of the Enhanced Voicemail Services have an option to receive faxes on the same number, but don’t do it. This may make it impossible to ever switch a regular toll free service that sends the calls straight to your local number. Not to mention that if you use the number they gave you, you’ll probably have to change numbers if you want to go to a different service. Get your own seperate toll free number and transfer it over to a seperate e-fax type service (like GreenFax.com or BetterFax.com), so you’re guaranteed to be able to transfer it away when your needs change.

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There’s a lot of things to do when you’re starting a new business. And even if you don’t need it for your advertising, it’s very smart to lock up a really good number now, if it’s available. This is also a great time to search for your numberbecause we just went from scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of toll free numbers available to literally having barrels full of numbers for almost any term. Before 855 numbers came out, we were down to almost 2 million numbers available. Now there are about 10 million numbers available. Planning ahead is also smart because numbers in the disconnect, aging process take a while to become available too.

So jump in and grab a good number right away, before it’s taken. Even if you’re not going to actually need the number for a couple months, you can still activate and lock in a great number now and we’ll just hold it for you for free, till you’re ready for it. We give you free temporary service for the first 30 days or 100 minutes of use. But after that, if you don’t do anything with it, we give you free parking for a year. That gives you time to get all of your ducks in a row, which always takes longer than you thought it should too, by the way. We want to help you find the best number and we’ll cover you

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When we get you a toll free number we give you free temporary service for the first 30 days or 100 minutes. If you don’t transfer your toll free number, the free temporary service will expire but you won’t lose the number. We give you free parking for 1 year, just waiting for you to transfer it to whatever company you want to use it with.

It’s really not very hard or complicated to transfer a toll free number. All you need to do is get a transfer form, usually called a responsible organization change form, or LOA (for Letter of Authorization) from the new company you want to transfer the number to. Fill that out and send it back to the new company with the Toll Free Birth Certificate™ that we send you in the toll free manual, which we can also resend to you if you need, by the way.

Our toll free manual comes via email usually within 24 hours of activating your number. It includes your proof of ownership and explains the transfer process. It also includes a couple of the best options that are probably cheaper, and quicker and easer than almost anyone else. We’re trying to empower you to be able to go anywhere but also to make it as easy as possible for people that don’t know where to go to.

There's more on how to transfer numbers and waiting too.

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Australia launched their version of toll free numbers two and a half years ago. One of the first companies to jump into vanity numbers there and two years later, a new research study shows that they passed Pizza Hut as the most recalled phone number in marketing. Read more in The Australian, (Nov. 29).

Before the family arrives (and while it’s still quiet) I’d like to take a minute to thank all the people that make the business work and the customers that make it possible. This has been a crazy year but it’s given us a lot to be Thankful for. Please keep Gloria in your prayers as she battles cancer. And may this be a blessed and prosperous year for everyone.

The first week after 855 rationing was lifted 89,149 numbers were activated, which is about twice the typical weekly volume. There are 10,469,573 spare or available toll free numbers in the national database which the SMS estimates will last just five years.

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Using a good vanity number is a great way to add value to your own marketing efforts and skills. Some people do this with shared use if you can get a prime generic number for your industry. But another easier way to multiple your efforts is to get multiple different numbers, by putting city names or states in front of a term.

Lets say you are a locksmith. You’ll never get 8**-LOCKSMITH, to break it down by area code but you probably could put state initials and/or city names in front of a word like LOCKS or KEYS and get a lot of the 855 variations. You’re probably already building a website, making commercials, flyers and ads etc. Why not sell this whole package hundreds of times. All it takes is a $49 phone vanity number to be able to sell all that work to another locksmith in another state that you’re not competing with.

Read how to make money, marketing your marketing!

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