Bill Quimby (209 comments.) says:
February 20, 2008 at 9:01 pm

No, we don’t offer shared use numbers. We do list third party numbers and simply refer people to the owner of the number. There is a post about our 3rd party number listings it in the Lookup section if you’re interested. There are also a few companies that do shared use routing services like what I think you’re looking for.

800-Telesmart
800-ADEPT
800-PATHWAYS
Swift Reach Networks
Call Source

Also consider Kall8 or McLeod USA if you want to get started cheaply managing it yourself. I’ll add a post about this later with more information after we have the Directory system working.

I’m not against shared use in all situations, but I wrote an article recently about the downside of shared use goes into several of the problems to avoid with shared use which you might want to read if you haven’t already too.

.Bill Quimby.

Bill Quimby (209 comments.) says:
April 7, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Jonathan,

I know shared use is popular in the legal industry but I really don’t recommend shared use for anyone. Here’s a post from a similar question on shared use 800 negotiations. You wouldn’t build a house on someone else’s rented land would you? Because that’s what you’re doing if you rent someone else’s number and advertise it. The more you advertise it the more at their mercy you become. And that almost always creates a bad situation.

If you feel you don’t have any alternative, be extremely careful. Their contracts aren’t written to be fair, they’re written to give them all of the control and power and to insure that you have none. You’re really better off being more creative and if you’re trying to build a brand name, find something you can own. Otherwise you’re just building someone else’s name with every dollar you spend in advertising.

You should really try our Keyword Lookup yourself right from the homepage at TollFreeNumbers.com. Or even better try the Advanced Keyword Lookup at http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/keyword/. It’s a great tool to find all of the options for any keywords. Put in your state abbreviation in front of generic terms. Use your names too, not just generic terms. Be creative and put in lots of small simple terms and beat on the Keyword Lookup. And you’ll OWN any number find for less than the monthly rent for a shared number that you never own or control!

.Bill Quimby.

Bill Quimby (209 comments.) says:
April 19, 2008 at 10:16 am

James,

There’s really no way to tell you exactly what someone in shared use is going to want for a number, whether they will only rent it or if they’ll ultimately sell it outright. Many of them will ultimately sell it if they don’t have anyone else using it, but they will use shared use as a way to claim it’s worth $10,000 a month if they rented it in 100 area codes for $100 a month or something ridiculous like that.

Some will insist on renting it mainly because that ultimately gets them much more money in the long run than anybody would ever pay up front for a toll free number. You may think $50,000 is a lot up front and that $500 a month sounds better, but once you’ve put it onto your trucks, your yellow pages and advertised it for a while and they double the rate a couple times, you’ll find yourself paying several thousand a month and couple years later you’ve paid well over $100,000 because now you’re stuck and have invested so much into it.

So just be careful that you don’t get into rental quicksand. And whatever number they start out at, know that there are no book values in this business so you can probably get it for between 25 and 50% of the numbers they throw out at first if you negotiate long enough.

It’s not that all shared use is a “lost cause”. Some shared use companies are definitely more of a problem than others. And if you need it nationwide, or don’t have deep pockets, shared use is definitely not the way to go. You also have to realize the real danger of building your business on someone else’s property.

They may have a nice website and seem very reasonable up front, but when you put yourself at anyone else’s mercy it almost inevitably creates a conflict and leads to abuse. The only question is how abusive are they going to be. In this case, 800-479-5625 is with Rollinium, which I describe as (a big # squatting) company. They are one of the worst in the shared use business which is really saying something.

All you have to do to get your answer about how abusive are they going to be is try to find out who owns that business. You won’t find anything but dead ends and PO Boxes. If that doesn’t prove the point, just read their contract. It gives them ALL the power and guarantees that you will always be at their mercy with no rights at all, no matter what. I could go on, but will leave it at that.

Rollinium along with a couple other companies are also being investigated by some authorities. I can’t say anything more except that they are being even more paranoid and bunkered down than normal.

If you were driving by and saw a house that you really loved and decided you wanted to buy but they didn’t want to sell it what would you do? The best alternative in that situation is simply just to look around for other similar homes. Most people assume that one house they saw first is the best and that no other house could be as good as that one. It may take some work and some time to get over your first true love, but there are actually a LOT more options for ANY business than the owners ever realize at first. You just have to be more creative and more thorough and maybe more patient too.

I’ve said this before but my best advice is still, to try our Keyword Search at http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/keyword/ with a lot of short simple keywords and let the computer dream up and check thousands of numbers. It’ll email you a list of the ones that are available or going to be available that will make it much easier. Be more creative and think outside of the box. Try thinking up creative slogans, not just ways to describe your business.

Bill