Why do Numbers get lost?
You’ve probably noticed that although the domain name industry is fairly similar in many ways, the toll free system is a little less open and transparent than domain name. (OK, maybe it’s a lot less.) There is no whois lookup for toll free numbers the way there is for the domain names and the phone companies aren’t supposed to give out the customer information.
There is also no cleaning mechanism for toll free numbers or automatic process to return unused toll free numbers to the spare Available status. Toll free numbers have no physical presence so when an account gets disconnected if it owes money, it may get sent to collection and all the toll free numbers on that account may get put into a holding status. Then whether they pay the bill or not, the toll free numbers are usually just left there. Another example is when a company activates a bunch of toll free numbers for tracking purposes and then stops using them. A lot of things could happen, like someone leaves the company, or they just don’t have the need any more and they are often just left on the account. They cost almost nothing, and don’t show up anywhere other than a line buried in the back of a phone bill. Who has time to go through every line of a large phone bill? Your personal phone bill is nothing compared to the size and complexity of a large company’s. Neither of these examples even mentioned phone companies or customers merging or getting taken over.
There are a lot of ways to lose track of a phone number or even what it spelled (which probably isn’t written down anywhere). We all lose things. Imagine how easy it would be to lose something that’s invisible. If a toll free number isn’t ringing to an active number, it exists only on paper, so it’s very easy for a customer or a phone company to lose track of it and not even realize that they may technically have it.
Sometimes a transfer request with the right name and address is enough to get a number switched over to a new company where it can be set up properly.
The first thing I told you in the digging deeper section was that you need to have a back up because it’s a very difficult thing and there’s clearly a good chance you’ll fail.
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The Galaska's says:
May 7, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I contacted my local phone company today (D&E) about an 888 number that is of interest to me. When I call the number it says it has been disconnected, so I’m thinking maybe its available. D&E told me they found out it belonged to Sprint and I would need to call them. So I called Sprint and they said it belongs to one of their resellers - Conversent. So I called the number they gave me for Conversent and OneCommunications answered. They said the number is disconnected and when that happens it reverts back to Sprint. So I called Sprint back and they said the “resboard” shows its active and therefore still belongs to the reseller. So I called D&E back and they faxed something for me to sign so they can try and get the number for me - but it could take awhile. I’m afraid the number will be gone by then. Anything else that I can do, or that you can do?
Dan
Bill Quimby (610 comments.) says:
May 7, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Dan,
This sounds like a classic stuck in the cracks scenario. They each think the other has it and nobody sees the whole picture. They’re only looking at what they see in their computer and they live and die by the computer. If it doesn’t exist in their computer it Doesn’t exist.
The only thing I can say is that this number is probably ultimately obtainable. But it’ll take a lot of persistence. Keep trying and trying and trying.
You can also put the number into the Monitoring box in the Advanced Keyword Lookup at http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/keyword/ and that will show you the status every month. Maybe that’ll also be good to remind you to make a phone call to ask someone about it. Also try sending a gift basket to a helpful representative in one of the phone companies.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other specific questions.
Bill