Onebox can claim that it’s possible to transfer a number away from them IF it was transferred in. That may be technically true, but believe me, they do their best to make it as close to impossible as they can. You have to not only pay their “vindictive fee” to be able to leave, but you’ll have to jump through all kinds of hoops.

I saw this post today “One Box Inc Refusing to cancel account” at Ripoff Report, that shows how J2 made this customer jump through hoops just to leave. Imagine how much easier it is to require a customer to jump through hoops to release their toll free number.

After you’ve got all your customers using your toll free number and got it in all your advertising, don’t let Onebox hold you hostage. Get your number from an independent outside service that gives you proof of ownership and avoid companies that treat their customers this way, even if they want to leave.

Onebox charges a $40 fee to transfer an 800 number away even if that number was transferred to them from another service. They claim this fee is for the time it takes to release the number. Fortunately it does NOT take that long and almost nobody else charges this type of vindictive fee to transfer a number away. It’s clearly anti competitive and designed to keep create an additional barrier to keep customers from leaving.

Since they feel it’s reasonable to charge a fee to release a number and because we tell customers that they own their number and can transfer their number away from whatever company they select at any time, we are going to charge customers that transfer their number to Onebox, PhonePeople and eVoiceReceptionist an additional $40 to release a number to any J2 company. J2 thinks their fee is totally fair and valid, so we’re just following their lead. But the difference is that we’re not keeping the customer’s money. We will send them that $40 back when they transfer their number away from Onebox, PhonePeople and eVoiceReceptionist.

We're doing this to help our customers and the whole toll free industry

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This is a post in response to a comment that was made last night on Friday’s post about Big Companies behaving badly. The comment below was actually made by someone in j2, trying to hide their identity. This post was obviously written about j2, the owner of eFax, Onebox, eVoiceReceptionist, TollFreeMax, TollFreeExpress, and PhonePeople. More specifically it’s about the post earlier last week discussing the changes to the PhonePeople terms of service when they were bought by j2.

I answered the comment written by someone at j2, because I’m not ducking from the other side or trying to present just one side. I’m really trying to discuss this honestly, or at least as honestly as you can with people who respond by trying to hide their identity and reply about me instead of the issues.

Here’s j2’s comments about my post asking them to clean up their act.

I was doing some research on toll free service for my boss and came across your website. I have to say that I’ve never been on a site that so blatantly attacked the competition. What an ego trip! Your strategy of keyword stuffing the internet and bashing competitors only makes you sound less legit. You are a reseller? broker? middleman? I’d much rather do business with any of the REAL companies you are bashing.

People come to us for our opinion and advice because we're honest and don't pull any punches... (more)

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Onebox (and many of the other j2 voicemail services) invented a new type of fee. I call it the Vindictive fee. It’s an extra charge they put on customers that transfer in their own number and want to transfer it away. If you want to transfer away a number that you got from them you might as well forget about it, because they’re hold everyone hostage if you use and advertise one of their numbers.

So essentially they charge almost as much as we do to find, activate and release the number just as a penalty for having the audacity of wanting to leave them. Nobody else does this except onebox.com, evoicereceptionist.com and possibly phone people which they bought recently. Your ability to transfer an 800 number is what keeps them honest and I guess they just don’t like having to be honest.

Read the whole story about the Onebox Vindictive fees!

Talk about a vindictive and out of control phone company. Onebox told their customers that they were going to let them transfer their number yet they continue to yank them back! These 1-800 numbers were just transferred to them from another phone company so how can they claim that the customer took one of “their” numbers?

The customer never signed anything agreeing to their ridiculous terms of service. They had it active with another company before it was transferred to Onebox. Yet Onebox continues to insist that they are the customer of the number. They are signing their own resporg forms. That clearly isn’t how the system is supposed to work.

It’s an 888 number and it doesn’t spell anything so the number isn’t worth anything to Onebox. The customer has already cancelled his credit card and they’re obviously not going to pay onebox anything. So why would a customer spend almost $100 in SMS fees to yank back the number repeatedly? That’s why I think Onebox is clearly out of control. Someone should tell their parent company j2 what Alberto Perez and Onebox is doing, because they’re making the whole j2 Global Communications organization look like immature little kids. This is just my personal opinion, but it’s based on their own actions.

Related posts:

PhonePeople holds customers hostage at TollFreeNumbers.com
Why is ownership of your toll free number so Important?
j2 doesn’t want me to tell people what they’re doing
Big Companies behaving badly

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I’ve written a couple posts suggesting that OneBox was stealing their customer’s numbers and breaking the rules but those ultimately based on things that customers told me Onebox had told them. There wasn’t any documentation that they were actually stealing their customer’s numbers.

Here’s the documentation in black and white that they’re listing themselves as the customer. They simply have Danielle Jones sign as the company representative on one form and have Alberto Perez (another Onebox employee) sign as the customer, listing j2 Global Communications (the parent company of Onebox) as the Customer on the other form. They claim that J2 is the end user of this number, yet it was just brought over to them from another company that they bought where the customer had the right to transfer it away.

They offer toll free service but they don’t think the rules of portability should apply to them. They think that even a customer that brought their number over to them from another service can never transfer away. It was Active before it was transferred to them yet it suddenly becomes theirs and the customer loses all their rights to that number when they transfer it over to them?!!

Click here to continue and see all of the documents.

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This is an update of the article I wrote recently about how OneBox.com breaking the rules. One box took over TollFreeMax and TollFreeExpress recently and claimed ownership of all their numbers even though the customer under TFMax and TFExpress both owned the number and had the right to transfer their numbers away. Onebox is ultimately stealing your 800 number and they say they own the numbers and you are stuck with their service.

I’m now even hearing that Onebox is refusing to release numbers even from customers that have transferred their numbers into them, including ones that came from us with proof of ownership. If this is happening to you call me right away and I will get it back for you at no cost at all right away!

More about what you can do if Onebox steels your 1-800 number

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I just received a comment that Onebox.com is holding a customer’s number hostage who didn’t even sign up with them. I’ll let the customer speak for himself:

I got my toll free number from TollFreeMax aprox 4 years ago. Last week i had a problem with the numbers and tried to contact tollfreemax. No answer. I log into their website to find out that the company is out of business and my toll free numbers where transferred to Onebox.com. I called onebox and ask the customer service to have the same options like tollfreemax (ie. block payphone calls). They told me that they do not have the same service options and because now i’m a onebox customer I can’t transfer my numbers to other company because they own my numbers now.

TollFreeMax service agreement when I signed up said “TollFreeMax offers ownership of toll free numbers and has an active pool of numbers for selection and assignment within one hour. Vanity numbers can be assigned within one week. There are no contracts however customers who cancel service in less than one year of signing up will be charged a $25 cancellation fee. VoIP service is available”. I paid $ 25 fee for each toll free number.

My toll free numbers are advertised for 4 years, have it on cars, business cards, invoices, over 3000 customers. I called FCC and made a complaint. They said that onebox is violating FCC rules.

What can I do Next? Should I hire a lawyer?

Thanks,
John

This unsolicited and unedited comment was posted on a page about Onebox stealling numbers. I haven’t contacted the FCC because I just received it on a Saturday morning. This certainly seems abusive but it seems to fit with the experience and the arrogance we’ve seen with Onebox.

Read more about Onebox holding thousands of numbers hostage!

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If you were selling an automobile to someone who told you that it was standard procedure to keep the insurance active for 90 days after you sold the car so they have time to get it insured, what would you do? Because that’s exactly what the Onebox fine print says!

This is a follow up to an article I wrote a few days ago $200 Hidden Fees in Onebox.

Onebox is claiming that it’s common courtesy for phone companies to continue providing the service on a toll free number for 90 days AFTER a customer leaves and the toll free number has already been released to another carrier. This is so totally stupid that I don’t know how to even describe it. Are they going to charge the customer for those 90 days if they’re not providing the service yet? Is the customer supposed to pay the old company and the new company too? Or is the old company supposed to just provide this for free??

It’s EXACTLY like an insurance company saying it’s common courtesy for other insurance companies to continue providing coverage for a car for 90 days after the car is sold so the new insurance company has time to add it to the new owner’s account. If that’s not an excuse to blame someone else for poor service I don’t know what is! It’s so ridiculous I don’t know what else to say or think anything else is really even necessary. It’s just insane…