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.

I guess it’s natural that you would feel this way since you work for j2, the company I’m referring to in this post. There’s several ways to see the originating servers and the owners location, but that really only confirms what’s pretty obvious in your message. I’m willing to discuss this with you or anyone there. You really don’t need to try to mislead people though. That only makes you look even more dishonest.

I’m just asking you to behave like a real company.

To start with, this wasn’t a “bashing” post. If you had really read it, you would have realized that. I was simply asking you to behave more like a large company. I don’t want to have people calling me and giving me these horror stories. They’re bad for the whole industry. The only thing worse would be to do nothing and allow this type of abuse to continue.

I have a responsibility to my visitors to be honest and share my experience.

I have a very visible website with a lot of traffic and visitors come here for information about toll free numbers and toll free service. The bottom line is that they’re looking for my experience. I’m not making any of this up. I write about the things that come up from callers. If you would stop hurting your own customers with this crap, I would be very glad to stop writing about j2.

It’s easier to sit by and do nothing. I don’t have any direct financial gain from pointing out what you’re doing. This isn’t about benefiting me, it’s about doing the right thing for YOUR customers. Ironically it seems like I care more about YOUR customers than you do in this case. I’m just trying to help people that you’re hurting because it’s the right thing to do. Fortunately I don’t work for anyone else or answer to anyone, so I can be more honest and do what I think is right even if it ruffles some feathers. I’ve been successful in and love this business so I feel like I have an obligation do what I think is right for the industry even if it makes company that’s hurting people, uncomfortable.

Competition?

Anyone who reads or uses my website knows that I’m not providing the ongoing service the way you are. I’m pretty much the only one in the toll free industry that’s NOT your competition. I’m basically the equivalent to a domain name registrar for the toll free world, and you’re the equivalent of the hosting company. You don’t do what I do really. And I certainly don’t do what you do. I’m not telling customers or prospects to use me or my service instead of yours. That’s not my business model and you know that.

Protecting my customers

I have an obligation to protect my customers and warn them about anyone that could effect or even take away their ownership of their number which they came to me for. Should I care more about the feelings of the people that take away the ownership of their customer’s numbers or my customers. I don’t think there’s ever going to be any doubt about that to anyone that has ever dealt with me.

I’m not an idiot and my readers aren’t stupid.

Lastly your premise that people who are getting a toll free number and looking for a provider would think that the person documenting significant problems with companies is going to make customers want to use the company that’s stealing their customer’s numbers is absurd. You just don’t like that someone is pointing out how wrong you are and having to change. This only shows that you just don’t get the customer’s point of view or needs at all. You care more about trying to hold onto customers and hurt any that want to leave, than you do about trying to keep them by providing the most valuable service possible.

You obviously can’t dispute what’s in your own terms and conditions, so I guess it’s only natural that you would have to attack the messenger. Just remember that the more you try to try to retaliate against me for pointing out your own mistakes, the worse it makes you look. You’re the big company here and leaving posts with fake names hiding your identity only reinforces the point of the original article.

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