Some companies steal your numbers...

Why is it important to get your number from an independent company like ours? Quite frankly, it’s scary what some small companies think they can get away with. Here’s a quote from a representative at Telecenter Voicemail, an enhanced voicemail service.

COA Network owns of all of it's numbers. We do not let numbers go and any number that is transferred to be on our service becomes the property of COA Network and will remain so even after the subscriber cancels.

If that’s not stealing, I don’t know what is. That was their policy about a year ago. When questioned about it, they refused to budge. Now a year later, they say they’ve changed their policy. Then the president said that wasn’t their policy.

I asked him if he was a democratic politician because they’re the only ones I know that can defend a policy one day and then a year later, say that was never their position.

I could go on about how horrendous this is, but I think it stands pretty much on it’s own and is obvious. This is why you should always get your number from an independent source and then transfer your number over to the service you want it with. That way you’ll be guaranteed to be able to transfer it away, no matter what their policy changes to next year. And if anyone ever has a problem with the ownership of any number I’ve gotten them, I will personally defend my customers. You still have an obligation to pay for the service you’ve received, but outside of that nobody will be able to steal any number we get for you away like this.

No Whois Lookup for 800 #s

People often come to our site trying to track down the owner of a number, but unfortunately there isn’t any whois lookup to see the owner a toll free number. We have the phone company information for most numbers but they are the only ones that have the customer information.

You can subscribe to our advanced lookup and get the phone company information. That doesn’t guarantee you’re going to be able to get the customer information from the phone company. In fact there’s a very good chance you WON’T be able to get the customer information from the phone company, especially if you ask them for it.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get the phone company to slip and reveal some of that information. It’s not easy to do, but I generally find that the best way is to act like it’s your number. Call them up and ask why its not working. See if they will give you a little information in order to confirm it’s your account. Say yes and look up the city here they’re located and see if you can get that too. It may take several calls, and you need to write down the names of the people you talk to, but you can sometimes get the customer name and the city they’re in, which is usually all you need to track them down.

We only charge a one time fee of $8.95 to subscribe to our phone company lookup. After you order the secure 800 Lookup online you’ll get a receipt. It’ll give you an order ID. Go to the secure version by adding an S after http. Enter your order ID in the Username and leave the Password blank. That doesn’t give you the end user information but it does get you one step closer.

Don’t marry the first girl you meet

So many people fall into this trap in terms of phone numbers. They fall in love with the first number they think of and think that’s the best possible number for them or even the only possible number for their business.

Worse yet, they let themselves fall in love with that number without even checking to see if it’s available or possible to get. This is a formula for failure. I often ask callers if they decided what house they wanted to buy before checking to see if it was for sale. Another even stronger way to say it, might be to ask if they decided what woman they were going to marry before they ever talked to her. It’s not entirely impossible for that to work out, but it is extremely unlikely to say the least. And it’s not impossible for you to get the first number you think of but it is extremely unlikely to say the least as well.

While you’re in love with your first girlfriend it’s easy to think that this girl is the only one that can make you this happy and nobody else will seem as good. If that girl isn’t available, it’ll probably be painful, but eventually you’ll get over her, and you’ll find out that there are a lot more attractive girls (and options) than you realized while you were pursuing your first love.

If you’ve got an important decision, it’s always much easier to make if you have all of the options researched in front of you. Whether you’re buying a house, picking a job or even a mate, it’s much easier if you know what all of your options are. That’s why I usually recommend that you use our Keyword Lookup to help you come up with all of the options related to your concept. It’ll do hours and hours worth of research for you in a couple minutes. And even if you still think the first one you wanted is the best, it’s still smart to have some backup plans and know what other options there are for you.

It’s OK to start with your first choice. Just don’t get fixated on that to the point of ignoring all of the other possibilities.

Channel Partners was a huge success.

We just got back from the Channel Partners show in Las Vegas. It was a great show for us this year. We had a great time and met a lot of excellent contacts in different phone companies and sales agencies.

The biggest hit was the preprocessed 800 watch lists. We put the company names along with a couple terms into the Keyword Lookup and made a report for each exhibitor. We handed out our phone button magnets and my new metal business cards. We had new embroidered shirts and everyone felt very professional and we looked like real team.

The titanium business cards were definitely a huge hit too. They were an investment, but I figured that since so many people get sooo many business cards at these shows, that this was a good way to really stand out. Every single person we gave it to was totally impressed, to the person. I can’t wait to go back to the next time and hear the continued reaction and how many people remember it from this time.

The shirts also made us look like a real team and a real business. That and our experience all made for a great function. I’ll add some pictures too

Phone Companies make mistakes

If you automatically believe the things a phone company representative that you don’t know tells you about a toll free number you’re definitely going to wind up operating under the wrong assumptions and heading in the wrong direction. It’s strange how people will believe things a someone they don’t even know the name of or what their background or experience is, who doesn’t really know very much about toll free numbers, and is just repeating something she thinks she heard someone else say, over me. They will even believe things you don’t even make any common sense at all and come back and essentially ask why I told them the wrong thing, or even worse why is my lookup tool wrong. I just don’t get it.

Several times per day I have to say no, they were just wrong. It may be that they misunderstood what you were asking for and therefore gave you the wrong answer. It may be that you asked the question wrong or for the wrong thing. They could just be repeating something they heard someone else say. They could even be saying something just to get you off the phone or to pass you on to someone else.

You also have to realize that most phone company representatives wind up with Cubiclitis. (Cubice-itis) It’s a mental disease that comes from sitting in front of a computer in cubicle too long. It appears most in customer service representatives of large companies. The three most recognizable signs are a person’s belief that the computer is never wrong, that if they don’t know how to do something it is impossible to do, and that if something is against their policy that nobody in their entire organization can do it. It can be passed on by word of mouth, even over the phone, but only to very gullible callers.

So the bottom line is that you should never believe anything a phone company representative says (especially if it doesn’t make sense) without verifying it with one or more additional calls.

How much help can we give

I always try to be helpful to visitors to our business or website, especially when people call with difficult issues for a toll free number. However that doesn’t mean that I can necessarily solve your problem or even tell you how to do it.

If it’s a number that we got you, I certainly feel we have more of an obligation. But callers need to realize that as much as I do want to help I really don’t get paid for solving most problems. And offering to pay me for my time is nice but there’s ultimately no mechanism for that, nor should there be. We really try to help customers because I believe what goes around comes around.

We’re always happy to help callers but some callers really need to understand that there’s a difference between being helpful and expecting me to guide you the whole way through their situation. I often find that after I give someone some advice I wind up with call after call, where they tell me everything that they did and were told so I can tell them what to do next, every step of the way. Like I said I want to help everyone as much as possible, and I like to hear the outcome of a difficult situation too. But you also have to respect our time at times too.

Some people seem to operate entirely under the assumption that what they are trying to do absolutely has to be possible. Unfortunately everything is clearly NOT possible and as difficult as that may be to face, it is ultimately easier to face that than to pursue something endlessly. Sometimes persistence means backing off on it right now and trying it again in three months. That often allows you to gain some perspective and proves to other people that you are persistent without being obnoxious or belligerent.

You might also get a way to follow up with an agent by just sending a thank you card and then a Christmas Card. You’d be surprised how few customer service representatives ever get Christmas Cards and how much more that will make them want to help you. You don’t have to send anything expensive but sending a birthday card will help you cross the line from customer to friend.
There’s another type of question too that we see and we are happy to get these. These are the questions that people call up with just to find out if we’re real. We have to answer their questions but the purpose is really just to make sure we are competent and willing to help them if they need it in the future. It takes a little getting used to, to recognize them but once you do they are very easy to work with. They are easily recognized because they are always the most obvious questions that are clearly answered on the website. It’s often a little frustrating when people ask questions that are clearly answered on our website, but this is a clear exception.

Transferring, activating & canceling reservations

Sometimes people ask if they can transfer a reservation or they go to their carrier and try to transfer a number they reserved on our site. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. You really can’t transfer a reservation. You can’t even yank (NASC) a number that’s reserved the way you can an active number.

If a representative tells you the number you reserved isn’t available that is usually because they are looking in the spare pool of numbers that are available, and when you reserve a number it’s taken out of the spare pool. Otherwise anyone else would be able to get it, and that wouldn't be a very good reservation.

If a representative tells you that you need to cancel the reservation so they can get it for you, don’t believe them. Canceling a reservation means that anyone can get it and there are definitely a LOT of sharks that are very smart and very fast. They figure if someone reserved it, it must be valuable to someone. So many of them will reserve it first and analyze it second. If it’s important you NEVER want to unreserved it, even for a second. This is especially important if you’re transferring the number to a smaller company because most small companies aren't resporgs so they have to go through another organization which they don’t control so there’s no way for them to get it done quickly.

Some phone sex companies have high speed programs that constantly suck up numbers blindingly fast all day long. You can take a random 8-0-0 number that has 1s and 0s and doesn’t spell anything and drop it into the pool into the spare pool and run a query in another window at the same time and it’ll be taken by the phone sex company before you can even click. They’ll get ANY number in less than a split second. I really don’t want to have to say I told you so.

Our whole system is designed to help you get the best number and then transfer it to whatever company you want it with. But you have to follow the system. We help thousands of customers get and transfer their numbers all the time and we know how to do it. The only safe way to transfer a number is to activate it and use the standard resporg change process. Here’s a link to the page that explains the process and links you to the secure order form to activate your number. Http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/activation.shtml

After you activate the number you’ll get our toll free manual which explains the transfer process and includes your Toll Free Birth Certificate™ which is your proof of ownership so you can transfer the number. You send that in with the resporg change form that you get from the company you want to transfer it to. It doesn’t usually cost anything to transfer your number and it usually takes a few days. (see http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com/speed.shtml for the average speed)

If you were just canceling your reservation because you don’t need it, changed your mind or just reserved more than you needed, don’t worry about it. We really don’t cancel reservations. We keep them for more than 15 days in case customers change their mind, ask for time or just run a few days late. We don’t have a way to cancel reservations for two reasons: First, because after 30 days sometimes we reuse them for other customers or add them to our own pool. Secondly because it’s just not necessary. Unlike other carriers if you wanted to use it with another service than ours, that’s great. That’s really the whole point of our service anyway. So if you don’t need the reservation don’t worry about it, and if you do need it, just activate it and we’ll help you transfer it anywhere you want it safely and efficiently.

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Phone Companies make mistakes

If you automatically believe the things a phone company representative that you don’t know tells you about a toll free number you’re definitely going to wind up operating under the wrong assumptions and heading in the wrong direction. It’s strange how people will believe things a someone they don’t even know the name of or what their background or experience is, who doesn’t really know very much about toll free numbers, and is just repeating something she thinks she heard someone else say, over me. They will even believe things you don’t even make any common sense at all and come back and essentially ask why I told them the wrong thing, or even worse why is my lookup tool wrong. I just don’t get it.

Several times per day I have to say no, they were just wrong. It may be that they misunderstood what you were asking for and therefore gave you the wrong answer. It may be that you asked the question wrong or for the wrong thing. They could just be repeating something they heard someone else say. They could even be saying something just to get you off the phone or to pass you on to someone else.

You also have to realize that most phone company representatives wind up with Cubiclitis. (Cubice-itis) It’s a mental disease that comes from sitting in front of a computer in cubicle too long. It appears most in customer service representatives of large companies. The three most recognizable signs are a person’s belief that the computer is never wrong, that if they don’t know how to do something it is impossible to do, and that if something is against their policy that nobody in their entire organization can do it. It can be passed on by word of mouth, even over the phone, but only to very gullible callers.

So the bottom line is that you should never believe anything a phone company representative says (especially if it doesn’t make sense) without verifying it with one or more additional calls.