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.

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.

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.