I got rid of our 800 # cause the only ones who used it were free loading friends and relatives and it was costing $100.00 a month from A T & T. After reading these posts I was obviously getting ripped off anyway.
__________________ www.tshirtmissionary.com - Still have much to do, but it's a start. T-shirt forums rocks.
question?? is your 800# on the same line as your existing line. or do you have to designate a certain phone outlet. sounds to me that its all one line. then you would never know if its a costumer or a friend
question?? is your 800# on the same line as your existing line. or do you have to designate a certain phone outlet. sounds to me that its all one line. then you would never know if its a costumer or a friend
The 800# can "terminate" anywhere you want. You can make it terminate (forward) to your existing business line, your home phone number, to a special number you setup. It is separate from a phone number.
then you would never know if its a costumer or a friend
You really can't tell. Caller ID still works when it comes in on the 800, so if it's someone I recognize, I don't answer, then call them back in a few minutes.
My business phone service is with Vonage - I save a ton with them. I am adding an 800 # soon as well and will go with Vonage for sure.
I did have problems with Vonage once - no service for 1/2 a day. It was a regional outage. The other issue is that if your internet service is out, so is your phone. I have Vonage set up so that my calls are forwarded to my cell phone if this happens though.
then you would never know if its a costumer or a friend
With the gotvmail service that tqualizer recommended, when a call is transferred to you, you can make it so that it announces the callers phone number and name before it transfers the call so you can decide whether or not to answer it or send it to voicemail.
I’m sorry if this post is a bit long, but I’ve been in the toll free business for over 12 years and I wanted to address a couple of the questions or issues you raised.
You can use a big name company like AT&T but you often pay twice as much for the usage & monthly fee. And you do NOT need to use the same company that provides the physical line for the toll free service. There are actually several reasons not to use the same company. The incumbent local phone company is usually the most expensive option and VOIP and cellular companies also tend to be worst informed.
Phone People was also just mentioned but not only to they reserve numbers on you but they are very deceptive about the rates. You might think you’re paying 3 cents per minute but unless you read the fine print of their contract you won’t realize that you’re paying for two minutes for every minute you talk to someone. That’s not illegal, but it clearly is unethical. I would also go back to the first month Phone People was on the web with Archive.org (just a couple months ago) and look at how many undocumented and unnamed testimonials they had their first day. Again not illegal but if they're willing to make up testimonials what else are they willing to do? They are a good example of why you have to be careful about buying a service from a company’s website alone.
Enhanced voicemail services can announce the calls but they cost more per minute. But those extra features may be worth it if they allow you to work together with other people in your organization more effectively and to sound more professional.
Any phone company can get you a random toll free number. But it’s not easy to get a vanity number you spells something relevant for your business. You also have to be careful which company you search on, because most of the companies that have been mentioned in this thread reserve the numbers you find available so you have to get them from them. Again that’s not illegal, but it is unethical and can lock you into a bad situation if you’re not careful.
Last edited by Solmu; October 28th, 2007 at 10:08 PM.
Reason: removed self-promotion, please read the forum guidelines
We were using GotVmail, but recently switched over to Ringcentral.com. You get a little more for less money. We've been very happy with them so far. I would highly recommend them.
A friend told me its impossible to get an 800 number because they ran out but I think someone filled his head with baloney. I see them advertised everywhere. He pays $35/mo for an 800 number he doesn't use because he's afraid that if he cancels it he'll never get another. So whats the real deal?
We've had our toll free number for about 20 years, and it costs us $5/month plus .30 minute thru AT&T.
Recently we found that some overseas telemarketing company "hijacked" our 800 number, and programmed into their phone system so that when they make calls, our 800 number comes up on call receivers caller ID's. These people were trying to sell many different services, and are attempting to get people's credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account numbers, etc. Sometimes call receivers would get cursed out or threatened if they didn't comply. Naturally, we would get the really angry call receivers calling us back on our 800 numbers, threating to call the authorities on us, and we're not even making the calls (we can only receive calls on our 800 number). We notified AT&T of the situation, they told us they were aware of this new scam, but since the calls were not originating on their lines, & most likely on Internet phone systems, there was not much they could do about it, except to temporarily put our 800 number out of service, issues us a new 800 number, and wait a while to see if the scammers would move onto another number before reinstating our original 800 number. We opted to just stay w/ our existing 800 number, and just educated each angry caller one at a time as they called, and even added a message to our after hours phone system of what was happening. The scammers must rotate numbers, as one week we'll get a flood of callers complaining, and another week not one call.
Re: Toll Free 1-800 Numbers? 
