There are no "800" numbers available in the spare pool that phone companies take them from. There haven't been any '800' numbers in the spare or available pool during the day for almost two years.
Individual phone companies may have some. We try to get a few some nights from the pool in the few seconds before they're gone. Unfortunately these are random '800' numbers. (Yes you can get them from Ringcentral but they will charge you $30 and then you have touse their plans which have higher monthly fees than most regular phone companies.)
You have to be careful about some companies because they will charge additional fees if you want to transfer away or they may say they got you the number as part of their service so you can cancel the service and number but you can't take their number with you if you want to go.
Last edited by Rodney; August 12th, 2008 at 05:36 PM.
Reason: removed self promotional info as per forum rules
Regarding the company that listed your toll free number in the caller ID of their scam calls, they didn't actually hijack your toll free number. It sounds like they just programmed their phones with a random toll free number (your number) in the caller ID so nobody could call them back.
Start putting the new number in your new advertising and Tshirts? and you don't have to give up the other one until it's out of print and not getting any more regular calls. Then when you've transitioned off that one, disconnect it.
That should minimize lost calls or having to reprint things as much as possible, but will help you eventually stop getting those calls.
Bill Quimby
Last edited by Solmu; August 12th, 2008 at 07:36 AM.
Reason: removed self promotion as per forum rules
There are no "800" numbers available in the spare pool that phone companies take them from. There haven't been any '800' numbers in the spare or available pool during the day for almost two years.
Individual phone companies may have some. We try to get a few some nights from the pool in the few seconds before they're gone. Unfortunately these are random '800' numbers. These are found with our lookup tool and only $49. We're basically the GoDaddy of the phone number business. (Yes you can get them from Ringcentral but they will charge you $30 and then you have touse their plans which have higher monthly fees than most regular phone companies.)
You have to be careful about some companies because they will charge additional fees if you want to transfer away or they may say they got you the number as part of their service so you can cancel the service and number but you can't take their number with you if you want to go.
I've been thinking about getting a toll free number, and I find this whole thread useful.
In regards to the shortage of 800 numbers, weren't 888 and 866 prefixes added? Do they work any differently? Do different companies offer these prefixes?
I've been thinking about getting a toll free number, and I find this whole thread useful.
In regards to the shortage of 800 numbers, weren't 888 and 866 prefixes added? Do they work any differently? Do different companies offer these prefixes?
The 888 and 866 prefixes work just the same and you can get those as well as toll free number options.
Regarding the company that listed your toll free number in the caller ID of their scam calls, they didn't actually hijack your toll free number. It sounds like they just programmed their phones with a random toll free number (your number) in the caller ID so nobody could call them back.
Whether they did it intentionally or not, MY number has still been "hijacked" for their purposes. I'm not giving up my toll free number; I've had it since we opened in 1986, and I'm keeping it, I have too many customers that call us using that number, would be impossible to get to all of them to advise we have a new number; if they get a disconnted number, then they'll think we're out of business.
hello, We have been looking at a 800 number also and had a freind of mine tell me about this service. they offer 800 numbers and a fowarding sevice, fax to your email, answering service just like the big companys with ext and hold music. you dont have to have a home phone if you dont want to, we work off our cell phones. it is $20 to $40.00 per month. fvsystems.com
Last edited by Rodney; August 12th, 2008 at 05:35 PM.
Reason: removed affiliate link
Just fyi. fvsystems.com is a distributor of Freedom Voice Systems. Their corporate site is FreedomVoice.com.
They are one of the bigger companies in the enhanced voicemail category. Regular toll free service just forwards the calls to a local number. Anytime they say there are additional features like that, that's the voicemail service that they add to it. Those cost a little more per minute and have a higher monthly fee, but can make you sound more professional. They're also great for a virtual organization if you've got a couple people in your business working out of their own homes.
By the way Gotvmail (mentioned earlier in the post) is very similar to FVS because they used to be one of their distributors.
Bill Quimby
Last edited by Rodney; August 12th, 2008 at 06:45 PM.
Reason: removed link to website in post as per forum rules - feel free to add a link to your website in your forum signature
Re: Toll Free 1-800 Numbers? 
