1 800 HELP NOW

December 30, 2004 (ICB TOLL FREE NEWS) International aid has begun reaching survivors of tsunamis that swept across the Indian Ocean from Thailand to Somalia, killing more than 125,000 people. Relief workers now face a race against time to prevent still more people dying of disease and starvation. Reports are that thousands of people are missing, and it is possible that the number of dead may tragically rise in the coming days.

Financial support is the best form of assistance those wishing to help can provide. The American Red Cross International Response Fund can be reached at 1 800 HELP NOW.

Other aid agencies accepting contributions for those affected by the earthquake and tsunamis include AmeriCares and Care USA.

For information about the welfare and whereabouts of American citizens, you can call the U.S. State Department at 1-888-407-4747.

For information about donating and volunteering more locally, scroll down this website: The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog.

Thursday August 15, 7:14 am Eastern Time

Press Release

SOURCE: 1-800 AFTA

1-800 American Free Trade Association Formed to Represent Interests of Toll-free Number Services Industry

Group calls upon FCC to create a competitive marketplace for toll-free number services

BURLINGTON, Vt.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2002-- A new trade association, the 1-800 American Free Trade Association (1-800 AFTA) has been formed to represent the interests of the toll-free number services industry. The founding members envision that the organization will speak with a collective voice before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as well as working to define industry standards and practices.

A primary initial goal of the organization will be lobbying the FCC to create a competitive marketplace in toll-free numbers, particularly vanity numbers like 800-MATTRESS or 800-NEW-LOAN. In the words of AFTA President Mitchell Knisbacher, "Current FCC policy, by denying subscribers property rights to their toll-free numbers, precludes the development of an open market, inhibits competition, and deters investment in the development of brands such as 800-FLOWERS(TM) or 800-COLLECT(TM)."

FCC regulations prohibit the transfer of toll-free numbers, but participants at a FCC forum in March of this year acknowledged that the rules are frequently circumvented, presenting owners of toll-free numbers with the dilemma of having to break the law in order to compete on a level playing field. According to Judith Oppenheimer of the ICB Consultancy, "Businesses of all sizes are clamoring for access to invaluable 800 numbers, and current FCC policies curb orderly transfer and ownership of these assets. 1-800 AFTA has it right - an open market will benefit all players, the telecom industry, and the economy as a whole."

1-800 AFTA will also work to formulate a set of ethical business standards for the industry and implement standardized practices for toll-free number provisioning. It will participate in technical forums, focusing on issues such as the failure of many cellular carriers to complete calls when a vanity number is dialed with more than ten digits, such as 1-800-GO-TOYOTA.

Membership in 1-800 AFTA is open to all with an interest in the development of a competitive market, including users and providers of toll-free services, call centers, and direct marketing firms.

Additional information, including bylaws and membership information, is available at the organization's web site, 1800afta.org.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:

1-800 AFTA
Lara Bradwell, 802/383-0806
info@1800afta.org

How to Make Yourself Reachable in 5 Places at Once

In the quest to be always within reach, many people have resorted to carrying a cellphone at all times. But a cellphone isn't a perfect solution: for one thing, unless people know to call you on it, they may miss you by calling a land-line number instead. Even eliminating the land line at home won't necessarily help; callers may still miss you by dialing only your office phone.

But there are other ways to ensure that you are never out of touch no matter what phones you use. A variety of services are available that make it easy for callers to find you. These services can be particularly useful for families in which one member travels a lot, the children are away at school or elderly relatives need to stay in touch.

Setting up a personal toll-free number, for example, can give family members and friends a single, easy-to-remember number to call in an emergency, or for regular calls home from school or college. Those who think getting an 800 number is a big (and expensive) deal — something only appropriate for businesses — might be surprised at how cost-effective they can be, even for a family.

Having your own 800 (or 888, 877, 866 or 855, the other current toll-free area codes) number means that people can call you on your nickel, or maybe even for less than a nickel. Just about all long-distance carriers offer toll-free numbers but rates vary greatly. Some charge a monthly fee, some have a minimum usage. The cost per minute ranges from less than a nickel to more than a quarter.

One advantage to a toll-free number is that it is portable. Cellphone companies have until November 2003 to comply with a Federal Communications Commission rule that will give customers the right to keep their numbers if they change providers. Subscribers to toll-free services already have that right.

When you get a toll-free number, you don't get an extra phone line. Instead, the number rings through to your home, office cellphone or whatever other number you designate.

Some companies charge extra to ring to cellphones, pagers and other exchanges. A few companies won't let you ring to any numbers that aren't issued by one of the Baby Bell phone companies, like Verizon, SBC Communications or BellSouth. Many companies charge a premium for calls coming from Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico or Canada.

The hardest part of setting up a toll-free account is figuring out prices and the best way to reach the providers. Your long-distance or local phone company probably offers the service, but there are also companies that offer toll-free numbers at a deep discount. Many of the low-cost providers sell through agents; some Web sites, like those of Cognigen Networks (www.ld.net), Americom () and MicroCorp (www.lddirect.com), can link you to agents for many of these providers. TollChaser.com, Discount Long Distance Digest (www.thedigest.com) and WhoSells800.com have additional links as well as articles about the long-distance industry.

Agents sometimes offer lower rates than the company itself, and sometimes charge more. If you use an agent to set up a toll-free account with Unitel — www.unitelgroup.com or (800) 499-5912  (mention Cognigen agent ID: cvc) — for example, you might wind up paying a $2 monthly service charge, but when I reached the company directly, there was no monthly charge.

At 3.9 cents a minute for state-to-state incoming calls, Unitel is among the least expensive, but calls within states vary widely. Californians pay the same 3.9 cents for calls originating in-state, but New Yorkers pay 7.9 cents a minute for in-state calls, while customers in New Mexico pay 19.8 cents a minute. The company has higher rates for calls to cellphones.

Kall8 — www.kall8.com or (866) 222-1818 (mention Cognigen agent ID: cvc)— charges 6.9 cents a minute for both interstate and intrastate calls as long as the call comes from the continental United States. There is no extra fee for cellphones or pagers. There is a fee starting at $2 per month per line, but Kall8 offers automated services that aren't available from most companies. A subscriber can manage an account using the Web, including making instantaneous changes to the number that it rings to. Most other companies require you to make this request by phone or fax, and it can sometimes take minutes, hours or even days to make the switch, assuming you're able to reach them at all.

You can also opt for custom call routing so that calls ring at different numbers depending on the day of the week, time of day or where they are dialed from. You could have calls sent to your home phone on weekends and evenings, to your work number during the business day and to your cellphone when you're on the road. You can even automatically route calls from certain numbers, area codes or prefixes to voice mail that is delivered with your e-mail as an audio file. You can sign up for a Kall8 account from the company's Web site and have it active immediately.

For those who don't want to fool with an 800 number, call-forwarding services may be the answer.

Most telephone companies offer call-forwarding services, in which a call to your land line can be routed to any other number you choose, including a cellphone or pager. Verizon, for example, offers basic service for home phones at about $3 to $4 a month, depending upon the state you live in. Forwarding can be activated or deactivated, or the number changed, at any time from your home phone.

But there are some independent services that offer even more creative approaches to call forwarding. SimulRing — simulring.com or (206) 826-5600 — for example, solves the growing problem of having to give out multiple phone numbers. Instead of telling people your home number, work number and cellphone number, you can just give out your SimulRing number and let it track you down.

The company assigns you a local number that rings up to five phones at once. When someone calls your SimulRing number, you can pick it up regardless of whether you're at home, at work, on your cellphone or, in some cases, even a hotel room. By default, all your numbers ring at once, but they stop as soon as any of the lines is picked up.

The basic service costs $9.95 a month and rings up to three lines. The deluxe service, which costs $19.95, will ring up to five lines and allow you to configure your home line to require a family member to press 1 to accept the call — otherwise, the call continues to ring on your other numbers. Deluxe users can also program SimulRing to enter extensions to ring directly to an office or a hotel room. Local numbers are available only in New York, the San Francisco area, Southern California and the Seattle area. The company also offers a toll-free number that can be used anywhere in the country for an additional 10 cents a minute, or you can get an 800 number from another carrier and route it to your SimulRing number. The company's Web site allows you to instantaneously add or change phone numbers linked to your SimulRing account.

One added advantage of SimulRing is that most cellphones have caller ID, while many home phones do not. Since both phones ring simultaneously, you can look at your cellphone to see who is calling but pick up the call on your home phone.

Linx Communications — www.linxcom.com or (888) 250-4700 — offers a similar service with additional features like the ability to set up a conference call, transfer calls to voice mail or to a colleague, or to redirect incoming faxes to any fax machine. Prices start at $20 a month plus 6 cents a minute.

Calling Scooby-Doo and getting a sex line instead Web posted Monday, May 20, 2002 By Candace Rondeaux Scripps Howard News Service   ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - First-grader J.J. Weller is a Scooby-Doo fanatic. He has Scooby-Doo sheets, a Scooby-Doo bedspread and a Scooby-Doo notebook. Last week his mother bought him a Scooby-Doo book at a Perkins Elementary School book fair. When he discovered toll-free phone numbers in the back of the book, the 7-year-old naturally wanted to dial up the crime-busting canine and his cartoon cohorts. First they dialed Velma: No answer. Then they tried Shaggy at 1-800-LIKE WOW and were encouraged to place an order for the Way Out West T-Shirt Line. Then they tried to dial Fred. That toll-free number turned out to be for a pay-per-minute sex line. Fortunately, it was mom, teacher Anne Weller, who heard the greeting: Spend $3.99 a minute to "talk live one on one with hot, sexy girls." It turns out that Scholastic Inc., the book's publisher, recalled 300,000 copies of the book, Scooby-Doo Teacher's Pet, in December because of the phone numbers. Scholastic spokeswoman Judy Corman said retailers and the company's book fair division were notified of the problem after the book was published in November. But by the time the palm-sized book shaped like Scooby's head was pulled from schools and stores in early December it had already caused parents and at least one businessman plenty of heartache. The company that owns the sex line could not be reached for comment this week. But Richard Davis, the California owner of the company that makes Way Out West T-shirts, said his toll-free business number, which corresponds to Shaggy's 800-LIKE-WOW listing in the Scooby-Doo book, was "bombarded with calls for Scooby-Doo." Not long after Davis acquired the number from AT&T about 15 years ago, he received dozens, then hundreds, of calls for Scooby from kids around the country. It turned out the exact same number had been published along with a promotional guide for a video game featuring Scooby-Doo. According to Davis, curious young Scooby fans rang up $2,000 worth of calls to his 800 number, which the phone company eventually reimbursed. The problem started up again as the Scholastic book made its way to shelves last year. Davis feels bad for the kids. "They're so upset that they're not getting ahold of Scooby-Doo," he said. Scholastic blames the mix-up on Warner Bros., the company that owns the license for Scooby-Doo and other Hanna-Barbera characters. "We work very closely with the licensor. The numbers were in the style guide the licensor provided to us," said Corman, Scholastic's spokeswoman. According to Warner Bros., the mistake stemmed from out-of-date reference materials that were accidentally passed on to Scholastic. "As soon as we were informed of the mistake we took action with Scholastic and the book was recalled. Obviously, some slipped through the cracks and for that we are very sorry," said Karine Joret, a Warner Bros. spokeswoman. Though the mixups are a common complaint for adult entertainment companies that run toll-free lines, there is a hidden benefit, said Judith Oppenheimer, founder of ICB, a New York City consultancy firm for the toll-free industry. "A certain percent of those calls for a Lincoln Continental, or a Maytag washer at Sears will become converted customers to those lines. But the conversion rate is maybe 5 percent," Oppenheimer said. But there is at least one confused customer who won't be converted any time soon. "I just thought I should get to talk to the real Scooby-Doo," J.J. said. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)

The answer to toll-free boom is birth of 4th and 5th number

08/02/00

By Tom Johnson
STAFF WRITER

Eight million isn't what it used to be.

Back in 1967, AT&T rolled out the original 800 toll-free exchange. It was good enough to meet demand from consumers and businesses -- each area code contains nearly 8 million valid numbers -- for nearly three decades. Times sure have changed.

This past Saturday, the Federal Communications Commission ordered a fourth toll-free exchange (866) into service, only a couple of years after the introduction of the third toll-free number (877). The second toll-free exchange (888) was inaugurated in 1996. The tremendous explosion in electronic commerce and the proliferation of dot-coms will make a fifth exchange (855) necessary this November, officials say.

Toll-free usage has steadily climbed since its introduction in 1967, when 7 million calls were recorded. Last year, AT&T carried about 30 billion toll-free calls, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all voice calls crossing its U.S. network. AT&T officials declined to say how much revenue is generated.

There are now more than a thousand companies offering toll-free numbers for all sorts of uses. A survey by Frost and Sullivan, a market research firm, estimated the nationwide toll-free and 900/976 number service market at $13.6 billion in 1998. The latter applies to phone line services that charge callers for information like psychic advice and other information. The bulk of the market share goes to toll-free lines, Frost and Sullivan estimated.

''Toll-free numbers are more important than ever in today's electronic economy," said Roy Weber, an AT&T Labs Research director, who helped develop the tools to make the technology widely available.

When the toll-free exchange was first introduced, the idea was to figure out a way to reverse charges automatically -- eliminating the need for operators to handle collect calls.

''We thought we were going to run out of operators to handle the calls," Weber said.

At first, it was thought only large businesses would use the service. That, too, has changed.

''It used to be only the big heavy- hitting corporations which had toll- free," said Joyce Smith, an AT&T product manager. "Now everyone has it -- even small businesses and tiny bed-and-breakfast inns. It sort of defines them as 'I care enough about you as a customer to pay for your call.'"

More than 80 percent of American businesses use toll-free services, according to industry analysts. Historically, the 8 million toll-free numbers have been exhausted in two years, leading to the projection that the new number introduced on Saturday and the 855 number slotted to go into service in November will last until sometime in 2004.

''I'm astounded," said Weber, talking of the growth in the use of toll-free lines. "When the original 800 number came out, we had no idea."

One reason the use of toll-free lines took off was the development of computerized databases, which enabled businesses to use and promote a single nationwide toll-free number, instead of different numbers in different states.

Now, if a business doesn't have a toll-free line, it is almost certainly losing market share.

It isn't only businesses, either. In Newark, police have set up toll-free lines for citizens to report drug activity and corrupt cops. The Archdiocese of Newark tried to lure fallen- away Catholics back to confession using a toll-free number.

Even longtime AT&T employee Weber has his own toll-free number.

''I want my kids to call whenever they want," he said of his own personal 800 number, which he says he's had for the past five years. "I don't want them to worry about credit cards or what."

But Judith Oppenheimer, publisher of the industry publication ICB Toll Free News, said the toll-free craze is overblown.

Many phone companies are warehousing numbers so they offer them when they have new products and services to sell, she said. Carriers have been doing the same thing for years with area codes, she said.

She argues the profusion of new toll-free numbers ends up confusing consumers, and in the long run, the effectiveness of the service.

''Most consumers don't have a clue when they hear a toll-free 877 number. They go home and dial 800, and end up with a misdial," she said.