Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : 1-800 Numbers?

[igor999]

I solely need a 1-800 number just to show up on my credit card statements. As of now, my home phone is showing up.

What's the cheapest 1-800 that I can get for this purpose of protecting my privacy on my credit card statements? What websites or companies would you suggest I go through? If it has features such as Voicemail, then that would be great too. Any help would be appreciated to help protect the privacy of my software company.

[Mike Hobgood]

Id recommend using Phonepeople.com Plans starting at 9.99a month

[jonwatson]

Agreed. I use Phone People. They're the best deal I've seen at $9.99 a month which includes 100 minutes.

It's funny - I was worried about the 1-800 bills getting away from me, but I've only ever received 3 phone calls on that line. I know that lots of people are aware I have it (it comes up in pre sale chats and stuff), but that seems to be enough for most people. Nobody ever calls

Anyhow, the service is good, the web interface is good and the price is good.

[MikeWalczak]

I use tollfreelive and have been using them for the last six to eight months. Quick setup and a nice virtual office system. They also have plans that start at $9.99 per month.

[igor999]

There is nothing cheaper than $9.99. Again, I don't plan on using the service to return phone calls or nothing; but merely to show up on my credit card statement. But if the cheapest price to set up and maintain a 1-800 to protect your home phone number appearing on credit card statements is $9.99 and comes with good features, then I guess its a wise investment. But if anyone knows if there is anything cheaper than this out there that will do the trick without all the bells and whistles, i'll appreciate it.

[Mike Hobgood]

Well, I believe at 800phonecall.com you only pay for the minutes you use. (2.7 cents a minute) But you do have to pay a 45$ setup fee
I think thats how they work

[Tyler]

I use CallWithUs. While technically they're a VoIP provider, I don't see any issues if you just use it to forward to your number. Plus there is quite a bit for expansion if you ever decide to use VoIP.

I can't speak on behalf of just the forwarding aspect of the number as I use it with my Asterisk setup. But the quality/support has been fantastic. I can imagine it'd be the same if you choose to simply forward it.

I just grabbed a toll-free number at random. I think almost all of the prices are similar, if not the same for the toll-frees.

Setup Price: 4
Monthly Price: 5
Per Minute Charges: 0
After free Minute Charges: 0.024
Minutes Included: 0
Channels: 24
Support CallerID: Yes

I used TollFreeForwarding.com previously, but I believe that's also about $10 a month.

[AvailNetworks]

have a look at www.kall8.com we used them for quite some time and they are awesome to deal with and they start at $2/mo

[steven-v]

kall8.com - they just charge $2/month per toll free number + usage - comparing to MCI or ATT toll free (where we was for many years) it's like 90% smaller monthly bill.

[Mike Hobgood]

I just signed up with tollfreeforwarding.com - Mainly because they accept paypal :-)

[Justin]

Using Callwithus.com myself for a DID (not toll-free) however they do offer toll-free numbers as well, as Tyler mentioned above. I'd give them a try if you're looking for decent pricing, as it allows for plenty of expansion down the road also.

[Engelmacher]

The cheapest I've found is using AccessLine through Costco. $3/mo, but there's a very noticeable delay between the first and second rings as it struggles to connect to your forwarding number.

I've been on a Virtual PBX provider researching spree this past week, and if you need an actual auto-attendant, connectmevoice.com has the best combination of prices and service I've found. Phone People were very, very nice on the surface, but they proved to be pretty bad at handling anything they didn't have a pre-written script for, and god help you if you want to port an existing number over to their service--they expect you to do this blindly before configuring or testing your account, so your customers will just get kicked to the curb for however long it takes you to get it setup.

So far I've been through virtualpbx.com, Innoport, phonepeople.com, onebox.com, gotvmail.com and RingCentral, and they all sucked for one reason or another.

[taylorwilsdon]

I just signed up with Kall8 for a vanity number. Not bad

[igor999]

When you get a 1-888 number, is your information private or can someone find out who registered this number? How can you make it so your information is private?

For example, if you have someone's house phone number, you can do a reverse lookup and find the owner of the phone number... I don't want this to be the case for the 1-888.

[jonwatson]

I don't know if there's a directory or not. Seems to me that since so many people are selling 800 numbers that any sort of centralized directory is unlikely, but I really don't know.