MSNBC.com just published a story on National A-1 a company known for owning buying and selling some of the best domain names on the planet.
However this story was about a company associated with National A-1 known as Prime Tel Communications which has amassed some 1.7 Million 800 numbers, out of 7.87 million active 800 numbers, most of which are used for phone sex.
So Prime Tel owns about 20% of all active 800 phone numbers in the US.
Wow.
“”Records obtained by The Associated Press show that over the past 13 years, a little-known Philadelphia company called PrimeTel Communications has quietly gained control over nearly a quarter of all the 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada, often by grabbing them the moment they are relinquished by previous users. ”
“As of March, it administered more 800 numbers than any other company, including Verizon and AT&T.”
“And many, if not most, of those 1.7 million numbers appear to be used for one thing: redirecting callers to a phone-sex service.”
“Dial 1-800-Chicago and instead of reaching a tourism hotline for the Windy City, you will hear a woman offering “one-on-one talk with a nasty girl” for $2.99 per minute. A similar thing happens if you punch in the initial digits of 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship or 1-800-Whirlpool.
“All those numbers contain messages redirecting callers to erotic chat lines operated by National A-1 Advertising, a company that shares an office building with PrimeTel, has common ownership and lists many of the same people as executives or business contacts”
The story goes on to tell the tale of the company including a lot of phone squatting if you will, and makes for an interesting read go check it out.
“Squatting”, Mike?
😉
Yep, I missed buying the land under the Empire State Building, so now the current owners are squatting on my property…
land under the empire state building??? that’s crazy talk. you coulda got the whole island for $24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets. but you weren’t born yet were you? you should be able to sue someone for not being born yet. this whole being born thing is so unfair.
haha…yeah those darn squatters, in fact I’ve decided today that at all times when I miss an opportunity the final beneficiary is squatting on my property…
How many other people try to grab an 800 number as soon as its relinquished? National A-1 are aggressive and it pays off for them.
“National A-1 are aggressive and it pays off for them.”
This sending innocent dialers to sex lines is going to backfire badly, and I hope it does.
FBI can always find something to charge you with, especially in the porn site and sex industry.
this is a fantastic case to get people thinking.
so what is we really wanted to stop these sort of “problems”?
why not change the phone’s keypad?
does 2 have to mean ABC? there’s no law governing encoding. unlike a letter or character, a number is a number. it’s a universal symbol understood across most** of the world. (**believe it or not there is at least one tribe that does not use numbers.)
same goes for computers. why not change the keyboard?
why does fat fingering occur? what might contribute to it?
well, if history is any indication, it’s never going to happen (as dvorak would tell you, were he still alive). i’m still not sure why.
but i’m sure the telecoms are happy to find a market for all these relinquished numbers. a-1 is probably considered a good customer. it’s not their responsibility to exercise moral judgment. they just run a network. (sounds kinda like icann and registries doesn’t it?)
as for “squatter”, what does that mean?
let’s have a look.
squatter
“settler who occupies land without legal title,” 1788, agent noun from v. squat; in reference to paupers and homeless people in uninhabited buildings, it is recorded from 1880
can you guess what the two key words are?
now, try to apply that concept to phone numbers, vanity phone numbers, ip numbers or domain names. you can’t. but you’re welcome to try.
in any case, if someone is paying for the right to use a number on a network (or has made diligent effort to acquire it where others have not), it’s nothing less than pathetic for parties who are not paying (or who have made no timely effort) to argue they should be able to use it, assuming all parties had an equal opportunity to be the successful applicant. it’s like arguing “our use is better than their use.” who says? and why does that matter in a business context?
not that i agree at all with what this a-1 company is doing. it violates good taste. but does it violate any law? maybe it’s the system that needs to be examined (as opposed to a-1)? instead of pointing fingers, why don’t we ask “how did this happen?”
kind of reminds me of ip addresses, the phone numbers of the future. you think that is an equal opportunity system? it’s currently a battle of cretins in denial vs openly cretinous cretins. and as long as no one with common sense or good taste takes a sincere interest (not simply a financial or political interest) it will likely stay that way.
There should be a word for ‘taking ownership of something, doing little of value with it, and refusing to release to developers who wish to buy at near market price.’
Squatting is not strictly correct, but it’s the closest approximation, and it feels right. Perhaps the definition should be amended. Or else we think of a new word.
There is no word yet, because domainers, owing to their monopoly over each domain, can take liberties rarely available to sellers of goods. Domainers have deflected attempts by the general public to assign the term ‘cybersquatting’ to what they do, by insisting that it refer only to trademark infringement.
‘assuming all parties had an equal opportunity to be the successful applicant.’
The trouble is, at the time the phone number or domain is released, the buyer often does not yet know of his likely interest. By the time he does, he may wonder why he should be asked to pay ten times as much.
Great article! It brings attention to the difficulty new companies face when trying to acquire an 800#. For many direct response companies, 800#s create opportunity for revenue. If National A-1 hoards those numbers, then that affects a lot of businesses, especially those businesses whose sales are based on direct response.
Some companies that amass 800#s (ie. 800 Response or Call Source or Custom Toll Free) provide shared usage, parceling the 800 numbers out by area code to other companies for a monthly fee. But National A-1 offers no such service for their numbers – unless, of course you’re a phone sex company.
It sounds like a reasonable solution would be to limit how many 800 numbers one organisation can be granted the right to use, or at least put some requirments on them to redistribute the numbers on an equal opportunity basis.
It would be interesting to ask a domain name registry to put limits on how many domain names an individual or organisation can be granted the right to use and see what response they have. That is, if there is any response.
Do not overlook that for the organisation who has paid for the rights to use a large quantity of numbers (telephone, IP, or aliases for IP a.k.a domain names), there is risk. If they do not redistribute these numbers and if usage of and demand for the numbers falls, they will bear a large risk.
ICANN and the registries do not bear a similarly sized risk. Because the cost to create and maintain a “domain name” is close to zero. If demand falls, they can terminate administrative staff and sell off unneeded servers.
It is a different story for organisations or individuals holding large pools of numbers or aliases for which they have paid to use and who have not resdistributed them. They will bear a large loss.
““National A-1 are aggressive and it pays off for them.””
“This sending innocent dialers to sex lines is going to backfire badly, and I hope it does.
FBI can always find something to charge you with, especially in the porn site and sex industry.”
You should think before you have strong opinions about a topic. 800 #s can have hundreds of different possible words in then. I seriously doubt they are targeting “innocent dialers”
I’ve seen this article all over the Web today and I don’t get how its news. This is no different than automated domain name catchers like snapnames.com and hundreds of others…
snore..
@Halvarez — the word is “current registrant”. It’s no different than “landowner”. With either one if you don’t pay your annual reg fee or annual property taxes, respectively, you lose the property.
Do they rent numbers? I have one with a 1000 calls a month.
halvarez – it’s not domainers who have defined cybersquatting in terms of trademark infringement. that’s how usa legislation has defined it. read the anti-cybersquatting prevention act. it sounds like you have a certain domain name that you want and you have been unable to obtain it. it that correct? and you’re blaming all domainers for this? is that what’s happened? if you’re sure the owner will never sell to you at near market price, why not tell your story? details. what have you got to lose? it might be more persuasive than just criticising all domainers or making unsubstantiated arguments. if you’re going to complain, there are more clever ways to do it.
Eventually acquired pair of domains, but overpaid, and the delay combined with other mishaps to derail project (hopefully not permanently).
But my view was little different beforehand. If nobody else is willing to pay more than x for a domain, seems unclear why a buyer should have to pay a multiple of x.