Free Phone Numbers - FAQs

People are always startled to hear that I pay nothing to received phone calls. Here are the answers to the questions I'm asked the most often. This is a super service, and I hope it helps fill a need for some of you reading this out there.

Q: How long have you had your free phone number?

A: About 7 years.

Q: You've lived in more than one place in the last seven years. Have you kept the same number through those moves?

A: Yes.

Q: Where were you living when you first got that number?

A: Iowa.

Q: Your free phone number starts with "206". Is 206 the local area code for Iowa?

A: No. The local area code where I was then was 319.

Q: Why were you given a non-local number?

A: When I signed up for service, I was told that I could have my service for free if I would agree to accept whatever number they randomly assigned me. If I wanted a number in the 319 area code, I would have had to pay for that. I accepted the random free number, and it just happened to be in the 206 area code.

Q: When people call that number, where does it ring to?

A: Wherever I want it to. Part of the service they offer includes call-forwarding, so I can send it to my home, my office, a friend's house that I'm visiting, a hotel when I'm traveling, anywhere at all. I can also choose to have it go straight to voice-mail. (Sending to voice-mail is free; sending to another number is a small extra charge.)

Q: If it goes to voice-mail, how do you receive the messages?

A: There are three ways I can get them. One is to call my own number, press the "*" button to interrupt the greeting, and type my password to hear the messages played back through the phone I'm calling from. The second way is to go to the company's website, enter my phone number and password and play back the messages through the computer's speakers. The third way is to set the controls to have the company send a copy of each message as a sound-file to my email. Then I just open the email attachment and play it back through the computer's speakers. I can use one of these ways, or any combination of them, all free.

Q: Does this free service include caller ID?

A: Yes.

Q: Can your free service receive a fax?

A: Yes, just print it out at any computer that's connected to the Internet. (Hint: Public libraries are great for this.)

Q: You said that you could forward the call anywhere at all, including to voice-mail. How often can you change where it's ringing to?

A: As often as I want to. I just log on to the company's website and change the "ring to" number. It takes effect immediately.

Q: Why are they offering this for free??

A: The companies that offer free phone numbers also offer paid services and other products. They're hoping that if you ever need one of those paid services in the future, you'll remember the great service they provided for free and be more likely to stick with them once you become a paying customer. But even if you never upgrade, you can keep your free number.

Q: How did you find out about this service?

A: I saw an article in the newspaper years ago about a similar company that was providing this service to homeless people, so that they would have a phone number to put on job applications. I typed "free phone with voicemail" in my favorite search engine and came up with several companies that offered this service to the general public.

So, that's the facts on free phone numbers. No big mystery, just a creative marketing idea, similar to giving out free food samples at the grocery store. I've led numerous people to these free phone numbers over the years. It's a great service with no "catch". If someone you know could benefit from this kind of service, pass this info along!