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Free 411 Calls
ATF
Member Posts: 11,683 ✭✭✭
Phone companies are charging us $1.00 or more for 411 - information calls when they don't have to. When you need to use the 411 / information option, simply dial 1-800-FREE-411 or 1 800 373 3411 without incurring a charge.
This is information people don't mind receiving - Pass it on. Works on home phones and cellphones.
[:)]
This is information people don't mind receiving - Pass it on. Works on home phones and cellphones.
[:)]
Comments
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The phone number 1-800-FREE-411 offers free directory assistance
service.
Origins: One of the many changes that has taken place in the telephone
industry in the last few decades is that while phone companies once
generally provided their local customers with rnum=Math.round(Math.random()
* 100000);document.write('');
free directory assistance (via the 411 phone number), in most cases
telephone customers are now charged a fee (typically $1.00 or more) for each
directory assistance call. Despite the charges, U.S. consumers continue to
avail themselves of the 411 directory assistance service, placing about 6
billion such calls per year.
Now, however, an outfit called Jingle Networks is providing an alternative
directory assistance service ??" and it's free. Users who call the toll-free
number 1-800-FREE411 (or 1-800-373-3411) can navigate a nifty automated
voice recognition system that asks for a location (city and state), type of
listing (business, government, or residential), and name. Once the service
has located an entry for the requested number, it reads the information
aloud and offers the caller the option of connecting to the number by
pressing a single number on his telephone keypad.
How can Free-411 afford to offer free directory assistance service? It works
sort of like commercial radio or television ??" businesses pay to sponsor it
in exchange for presenting their advertisements to customers. The funding of
Free-411 is typically explained thusly: The service is made possible by
thousands of national and local businesses who sponsor this service with
brief valuable audio advertisements that are played to callers who request
businesses in their yellow pages category. This advertising model allows
businesses to acquire new customers over the phone, cost effectively, with
little or no risk. Meanwhile callers get free directory assistance,
potentially saving each of them thousand of dollars per year.
The way it works in practice is that a caller who requests a business number
is first presented with a short (about 12 seconds) audio advertisement for a
sponsor who operates a competing business in that area; the caller is then
given the option of being connected to either that competitor or the
business he originally requested. If no sponsor operates a local competing
business, then the caller hears no advertisement at all. (In the latter
case, if the caller accepts the option to connect to the desired number, the
business receiving the call hears a short message at the beginning advising
them that the call was placed via Free-411, and a Free-411 salesman may
follow up with them a few days later to solicit them as a potential
advertiser.)
(Cell phone users concerned that taking advantage of the free directory
assistance service will entail potentially giving out their cell phone
numbers to telemarketers should note that federal law already prohibits
certain types of telemarketing calls from being placed to cell phones, and
all phone users can block telemarketing calls by listing their numbers with
the national Do Not Call registry.)
We made three separate trial calls to 1-800-FREE411 asking for information
on different local businesses, and in each case the voice recognition system
smoothly processed all our spoken information and correctly identified the
businesses of interest. In only one trial out of the three were we presented
with an audio advertisement.