Just got a call that showed up on caller ID as “Toll Free” - and, indeed, the number was an 866 toll-free number. Is there a website where I can do a lookup on toll-free numbers to see who owns them?
Well, you can try www.reversephonedirectory.com, but I don’t know how well it does with toll-free numbers.
Toll Free numbers are incoming only.
An 800,866,877,700 etc. number is Remote Call-Forwarded to a Local Number.
In the Olden days,WATS lines (both incoming & outgoing) would be brought to
the business location. Outgoing WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service) are no longer installed.
What happens when you dial the 866 number? it is toll free so you’ll reach the
caller without charge to you.
It is odd that a toll-free number showed up on caller ID, but I suppose if the caller had a two-way dedicated LD trunk, it might work…
Anyway, you could try googling the number. I usually get a fairly good result googling 800 numbers.
Well, I have a toll free number for my pager (888). When I just searched at reversephonedirectory I got:
Pagers and cellphones are, in effect, unlisted numbers, so the “lookup” routines never work for them. I believe there’s a service that will track down cellphone numbers, but they charge for it.
I just tried some 800 numbers for a few businesses, and it’s hit or miss. Some of them, it gets - others, “no listing.”
Which is why I suggested Googling. Sometimes a business will not have their toll free nubmer lested, but it may be posted on a web site.
Case in point: A client of mine does not want to shell out the extra $2/mo for an extra listing for their 800 number. So, when you plug in their 800 number into Google, you do not get an actual directory listing, but rather you get a link to a trade site which lists the company in a member directory.