212-"867-5309" Ebay Auction Follow Up
by Anonymous

New York City, NY February 28, 2004--An enterprising attorney made nationwide headlines recently when he put his NYC phone number 212-867-5309 on Ebay on February 12th. The famous number from the Tommy Tutones, 1982 No. 1 hit "867-5309/Jenny" is one of the most memorable phone numbers ever. After being mentioned in the news, his ebay auction received over 350,000 visitors, over 170 bids and was bid up to $80,000! The auction was taken down only halfway through after Verizon spokes people claimed, "You can't own or sell phone numbers" so the owner of 212-867-5309 is now considering options for a private sale.

Most people were surprised that a phone number could be worth so much money. Bill Quimby, a Telenumeric Consultant who helps major advertisers get valuable vanity numbers like this, and the founder of TollFreeNumbers.com, explained that, "Memorable phone numbers, just like memorable domain names are worth a lot of money to advertisers because they make it easier to create a brand name and increase the response rate to all of a company's advertising. If an advertiser spends a million dollars a year and a good number increases the response rate 25%, then that number is worth $250,000 per year to the advertiser!"

Mr. Quimby also claimed that Verizon's blanket explanation is not necessarily the whole story and points to the fact that most major phone companies acquire and use memorable vanity numbers and many even have forms for transferring numbers. Verizon got 1-800-2-JOIN-IN from someone, just like AT&T got 1-800-CALL-ATT, and MCI got 1-800-COLLECT, just to name a few. The FCC has regulations against hoarding and brokering numbers, and nobody wants to create a domain name type of squatters market with phone numbers, but that really doesn't mean that a valuable phone number can never be transferred. Numbers are transferred all the time as part of corporate mergers or acquisitions for example. Almost every business is transferred or sold with their phone number. It's clearly a necessary part of business.

Mr. Quimby also went on to announce that another even more valuable toll free phone number, 1-800-GREAT-RATE has just been listed on eBay; not as a phone number, but as part of an ongoing business with multimillion dollar potential with very little overhead or expense. 1-800-GREAT-RATE is a very memorable number and it's unique shared concept will allow this powerful phone number to be used by hundreds of financial related businesses nationwide. Quimby doesn't see this as a referendum on the ability to sell phone numbers but simply as evidence that there is a right way to do this and expects the 1-800 GREAT RATE package to be worth at least several hundred thousand dollars.

For more information contact Bill Quimby at 2517 Rt. 44, 11-222 Washington Hollow Plaza, Salt Point, NY 12578 or visit http://www.TollFreeNumbers.com. You can also check out the eBay auction at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2597655372&ssPageName=ADME:B:LC:US:1



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