free 411 assistance?

[sixto]

Supposedly verified at www.snopes.com.

Sixto


>>>>>
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 or more (Verizon Wireless charges $1.49 per call plus minutes) 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 at all except for the minutes
required to make the call.

Free 411

Claim: The phone number 1-800-FREE-411 offers free directory assistance service.

Status: True.

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 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.)

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.
>>>>>

[pxland]

Or you could just look in the phone book and then you won't even have to waste minutes.

[GottaDiesel]

Originally Posted by pxland

Or you could just look in the phone book and then you won't even have to waste minutes.

Now I know what that lump is in my back pocket next to my cell phone when I'm on the road!!!

Thanks!

[GottaDiesel]

P.S. That free 411 is awesome. I've been in a bind a few times and it works like a charm. Hope they don't harvest telephone numbers though... but it *is* free and NOT a scam.