[wycodreams]

I opened two accounts with my telephone numbers, this numbers (525559852220 and 525559854074) are in the free countrys (Mexico DF), but phonegnome dont give me free calls. If i receive calls, phonegnome bill me a rate for minute. What i can do?

[PhoneGnome]

Some numbers simply do not qualify, for whatever reason. The system tells you before you set up the account. See: PhoneGnome Rates where it says "Includes most numbers in" (emphasis added) and on the "details" link (Qualifying International Numbers) where specific countries and prefixes/area codes are listed, it says: "Additional specific numbers in certain regions may be excluded."

The system told you that your number(s) didn't qualify when you created the account. Sometimes it's a good idea to read the screens before clicking 'Next' or 'OK'. Even though you cannot make free calls using your regular phone, you can still get a free account and make free calls using your PC with our free SoftGnome Software and you can use your existing regular phone (landline or mobile) to make calls at cheap VoIP rates, much lower than your landline or mobile carrier: click here to check rates

You can always purchase the PhoneGnome box to make your number eligible for free calling.

[wycodreams]

My pone numbers is on the free list

my phone numbers begin with 52 5559, please help me.




Mexico 52 33, 55, 5510, 5511, 5512, 5514, 5519, 5521, 5522, 5525, 5526, 5530, 5531, 5550, 5551, 5552, 5553, 5554, 5555, 5558, 5559, 5585, 5591, 81, 810, 8110, 8111-8179, 8180, 8181, 8182, 8183, 8184, 8185, 8186, 8187, 8188, 8189, 8190, 8191, 8192, 8193, 8194, 8195, 8196, 8197, 8198, 8199

[PhoneGnome]

Once again, on that same page you reference, we refer you to the note "specific numbers in certain regions may be excluded." and of course there's also the notice that says "Destinations are subject to change without notice."

Email to tech. support your specific number(s) and they may be able to tell you whether there is anything that can be done.

[kalimark]

Originally Posted by wycodreams

My pone numbers is on the free list

my phone numbers begin with 52 5559, please help me.




Mexico 52 33, 55, 5510, 5511, 5512, 5514, 5519, 5521, 5522, 5525, 5526, 5530, 5531, 5550, 5551, 5552, 5553, 5554, 5555, 5558, 5559, 5585, 5591, 81, 810, 8110, 8111-8179, 8180, 8181, 8182, 8183, 8184, 8185, 8186, 8187, 8188, 8189, 8190, 8191, 8192, 8193, 8194, 8195, 8196, 8197, 8198, 8199

Very often this happens if you are registering the number from location different than where the number should be located, as determined by PhoneGnome. Due to some misguided security concerns apparently leftover from 1980's (before number portability and SIP forwarding existed) you have to either actually fly to Mexico or at least use a proxy server to simulate your flying to Mexico if you want to correctly register the PhoneGnome. The problem is the PhoneGnome doesn't tell you that before the registration so the majority of users (I'm one of them) end up wasting their time on the first try.

I have friends and family in Germany, UK and other countries so I keep a sizable number of free or low-cost numbers in those countries in order that those people can contact me back in the US for free or very low cost which would be the cost of a local call to them. In order to register all of the phone numbers with PhoneGnome I had to use a proxy to simulate an IP address for each number to match the IP with the country—never mind that all those numbers ring at my location in New Jersey.

There was a time when PhoneGnome simply did not allow you to register if your IP address was different from what they thought it should be so you wasted only one initial attempt and could register in next few minutes using a proxy that time. Now, with the ability to register any number worldwide, I was told, the PhoneGnome simply registers the account as a non-free account if it thinks the IP address is different from what it supposed to be so it is just that much more annoying if you did not know you have to use the correct proxy initially.

However, once you find out that the proxy is needed to register the number and register it correctly the PhoneGnome works very well and it appears to be very stable. There are occasional glitches but from my experience it works extreamly well. When I first started using the PhoneGnome I almost gave up completely at first because I had the misfortune to be introduced to PhoneGnome right in the middle of an outage (several days long) and few days later there was another one that knocked out service but that apparently was an exception and the service appears to be very reliable since then. I use PhoneGnome on about a dozen numbers from around the world and also use PhoneGnome registration to do some back-end work to forward calls from other networks around the world to my mobile phone. I have one real "PhoneGnome" device and also use PhoneGnome on several Linksys devices as well as on VoXaLot service and it works very well.

Great service but I still don't know why they use IP for "security" purposes since obviously it can be defeted easily with a proxy. However, if you are not aware that you have to use a proxy at first it is just annoying that you have to waste your time and start over the registration again. Also, most of the users who use or experiment with PhoneGnome are people who most likely use many numbers in different locations so the IP matching not only does not accomplish anything except to annoy the user initially before he or she finds out that use of proxy is required.

Despite those minor annoyances, not very clear and amateurish looking website, and sort of amateurish look to PhoneGnome the service has a great potential. The basic ability to register a regular phone number and have it work like a VoIP number (without the hardware) is powerful one and basically with that you can accomplish, at least on one end of conversation, what ENUM does without the need for hardware or software or VoIP or Computers -- using only the regular phone.

[PhoneGnome]

The issue is fraud , which is rampant in telephony services. You would not BELIEVE the level to which people try to run scams. We are trying to run a free service where we must keep costs low. We cannot spend a great deal of special-case time on individual accounts or specific exception cases. We also have to maintain our relationship with our banks and credit card processors and they require specific diligence about fraud to avoid excessive costs or even being blacklisted by credit card processors (don't get me started).

Therefore we have to employ some basic metrics that apply to 99% of ordinary users and for the other 1% (probably really less) that meet some "high fraud" criteria, some of the burdon must fall to the customer, even when they are perfectly legitimate "good guys" (a small financial transaction to assert identy and validate the number/account). People setting up accounts for regions other than their actual location are many times more likely to be running a scam of some kind. There are other such indicators and any user that meets some of these "high fraud" indicators gets caught in the collateral damage - not unlike the situation with spam where some good mail falls into the spam bucket, which is really cuased by the bad guys (nobody has time to check every email by hand). In the same way, these checks are a necessary evil brought on by the "bad guys" and sometimes a "good guy" gets impacted.

If you feel your number should be a "free" account and instead was assigned a "base rate", if the number indeed qualifies, you can remove the base rate by following the following steps:

1. fund the account with $10 USD (or more). (Sign in and click the 'Buy Credit' link on your My PhoneGnome home page)

2. Make some web-based click-to-dial calls to show it's working and that you control the number ('Quick Call' on My PhoneGnome). This shows that you really control that phone number and it is not ringing someone else's phone.

3. Then place a click-to-dial call to our **611 number and leave a message with phone number/email of your account indicating your request to convert your account to a regular "free" account (remove the "base rate").

After this process, you will still have the remainder of your $10 balance for placing non-free calls to numbers all over the world at terrific low rates.