http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sns-yourmoney-0320spending,0,7646233.story?coll=sfla-business3
By Gregory Karp
Of The Morning Call
Convenience costs Americans big-time, from bagged salad at the grocery
store to automatic carwashes to house-cleaning services.
Another convenience is dialing directory assistance whenever you need
a phone number. It can be incredibly expensive for what you get. Some
directory-assistance services cost nearly $2.50 per request.
And many Americans are using the services, according to research firm
TNS Telecoms. A survey showed 41 percent of customers used some kind
of directory assistance on their home or wireless phone over the past
month. And, clearly, many of those lookups were not free.
The good news is that spending on directory assistance can be
virtually eliminated because there are so many other ways -- some old,
some very new -- to get phone numbers.
Here's the 411 on reducing directory-assistance calls on your home and
wireless phones:
[Comment: This article makes a number of good suggestions including a
few I didn't know about, and I can honestly say that in my entire
lifetime I have never once paid for a directory assistance call, so I
thought I already knew most of the ways to get free telephone number
lookups. At the same time, they do miss a fairly obvious way to get a
number when you are calling a company -- go to the company's web site
and look for a "Contact" or "About us" type of link. Very often there
will be one or more contact telephones posted right on the company's
web site. And if you don't need to make the call right away and have
an e-mail address for the person you want to call (or a friend or
business associate), using e-mail to request the number is another
option.]
Full story at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sns-yourmoney-0320spending,0,7646233.story?coll=sfla-business3
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One very inexpensive directory service
is a sponsor here at this Digest:
DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO
YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST
AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest !
After you sign up with them, then your telephone number (or a few
different numbers under your control go on their records. Then you
dial an 800 number for directory assistance. ANI allows them to charge
that phone number for your call; after a few dollars in calls or at
least once per month, your credit card is charged at 65 cents per
one or two inquiries. No set up charges of any kind, and the 65 cent
rate is the least expensive rate for directory assistance
anywhere. Plus which, a portion of that 65 cents comes back to this
Digest as a donation. Please consider signing up; no set up fees and
no minimum use requirements. PAT]
Jack Decker (jack-yahoogroups@withheld)