Caller ID Unavailable?

Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service organization launches consumer advocacy blog

DALLAS - March 13, 2007 - If you were paying anywhere from $80 to $100 each year on a service, and you found out that the service provider wasn't supplying you with the service 100 percent of the time, you'd be upset, right? Maybe you should be sitting down. If you subscribe to a Caller ID service, you're probably getting cheated. And that's why Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service, a coalition of consumers and companies tired of paying Caller ID service fees without receiving the service, has started a grassroots effort to educate Caller ID users on the truth behind "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls.

The truth is that while we consumers are spending millions of dollars every year on Caller ID services, telephone companies aren't necessarily providing us with every name they are capable of getting. Caller ID works by matching the phone number of the person calling with a name that is stored in a database. When a number is stored outside a telephone company's database, that company has to purchase the information from another company that owns the database where the information is stored. Most every wireline telephone number is stored in one of these databases, but phone companies aren’t accessing every number.

Why not?

Typically, purchasing this information costs less than half a penny. But these big telephone companies don’t want to spend any money on their customers, which results in those "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls that show up on Caller ID displays. And because most consumers don't even know that their phone companies are capable of providing a higher level of service, they're letting the phone companies continue to profit off of them by providing sub-standard service. That's the purpose for the Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service blog - it's time for consumers to take a stand against these larger telephone companies.

The blog offers Caller ID consumers information on everything from how Caller ID works to contact information for the attorney general's office in each state. The blog includes broadcast and print news coverage from across the country. In addition, it provides users with a forum where they can come together and share their concerns, opinions and experiences. The blog was created both to educate consumers on what they should expect from their Caller ID service and to arm them with the information and strategies they will need to demand 100 percent service.

The blog can be accessed at http://calleridunavailable.blogspot.com/

About Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service

Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service is a coalition of consumers and companies that feel cheated for paying Caller ID service fees but not receiving calling names. Every year, Americans pay up to $120 each for Caller ID service but only get caller names on 30-70 percent of their calls. The technology to fix this problem is already in place. There’s no good reason that phone companies can’t provide it. We’re paying for Caller ID 100 percent of the time. Isn’t it time we got it?