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Ebay Suspends Phone Number Sales
wellingt writes "According to the
Jackson Sun, the attention brought by the sale of Jenny's famous 867-5309 has led Ebay to evaluate whether or not phone numbers are the property of their owner, and whether they can be sold. Verizon has made the claim otherwise."
Number portablity doesn't mean number transferablity. In order to get "your number" to move from Provider X to Provider Y, you have to show proof to Provider Y that you do in fact hold that number at Provider Y... if you go into Radio Shack with your buddy's phone bill and even with your buddy saying it's okay, you can't get his old number on your new cell phone.
So, there's nothing to sell on eBay. If you can't give it away even when you try, you can't sell it either.
"Buyers and sellers on eBay enter into a binding contract, [Ebay spokesman Henry Gomez] said.
So officials of the auction service have to make sure the seller actually owns the item for sale and has the right to sell it."
This is not a very smart position to take. Ebay is basically saying, for example, that they are responsible if someone attempts to sell stolen property over their service.
Yes, you do not "own" the number, but what's different here than all the auctions for domain names? You don't "own" the domain - you lease it from the registrars/ICANN/whatever. The phone companies let you transfer phone numbers just like you can transfer a domain, so what's the difference?
/.'d than they'd make in commission.
Maybe eBay just realized they're losing more in bandwidth charges from being
And they're one of the few remaining lions of the dot-com boom to still be around, and still be in the black. Hmm.
Well, people sell 800 numbers all the time. If I want 1-800-BUY-STUFF then I can contact the person that has that number and offer to buy it from them. They may not sell it to me, but that's their choice. I guess by Verizons logic that 800-CALLATT doesn't belong to AT&T then. Shouldn't regular numbers be the same?
Robert
Next thing you know the SSN I bought of Ebay will turn out to be nontranferable too.
--
Tsiangkun
How many people actually still call for Jenny more than 20 years after release of the song called 867-5309/Jenny?
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," dealership owner Mike Blacksher said
Dad, STOP calling Jenny or else I HAVE to go tell Mom.
Free XBox, PS2
I actually knew of a guy in Murfreesboro, TN that had the misfortune of having this as his phone number. He got all sorts of calls from people who were just dialing the number for kicks, and wound up putting "No, Jenny's not here," on his answering machine.
Don't Panic!
Will they say, "Jenny, I've got your number"? If they don't, it's a travesty of justice.
Addresses, work and home. Email addresses. Licence plates. Addresses of children's schools.
Obligatory Scarface quote: "You know, if anyone wanted to assassinate you Frank, you wouldn't be too hard to find."
Once the phone companies figure out that there is money to be made in selling vanity phone numbers - like vanity license plates - you'll see this sort of number transferability made available - for a fee, of course.
...low Slashdot ID numbers?
Ask not for whom the phone rings. It rings for you - Jenny.
The phone number popularized by 1982's one-hit wonder Tommy Tutone - Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nieeine - rings into a Murfreesboro used-car dealership in area code 615.
Tuning in to national attention for the auction of New York's 212 version of the number on eBay, the dealership put its number on the Internet auction block Monday.
However Tuesday afternoon, David Ludwig, general manger of Auto Outlet, said he got an e-mail from eBay notifying him that his "Jenny" auction had been canceled for being "inappropriate." The other phone numbers being also sold disappeared from the Web site.
The auctions were put on hold until eBay could determine whether they fell within the company's guidelines, a spokesman said Tuesday night. "People are really creative," said spokesman Henry Gomez. "And this one had us scratching our heads a bit."
Buyers and sellers on eBay enter into a binding contract, he said.
So officials of the auction service have to make sure the seller actually owns the item for sale and has the right to sell it.
He said a determination would be made about the auctions after the sellers and phone companies involved had been consulted.
The bizarre convergence of '80s pop culture and offbeat Internet auctions made ABC's Good Morning America on Friday.
Before the auction was canceled, New York's "Jenny" was going for more than $200,000.
Ludwig said he was shooting for at least $10,000. Nonetheless, he said he was happy to keep the catchy number "once we get through all these prank calls."
How many people actually still call for Jenny more than 20 years after release of the song called 867-5309/Jenny?
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," dealership owner Mike Blacksher said.
Less than one minute after having the number connected at his dealership in January, the phone rang.
It was for Jenny.
The dealership actually has sold several cars to "Jenny" callers, he said.
Blacksher requested the number from the phone company after calling and finding out that no one had it, he said.
"We get 100 or more calls every day," he said. "People call all the way from Miami. People just keep running through area codes. They ask for Jenny or just start singing the song."
The calls fill up the company's voice mail every night.
The lawyer who owns the New York "Jenny" acquired it a few months ago after he called it and realized no one had it. He got the number from Verizon and has used it as a second line, hooking it up to an answering machine.
Verizon said its customers don't own their phone numbers, so the right to 212-867-5309 cannot be sold.
But in Nashville, a spokeswoman for BellSouth said nothing prevents a customer from transferring a number to someone else.
This is sometimes done for business partners who split up and the other person takes the number, Sybil McLain said.
"What two parties do between themselves is between them," she said. "We provide phone service."
Another Middle Tennessee "Jenny" opportunity could still be out there.
Her 931 area code number did not seem to be connected Tuesday.
Information from The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service and from UPI was used this report.
Did eBay ever take game item auctions off while they evaluated if they really belonged to the sellers or not? From my understanding, Blizzard wasn't too crazy about people selling Diablo II items online, since it's basically just moving data around on their servers, nothing more. I don't have any specifics though, but this situation seems to parallel that one very well.
Well, it's already slow, but yes, why shouldn't phone numbers be salable? They're a part of you; you give out your phone number, when people call they expect to get you. So they're property, at least to a degree, and you can definitely sell property. What's the problem here?
This is sometimes done for business partners who split up and the other person takes the number, Sybil McLain said. "What two parties do between themselves is between them," she said. "We provide phone service."
So while the original New York seller of the 212 code version might not be able to transfer it, this article is primarily about a Murfreesboro, TN car dealer, who it appears could.
Kind of a good thing. I wouldn't want some investment company buying up all the numbers in my area, then I have to pay some crazy fee just to get a phone number.. Or if they did, and I called the wrong number, would they set them up to re-direct the call to telemarketers?!
Mod +5 Drunk
While I think people are clearly renting the phone numbers (if you don't pay the phone company, they take it away and can re-issue it), it seems you own the rights to use that number while paying for it. So, that people can sell "the right to use the number while paying for it" seems fair enough.
On the other hand, if we look at phone numbers in the same light as domain names (e.g. identifiers to get a query to a place that information can be retrieved), a whole new can of worms is opened. People say they own a domain name, but it may be more like renting than owning outright. Same as with phone numbers. If you don't pay the fee every year, it is taken away and can be re-issued to someone else.
The only thing that throws the analogy is that there are certain numbers "given" to the phone companies, if I understand correctly, whereas domains, the company has no claim to the letters.
Register a patent on the phone number.
Start suing.
No basis for a lawsuit? Why let that stop you?
> Verizon has made the claim otherwise.
... because THEY want to cash in on selling the vanity numbers. A buddy of mine (let's call him Mike) has a number of the form ###-###-MIKE. If he ever wants rid of the number, the phone company doesn't want him selling it to some other Mike, they want to have it back so they can sell it to some other Mike.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Here in BC, Canada, our monopoly telco Telus has right in the front of the phone book that they own the telephone number and can change it at any time with reasonable notice.
I suppose this is no longer the case with the American's number portability, but this probably use to be the case and is where eBay is getting it's worries from.
Someone with deeper telecomm operations experience should be able to answer this, but given that we have cell number portability, do the numbers belong to *anyone* other than NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administration)?
A related question for your hard-core telcomm people, since portability presumes any number can go anywhere, how do carriers assign new numbers to new devices? What pool do they come from? And what happens when service is terminated -- where do those numbers go?
My *guess* is that NANPA assigns NXX blocks (prefix/exchanges) to carriers, who then assign them to end nodes. Portability simply means that when someone wants to move to another carrier, the ported number gets put into an exception database someplace that is shared among carriers. Numbers not in the exception database are routed to whoever was assigned the NXX block originally. When service ends for a number, an exception database entry is removed if it exists, and the number "returns" to the NXX block assignee it originated from.
All of that is moot, though, if number portability means ALL numbers are in an exception database and number assignments simply happen in a queue from this master number database, and NANPA no longer assigns NXX blocks to carriers this way.
If this is true, then it seems fair game for me to re-assign my number to anyone else since only NANPA would have any claim on it. If the other assertion is true (NXX assignments to carriers, with an exception database and return-to-assignment on release), then Verizon or other carriers may have a legit beef, especially if they have to buy NXX blocks from NANPA or pay fees for them.
Somewhere out there, Tommy Tutone is laughing his ass off!
I'm not sure this is a big surprise. I think that if you don't own the number, then it would be fraud to try to sell it. Here is ebay's user agreement. Maybe some people think this a grey area, but refer to the first posters comment, portability not ownership. I'd rather not bid on items that the seller doesn't own. If people started selling stuff that they had no claim over, no one would trust ebay. Trust seems like a big part of their business. Now if the new laws were tested in court and somehow ruled that I own my cellphone number...well that would be a different story.
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If there isn't a friendly phone company out there (which is hard to believe since there'd almost certainly be a little money in it from them, especially if they were able to make all the transfers happen in a small number of days), it's possible for someone to set up a company for the sole purpose of doing this.
Given enough flexibility, networks WILL route around damage. Fortunately the FCC has just given us the flexibility we need.
If I already have the right to transfer a wireless service (with the existing wireless number) to another person without restriction or penalty...why would any wireless company be able to stop me from charging for that transfer. Its just that simple.
I agree with previous posts, it has nothing to do with reality, the wireless providers are just looking for yet another way to stick it to their customers.
Isn't something, by definition, the property of its owner? I guess the question is "Who is the owner -- the subscriber, or the provider?"
Would you really want to have a "famous" phone number? Just think about all the random calls you would get? How many people call 867-5309 just to see if someone answers? Then again, I am considering buying 1-800-eat-shit for my technical support line...
Quote from the article: "nothing prevents a customer from transferring a number to someone else." - seems pretty clear cut to me. The partnership splitting is only given as an example.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with phone number portability, which is the ability to move providers and keep the same number. Granted, the case may be that Bell South "owns" the number and might not let you transfer it to a third party, but they obviously don't mind you selling to one if that third party stays with Bell South.
The point is, it seems the policy varies depending on who is providing your phone service, and this TN guy had a right to sell the number, while the NY guy didn't, but Ebay pulled both auctions without discrimination.
when i moved into my apartment in august, my roomates and i discovered that the building exchange was 382...spelling "FUC". you can only imagine what our final decision was when we called the local telco company and requested a vanity number. i will say this: the prank phone calls are USUALLY lame...but there have been a few worth note: "damn...someone already has this number!" "do you know what your number spells?" "you're daughter come over my house, and she kick my dog" etc. regardless, telling girls my phone number ensures they will NEVER forget it.
Many people are asking who would want this number anyway? I think it would be really smart for a telemarketer to buy up the number in as many area codes as possible. All kinds of random people would be calling them, and maybe they can keep some talking long enough to sell something. Then at least one company wouldn't be calling people at home at dinner time. Their new customers would come to them.
Developers: We can use your help.
a buddy of mine wrote a song with HIS telephone number in it. then he would sing it out at club and other places hoping chicks would call him.
i found the whole endevor quite humorous
When I recently ported my mobile number, the salesman made me verify that I still lived within the region associated with the area code. I began to wonder when the area code/number system will be deemed outdated. It is still beneficial for determining local vs. long distance calls for land lines but, as more people move to mobile service with unlimited long distance, it seems to lose its relevance. I'd rather keep my number if I moved to a new state so that people would still know how to reach me than get a new number that identified my geography. I would think that the current reliance on area codes has more to do with mobile switching technology than customer demand. I wonder if the balance of interests between phone companies and their customers will tip again in the next few years, leading to a a "national number portability" law that mirrors the recent "local number portability" law.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
I dont see how this is any different than people selling EQ characters/eqipment or Magic The Gathering Online product on eBay.
TECHNICALLY in the TOS it explicitly states that the users DO NOT OWN THE DIGITAL CONTENT. And that they just are given the rigts to use it.
I think eBay just got all butt hurt because of all the publicity the auction was getting. I'm sure if my Entire Playset of 8th Edition Wrath of Gods for MTGO on eBay was on the 8 o'clock news, Wizards of the Coast would be stepping in as well.
Just my $0.02
If you buy them then why do they expire? Thats like buying a car and then having it "expire" after 1 year of use. Domains are leased, not owned, they are owned in the technical sense, but in reality, its like a lease.
There's a modest market in 800 numbers since number portability for them was introduced in 1993. What's the problem?
It seems to me that the phone number has become an important part of people's identity. To get just about any service you need a phone number. Since the phone number belongs to the phone company and not you, they can theoretically change it on you whenever you want. That would screw up any services that had your old number, and you would have to call each one seperately to get it changed in their system.
Personally, I do not want a phone. I communicate almost exclusively over the internet. Compared to a cable internet connection, a phone is an awful deal. You pay just as much to get a much worse and much more restricted service. Yet, because I can't get broadband without a phone number, I need a phone.
If I have to pay that much money for something I don't really want, and if having it changed could force me to spend hours having it changed in various companies' databases, not to mention contacting all my friends and informing them of the change, then I think I should get control of the number. The current situation feels too much like a "shut up, bend over, and take it" kind of situation to me.
that actually want this number? Yeah, I want to pay thousands of dollars so I can have the #1 Drunk Dial number and get hundreds of calls from dumbasses who think they have an original idea in calling the number from an 80's song. It'd be funny for about a day and then I'd rip the phone out of the wall. If only there were a way to send a shock through the lines to the slapass on the other end., then I could see the value of this.
I asked them about it years ago, and someone from Blizzard said that there are some things they "just won't comment on."
So while they probably don't approve, they aren't all up in arms about it like Sony was over EQ.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
While, in theory, the telephone company (claims it) can change your number if there is a service problem or - again in theory - for any reason it wants to, with the ability of the customer to move the number to a different Local Exchange Company (LEC-Incumbent ILEC or Competitive CLEC) or even move numbers between wireless and wireline companies, Verizon's claim that the customer does not 'own' the phone number is specious at a minimum and in any case clearly incorrect.
We as customers are paying a few cents every month for local number portability. If the customer can move their number without consent of the carrier - which is the case - then the carrier's claim that the customer does not own the number is clearly incorrect.
When competitive local (wired) phone service came into Maryland about 5 years ago I moved from (what was then) Bell Atlantic to Starpower faster than you can say 'Long distance is the next best thing to being there.' All (what is now) Verizon could do was send me a final bill and wish me a goodbye.
Since the carrier no longer has any means to refuse to let you change carriers - even if you still owe them money - then obviously the carrier no longer owns the phone number, the subscriber does.
When I moved to Virginia, I signed up with Starpower directly and have had service with them for three years. (Yes, I know the actual service comes from Verizon but it's at least a partial victory.)
The point remains, if I can take my (wireline) number from Verizon to someone else - or have a number issued from a different carrier and move it elsewhere - then obviously I own that number. This was the standard for 800/888 etc. numbers for years now, has been the standard for wired customer numbers and is now established for cellular numbers too.
It will probably take a tedious suit against some telephone company to establish de jure what is already de facto: that the customer now owns the phone number, not the carrier.
----Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
My parents have had a local number that ends in "2020" since the mid 70s. Many optometrists (sp?) in town offered to buy the phone number from them. My parents refused though.
It can be done.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Verizon seems to be saying corporations have the right to buy and sell phone numbers but regular folks don't. It figures, it's just more of the same crap we get all the time.
Doesn't anyone get this weirdness? One of Cingular's latest commercials with with some chick who said she was happy she was able to keep her number, and she's dancing to the Jenny song. I thought that was odd, since it's a Verizon number.
So, why doesn't this guy transfer the number to a new provider, and then sell it? It'd be out of Verizon's hands then.
Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Just about any item that someone objects to the sale of, eBay will block. They're the dominant auction site, they don't _need_ that business, and they'd rather block it than deal with the difficulty. eBay is controversy-averse to a fault.
Ask anyone burned by their "VeRO" program where eBay will remove any auction requested by a VeRO, even if the item auctioned is clearly legal to be sold (e.g. a CD given away with the sale a pair of jeans at the GAP)
i do this quite a bit for my company, with verizon and cingular. here's an example: we hire a new sales person who's had his cell number for a gazillion years and doesn't want to part with it, but his provider/plan suck in comparison to our corporate plan, and we don't want to get stuck paying for a sucky plan/service.
we contact the phone company, request for an assumption of service in which the company now take on the financial responsibilities of the service contract. this usually take a tax id number, but between individuals you would use a social security number. once the billing is switched over in the company name, we port the number into our corporate plan.
if the employee leaves and wants to retain their phone number, the process is simply reversed. the process is easy, what's difficult is that each provider wants to lock you into their service plan. in the case of assuming an individual number into a group plan, since the group plan already exists, we're not bothered to sign any contracts. on the other hand, if the individual wants to break their number from our plan, they need to commit to a some type of time commitment( 1 or 2 year plan) before they can assume responsibility and service.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Suppose a Verizon customer moves to Qworst and takes his number, which is part of the Verizon pool. He cancels his Verizon service.
How does Verizon know not to reissue that number?
If the guy flat cancels his Qworst service, do they notify Verizon that the number is now available for reissue?
That's what the number portablity database is all about. First off, the guy does not directly call Verizon to cancel... if he does, he loses his number so he'd better not do that. Instead, Qwest sends the Verizon the notifcation through the number portability system that they've just won over this customer, so they'd like the xxx-yyy-zzzz number rerouted to their system at entry point A. That's how Verizon finds out he canceled them, and how Verizon knows that they have to keep that number marked off in their database as one they can't issue.
When the guy leaves Qwest, if takes that number to another carrier, that new carrier can make the number portability magic happen again. This time, the number portability database realizes that they've already got the number on the exceptions list look where it's going and see that they need to notify Qwest that they've lost the customer, and changing the routing table accordingly so that when a new call comes in through Verizon the new redirect is issued.
If he leaves Qwest by calling them directly, then Qwest has to inform the number portability system that they lost the customer, and the number reverts back to the owner of the exchange, so in this case Verizon is told they're the ones who get to reassign the number.
whether or not phone numbers are the property of their owner
IIRC, in ancient times phone companies would put in a new exchange and tell some customers "Your number has been changed from XYZ-ABCD to PQR-ABCD. Get used to it."
Just as they do with area codes today.
I suspect Verizon doesn't want to be put in a situation where they might get sued for changing someone's phone number, depriving them of their "property". There may be times when someone's telephone number has to be changed for technical reasons, such as moving subscribers from one central office to another. The telephone company needs to reserve the right to change subscriber's numbers when it is required by changes to the telephone system.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
No one owns a telephone number except the telco. As a customer of Verizon, you are "leasing/renting" your phone number. The phone number is not yours to sell. Local Number Portability does not transfer ownership between the telco and the customer. LNP transfers ownership between telco providers. Try a google for LERG (Local Exchange Routing Guide). This is the bible for telcos to see which carrier owns which block of numbers AND which blocks of numbers are portable. Verizon was/is well within their rights to stop the auction.
The interesting thing is that unlike registering a domain name, most combinations of phone numbers "spell" different words. I can see it now- the biggest fish with the best lawyers can usurp your phone number because it spells something of value.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
Just by transferring it, the reason Verizon doesn't want to say you own it and can sell it is because company X can buy up all said numbers then have a middleman monopoly. The telco is doing a good thing here techncally.
1888 Franklin St.
My friends asked for 382-5968 (f***-you), and it rings at least as much as 867-5309...
jeez people, it's not really that hard... and although you can't technically "sell" a phone number, you can get paid to transfer it to someone else, just like any other intangible object i.e. software, music, domains, names of businesses, license plate names, etc.
But if I "owned" the number 1-800-GET-LAID, does that mean I couldn't get paid to transfer it to someone? This might to lead to the idea that phone numbers have no value, which obviously is very wrong, because if someone somehow redirected a business phone number that could be very serious.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
i don't know which part is more sad, the part that people are so desperate for money because of the economy or that there are people who are so not that they can afford to buy slashdot ids
Just last year someone called me and asked if they could buy my phone number. Ameritech wouldn't let me transfer the number directly, so I just ordered a bride from russia, and once we were married we had the phone number reassigned to both of us. Then I divorced her and she took the phone number with her. Then the person who wanted the phone number married her, got the phone number reassigned to both of them, and then divorced her and shipped her back to Russia, keeping the phone number.
paintball
This reminds me of the legal 'problem' of blackmail which I read up on recently. Blackmail is generally (1) asking someone for money so that you (2) won't disclose certain information. Taken alone, both parts of the transaction are legal, but, put together, they are illegal. Apparently, this is something that legal scholars wrestle with from time to time to try and make sense of it within the greater legal framework of US jurisprudence.
Your analogy of sex for sale is on point. In both the sale of sex and the sale of a telephone number, the parties are freely and willingly exchanging things of value. In the blackmail problem, a first party gets money in exchange for not doing something to hurt a second party. In this case, the nondisclosure of information is presumably not of any value except to the second party.
As I'm sure others have said, the transferability of phone numbers lies in the rights of the number holder. If the company allows them to transfer the number to another, well, then they should be able to do it by sale. If the company reserves this right, however, then the holder can't do it whether for free or for money.
2)People are legally allowed to require money be transfered as a condition of said transfer. Verizon admits that also - they do it all the time.
So Verizon is insisting they do not use the word "sale"/"sold".
Unless you change Point 1 or Point 2, Verizon's belief makes no sense.
I can't sell something I don't own, but I sure can accept a fee to vacate an apartment earlier than my lease. Even though I don't own the apartment, I have rights with respect to that apartment and those rights can be sold. Similarly I now have rights to my phone number, and unless a law states otherwise, Verizon is going to have to admit that I can therefore sell my rights to my phone number.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
111-1111 Lois? *damn* 111-1112 Lois? *damn* 111-1113 Lois? *damn*
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Why not sell something like a pencil or paperclip for $$$BIG$$$ and give the phone number away for free? In fact, why don't prositutes do that. Take them out to dinner and they'll fuck you. Seems legal (immoral, of course) to me. Hmm...
My other car is first.