Can someone tell me how to dial 800 and 888 numbers in the US from Toronto?
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A good question. This is mostly up to the recipient of the call, if he wants to receive a call from an international point or not. Since Toronto is part of the same dialing plan as here in USA, the call completes if the owner of the number wants to recieve it. If not, then the call bounces somewhere along the way with a message saying "call not permitted from your area code", or words to that effect. You can get around that by asking the owner if he wishes to accept international calls to his toll-free number and if so, to ask his telco to arrange it, or ask him what is his 'regular' number. Some companies publish their regular number and tell international callers to call them on it collect. The other thing you can do is use the 'USA Direct' number from the country you are in, and on that, _you_ pay for a call to the USA border and then the 800 owner pays for a call from there to his point. There are also 'privately maintained gateways' doing the same thing. Dial direct into them then on fresh dialtone dial the USA toll-free number. You cannot force someone to pay for a collect call (automated, via 800 or otherwise) unless they wish to do so.I admit this can be a problem when so many USA-based advertisements appear in Canadian (or European) media. They give as the only way to contact them a USA-based 800 number; its almost as if they are saying there is no where else in the world besides the USA, so live with it. Some companies have an 'international-style 800 number' as opposed to a purely 'domestic 800 number', but those are not in common useage. PAT]