Road hazards reaching the AARP's tollfree phone number [telecom]

The American Association of Retired Persons, aka AARP, maintains an easy-to-remember toll-free phone number: OUR-AARP = 687-2277. Ah, yes, you do need to remember *which* toll-free 8xx AC to prefix before OUR-AARP -- is that to be 1-800? 1-855? 1-866? 1-877? 1-888? Or do they all work?

[The answer is that] only 1-888 is correct. The others (all but one, anyway) either

(i) Thank you for calling and warn you to pay close attention because their "menu options have changed", or

(ii) Congratulate you for having just won ... [sort of "prize" irrelevant] ... . (The one outlier is unclaimed and still up for grabs, according to the toll-free number merchant offering it to the errant caller -- or was so when last I called it.)

No rules in place to prevent this sort of blatant exploitation of innocent mistakes, I guess? All is "caveat emptor" and "bamboozle the unwary"?

(Sigh!) Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp
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Who decides which numbers deserve protection from "exploitation"? AARP could have bought all the other numbers if they wanted.

And the 800 number was probably taken before they got their own number, because they obviously would have preferred that number if it was available.

Reply to
Barry Margolin

Nobody. When 888 came out there was a half-hearted attempt to let people with 800 numbers claim the corresponding 888 numbers, but since then, they're just numbers.

Needless to say, their poor planning isn't anyone else's problem.

Reply to
John Levine

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