Hotmovies raid----not online porn related---its about toll free numbers
 

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news...City_raid.html

Porn wasn't the only industry affected by Center City raid

By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
[email protected] 215-854-5985

The world of porn wasn't the only industry rocked by Wednesday's FBI raid on the Center City adult-entertainment conglomerate National A-1 Advertising Inc.

The people who track, sell, buy and trade toll-free numbers were atwitter yesterday as news spread of the sweep, which affected not only businesses such as a phone-sex line and porn websites, but subsidiaries that buy up toll-free numbers.

And National A-1 does it aggressively, said Bill Quimby, founder of Tollfreenumbers.com.

"They're more mafia-like than any organization I've seen or heard," said Quimby, a national expert on the industry.

"They forge paperwork, yank numbers; they don't care what other people think about them."

National A-1, on 7th Street near Chestnut, owns six "responsible organizations," or "resporgs," which are allowed to purchase toll-free numbers. The six resporgs combined control 1.9 million of the 7.8 million toll-free numbers that are available, Quimby said.

They are "playing monopoly with vanity [toll-free] numbers, and they make money along the way," Quimby said.

The resporgs - all six are referred to as "PrimeTel" even though they have separate official names - buy but don't sell, and are sitting on about $1 billion worth of phone numbers, Quimby added.

PrimeTel is banking on the public punching in a wrong number.

There are "isolated stories in the news media that pop up every once in a while that a number that belonged to a nice church or a White House press briefing now belongs to a phone-sex company," Quimby said.

"Each story imagines that this is just a coincidence. It's not a coincidence; that's their business to generate wrong numbers."

A few years ago, Medicare hotlines in at least six states, including Pennsylvania, were swooped up by National A-1, and callers were redirected to phone-sex lines.

A former National A-1 phone-sex supervisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the company's CEO, Richard Cohen, "was a good guy" but that the office atmosphere was "shady. It was definitely shady."

The conglomerate had been known as National Telephone Enterprises for some time, and then suddenly it wasn't, he said.

" 'If anybody asks about it [NTE], you don't know anything,' " the employee said he had been told by a manager. And there were other issues related to the communications industry.

"This thing they used to do with these telephone lines in Bell South areas, like Florida, anywhere in the South, they had these . . . numbers like 2-1-1 that would take you to local chatting lines," he said.

Unknowing people with children who may have played with the phone would call to inquire about mysterious charges that would show up on their phone bills, the employee said.

Quimby said that it's the PrimeTel way. "If the amount of money you made was based on the amount of wrong numbers you received, and the amount of wrong numbers you received was based on good toll-free numbers you had, how many toll-free numbers would you want?" he said.

Jan Uzzo, a New York businessman who says PrimeTel took a toll-free phone number he controlled, called the news "wonderful."

"I think a company like PrimeTel deserves everything that happens to them," Uzzo told the Daily News. "They have been skirting the law - nobody has been policing them."

One lawyer who represented Cohen and National A-1 Advertising in a previous civil case declined to comment, and another lawyer who represented them in a different civil matter could not be reached for comment.

FBI agents again visited PrimeTel and the rest of National A-1 Advertising yesterday, and the building where it occupies six floors was closed to the public.

A Pennsylvania state trooper was at the front door along with another plainclothes law-enforcement official.

National A-1's various websites, which were down most of Wednesday, appeared to be up and running yesterday.

Emily Guendelsberger and staff writer Michael Hinkelman contributed to this report.

Interesting shit. Forging documents, etc to 'steal' something is bad. But if they asked me why I had so many damn numbers the answer would be because I want them all!

Never thought about typo phone numbers before! Pity they had to go with something adult related - it's fucked up that they're pushing that on people who think they're calling a church.

interesting:2 cents:

Finally we have something that porn is a step UP from.

typo phone numbers..... Fuck that is just something I never thought about myself
How the hell you come up with an idea like that?

The day I called 1-800-fuck-you. I was probably 12.

You think you know something about a person or a company, then you find out you really don't know anything.

seems like several things that National A-1 Advertising Inc does, Rides the Line of Legal!

I knew I had seen this name before. They lease vanity numbers or something, tried to find one for my mainstream biz.

so whats the skinny on toll free numbers ?

How do you "buy/lease" one ?

and how exactly did people have "mystery charges" from calling a 1-800 number if it is toll free ?

and why do so many of the toll free numbers stop working/get changed to begin with.


"Jan Uzzo, a New York businessman who says PrimeTel took a toll-free phone number he controlled, called the news "wonderful."

How did they "take" his number ?

Well there's a complete 360

Do they even research people before they publishing malicious quotes?

My thoughts exactly.

"The six resporgs combined control 1.9 million of the 7.8 million toll-free numbers that are available, Quimby said."

Dam that's alot of phone numbers.

Kinda easy to see some avenues to make $$ on that. But I cannot see why it is illegal. Annoying maybe, But illegal?

Hotmovies better come up with the legitimate reason real soon why they've been raided two days in a row. Affiliates such as myself don't want to be attached to a company in the crosshairs of the FBI and DOJ, if the reason has anything to do with our business association.

So Danclips, I appreciate your implied denial that the story behind the 800 numbers isn't true, but what IS the true reason? So far every reason that I'd be comfortable with, as a Movie Dollars affiliate, has been shot down by you or James.

Getting real close to pulling links here...

So yesterday (according to news reports) they we running a prostitution ring, and today they are taking phone numbers from churches and sending them to phone sex.

I think I'll just wait to hear what the official charges are. Seems like investigative reporting these days has little to do with investigation, and more to do with what grabs the ratings.

How do you just "take over some-one's number"? is it possible?

No clue. All I can tell you is that all of our sites are up and running.

seriously.

Variation on slamming. Happens all the time. Had it happen to me when I *inquired* about Uverse with AT&T. The number I had intended to use had a third-party long distance company that charged pennies for long distance anywhere in the world, plus an 866 number. Lost both on a technicality trap.

Slamming still goes on, but not so much for long distance carriers since there's not as much money in it these days. You can be slammed simply by entering your number online for something you think is legitimate, but it turns out it's really an "authorization" for something else. Mainstream is rife with gimmicks like these for lead generation. Makes us pornmasters look like saints.

Thats some fucked up shit.

The guy with the clue might want to speak up, then. (It can be done without an admission of guilt.) Nice that the sites are up, but I'm not much interested in promoting a site if it's the subject of a federal indictment. The FBI isn't known for going hunting in its underwear. We can be fairly assured an indictment is coming, whatever it's about.

A-1 has its fingers in a lot of things, and I could live with keeping my MD links if the investigation is about a subsidiary company (watches, tollfree numbers, phone sex, whatever) unrelated to the one I'm promoting. Otherwise... Well, let me just say I don't believe I'm the only one who thinks this way.

its like out of Sopranos, only x1000 bigger

120 employees in a six story building. Some serious business going on there.

You'd never know it from the simplicity of their website: http://www.nationala1.com/

The site says 350 employees.

Regarding typo phone numbers, assuming National A-1 got into the domain biz first which given the kinds of domains they have, might be the case, they may have gotten the idea from domains. Smart really...typo domains can make a lot of money so no reason why typo phone #s couldn't. Still the whole "business run like mafia" aspect of this is interesting...would like to see more details as it comes out.

I'm sure they'll miss the sale a month.

Had to wonder when the customary troll was going to stop by so he could get a post in with his sig.

How many sales I have is my business. If you made as much as you pretend to you'd be sticking with yours and not wasting time on non-biz posts.

One would guess that they were in the phone number business well before the internet came along.

non-biz post?

silly kid. I'm just laughing at your puffed out chest as you make your little boy demands.

oh no! you're going to remove your links! that was so potent it struck a shriver down MY spine.:1orglaugh

hours later, you any closer to pulling your links? :1orglaugh

you keep saying ur sites are running.. this doesnt have shit to do with nothing.. lets say i killed someone, if fbi arrested me, my sites would still be running..

i know a lot of people who have been on the receiving end of the fed fuckstick.. u better lawyer up.. fbi just doesnt go raiding people.. indictment to follow..

exactly what I was thinking :2 cents:

Interesting development..

Sure is. How much do these numbers cost each?

Interesting article.

Typo phone numbers... brilliant and so simple. Does that justify a full-out raid, though?

Additionally every time this happens the number gets mentioned on the news, so I bet there's a few more bucks in that racket than any of us imagine. Seems like every other month or so I catch a story on the national news channels about how a church or other religious or educational organization's pubished number directs to a phone sex line.

I don't see why people aren't letting out why this happened, it's not like police just go in somewhere and they say trust me we have a warrant I just can't let you see it.

If there's a company with 120 people there I'm sure someone was an attorney and he/she could have gone to the door and said no warrant you don't get in. So someone knows!

The ones that know are smart enough to keep their pie holes shut. Also, the warrant isn't going to lay out why they want to search, just what items/areas they are allowed to search. That may be enough to deduce why, or maybe not.

My gut tells me this isn't about just escort services, phone sex, 800 numbers or a "prostitution ring". Remember, the FBI wasn't there alone. The IRS was also represented. The Feds are following the money. About the only thing I know for certain at this point, some lawyers are going to be getting a chunk of it.

Troll, Terminating a relationship is how any real business person handles a situation where a business partner isn't forthcoming on something as serious as an FBI raid. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. HM employees are quick to say what isn't the cause of the raid, but they "have no clue" as to what is.

Now, Troll, you insist as you usually do on making a snide comment about someone's sales even though you know nothing about them, just so you can counter your school playground fear of irrelevancy. That and it gives you another chance to sig whore.

And no I don't think you're going to change and I don't care and I can certainly ignore you, as I've done for the years I've known you.

son, the fact that I DON'T know anything about you MEANS you're a nothing in this business. get it, dope?
You're NOT a "business person" you're a shit stain on a chat board trying to look like you're important enough to make a decision about your betters. you're not. period. if you were, you'd already have an email from them asking or your patience.
since you don't, coupled with the fact I don't know you, means you're a nothing.
pull your links, big timer. they'll be missed. :1orglaugh