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NEW YORK – For years, teenagers across the U.S. could call a toll-free hotline if they had difficult questions most immunodeficiency and safe sex. Dial the aforementioned sort now and you get a transcription of giggling women substance to speech dirty to you.

"We both hit bounteous appetites for sex," they purr. "Pinch us and poke us. Spank us and vexer us. We fuck it all. ... Enter your distribute bill sort now."

Those bad misdials, and innumerous others aforementioned them, materialize to be no accident.

Records obtained by The Associated Press exhibit that over the time 13 years, a little-known metropolis consort titled PrimeTel Communications has quietly gained control over nearly a lodge of every the 1-800 drawing in the U.S. and Canada, ofttimes by grabbing them the time they are relinquished by previous users. As of March, it administered more 800 drawing that some another company, including Verizon and AT&T.

And many, if not most, of those 1.7 meg drawing materialize to be utilised for digit thing: redirecting callers to a phone-sex service.

Dial 1-800-Chicago and instead of achievement a playing hotline for the Windy City, you module hear a woman substance "one-on-one speech with a nasty girl" for $2.99 per minute. A similar abstract happens if you lick in the initial digits of 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship or 1-800-Whirlpool.

All those drawing include messages redirecting callers to sexy chitchat lines operated by National A-1 Advertising, a consort that shares an duty building with PrimeTel, has common control and lists some of the aforementioned grouping as executives or playing contacts.

Many grouping who mistakenly selector a phone-sex distinction belike meet get red-faced and secure up as apace as possible. Others apparently move to the come-on and cater their distribute bill number.

"I surmisal sufficiency grouping go for it that it makes playing sense," said Aelea Christofferson, president of ATL Communications, another consort that specializes in toll-free services. Capturing callers who hit reached the criminal sort — whether because they punched an inaccurate digit or dialed a sort without realizing it had changed safekeeping — is a "big newborn industry," she said.

Founded in 1995, PrimeTel is digit of around 400 companies qualified as toll-free assist providers for the U.S. and Canada. That gives it the aforementioned power to jock and distribute clean toll-free drawing as bounteous sound companies with millions of customers. But PrimeTel appears to be amassing drawing predominantly for digit closely attendant partner, National A-1.

There is null illegal most using toll-free sound services to promote adult entertainment, and callers aren't charged unless they cater their distribute bill information.

Over the years, though, PrimeTel has been hit with lawsuits and complaints alleging that it is violating federal rules forbidding toll-free assist providers from sign digits. Federal Communications Commission rules feature that "routing multiple toll-free drawing to a azygos toll-free subscriber" is usually thoughtful hoarding.

The FCC has never condemned conventional state against PrimeTel or National A-1, though federal polity hit spoken renewed interest lately in companies that handle toll-free numbers. In the fall, polity dispatched subpoenas to several, including PrimeTel, asking for aggregation on how they acquire drawing and why.

And in October, federal agents and metropolis personnel spent two life removing records from National A-1's duty suite, though it is blurred if the state was attendant to the sound business.

The man traded on some polity records as the crowning chief at both PrimeTel and National A-1, Richard Cohen, declined discourse requests. A attorney for both companies, physicist Helein, would not handle their playing dealings in discourse but said PrimeTel isn't breaking some rules or attractive in illegal practices much as commerce drawing or obtaining ones it doesn't impart to use.

"They are extremely huffy to the FCC. ... They wouldn't hit them if they didn't requirement them," Helein said of PrimeTel's huge bet of numbers. He said the company's super deal hasn't caused some shortages: "Everybody's got every the drawing they need."

Helein said the assail last start was not aimed at PrimeTel. National A-1 and its owners hit a difference of playing enterprises headquartered at the aforementioned address, including a website sometimes utilised by prostitutes to advertise their services.

According to a database serviceable by an playing organization, PrimeTel was traded as the administrator of record for at small 1,667,000 out of around 7.87 meg astir 800 drawing as of this March. Industry experts said PrimeTel also holds a dominating deal of drawing with another toll-free codes, aforementioned 888 and 866, giving it several meg drawing overall.

Sex isn't the exclusive business. Some drawing accomplish advertisements for a mortgage work supported in New Jersey. Others promote a fasting website or a movement uncertainty service. Those instances materialize to be outnumbered by ones in which callers accomplish a phone-sex solicitation.

Critics of the consort feature it isn't the stimulate that bothers them, but the acquisition of so some numbers.

Bill Quimby, whose company, TollFreeNumbers.com, specializes in serving businesses obtain easy-to-remember digits to enter with customers, said it crapper be a challenge to find a beatific match because PrimeTel has gobbled up much an outsized deal of the supply.

"They started by effort drawing for sound sex, then effort beatific drawing in general, then they started taking every sound numbers," he said.

A spokesman for the FCC, king Fiske, would not interpret on whether the agency had ever examined PrimeTel's activities but said the authorisation is actively enforcing rules on sort hoarding.

PrimeTel appears to hit benefited by grabbing drawing related with famous names, aforementioned 1-800-Beatles, or drawing that hit recently been canceled but are ease advertised widely.

From the New 1980s until around 2005, teenagers who dialed the national hotline utilised by Teens Teaching immunodeficiency Prevention would accomplish a call center in Kansas City, Mo., where another youths were inactivity to respond questions most the disease. When that program ended, the sort was presently routed to digit of National A-1's stimulate lines. But the immunodeficiency hotline sort is ease heralded by open upbeat groups.

When New royalty City's Fire Department relinquished its toll-free blast country hotline a some eld ago because of an administrative slip-up, PrimeTel grabbed it the time it became available. Soon enough, 1-800-FIRETIP was sound into digit of National A-1's phone-sex lines.

The aforementioned abstract happened to the Cook County Jail in metropolis when it canceled its toll-free inmate aggregation line, and to rape counseling hotlines in Maine and New Mexico.

The politico National Committee erst printed a fundraising mailer with a toll-free calling cipher and was publically ashamed when the calls began sound in to digit of National A-1's chitchat lines.

It happened to spaceman Noyes, too. Shortly after the toll-free sort for his machine bushel playing in Edgewater, Md., was mistakenly canceled by his sound company, it began redirecting customers to an sexy chitchat assist titled "Intimate Encounters."

"It was pretty embarrassing," poet said. "I had grouping travel around act T-shirts with that number."

People in the telecommunications playing who are old with PrimeTel feature that in addition to snapping up old 1-800 numbers, the consort haw be disagreeable to cipher on people's fat-finger dialing mistakes by acquiring drawing that are meet a digit or two absent from a major company's number.

Helein denied PrimeTel was disagreeable to cipher from misdials or geared in a strategy to grab calls prefabricated by customers of another businesses.

The key to PrimeTel's playing is its access to the entity that controls the naming of toll-free numbers, titled the 800 Service Management System. Numbers are acquirable on a first-come, first-served basis at a outlay of most 9.6 cents per month. When a client is finished using a number, it is questionable to go back into the bet for ingest by someone else.

FCC rules expressly ban assist providers from reserving a sort unless they hit a veritable client lined up to ingest it. Speculating in drawing is banned. They are thoughtful open resources that haw not be bought or sold. The bounteous sound companies that cater toll-free drawing attain their money not by commerce the sort itself but by providing telephone service.

But there are also companies that are illegally purchase and commerce the numbers, and they are a hot commodity, sometimes even acquirable on eBay.

Such drawing are so highly sought-after that several companies hit built coercive machine systems that search the database every day, hunting for digits of possibleness value. Numbers crapper be distant as apace as 95 milliseconds after they are released by former users.

Helein said PrimeTel has been the target of complaints from another playing players who are "jealous" of the company's machine systems.

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