Being a tourist is not always fun. Imagine you are abroad and want to get in touch with a new acquaintance, but not reveal your outside area code, or your real phone number. The solution is called Vumber, a virtual phone number that links to your current phone line.
Use Vumber’s two-way disposable phone number service and add additional lines to any phone you want with any area code from across the US. When you call someone in a new area, he or she will instantly accept you as a local.
You can make and receive anonymous, secure phone calls from any telephone, anywhere. Pick any area code you wish and Vumber will assign you an available seven digit number.
Say you visit New York and want to “live” on Manhattan, choose the area code 212. You prefer Brooklyn or Queens? Opt for 718. Or perhaps you would rather be known as an LA resident? Then, pick 213. The person you call can only see your Vumber, not your real phone number.
At the moment, Vumber is available in Canada and the US. They will add international codes by early 2009.
To learn more about this new long distance calling solution, Travel Blissful got in touch with Vumber CEO and Founder Cliff Wener.
Erica Johansson: How did you come up with the idea of Vumber?
Cliff Wener: The most basic idea behind Vumber is preserving privacy in communications. So when a doctor friend of mine asked if there was some way he could avoid having to give patients his private cell phone number, so that he didn’t get calls at all hours of the night, without having to carry two phones, we came up with the concept of a virtual phone number or a Vumber
The best part of it for him is that it really allows him to have two numbers on a single phone and it works like a real phone number – so not only can patients call him on his Vumber, but he can also call them back and the Vumber shows up on their caller ID. It truly allowed him to take control of his personal privacy.
How has the response been so far?
The response has been really good so far. Apart from some really good media coverage, our user base has been growing steadily since our launch in January. The real surprise for us has been customer loyalty. We offer a free trial, so we presumed we would get a lot of signups, just looking to test the service – however the percentage that become loyal, paying customers has been much higher than we expected.
Not only that but our customers write us on a daily basis to say how useful they are finding the service – whether they are using it for dating, job searching, apartment hunting or as a second number for business. So it’s been really great.
What are the future plans for Vumber?
As a company, we aim to become the first choice in second numbers. With the lines of communication becoming increasingly blurred – from constant internet access, cell phones, ever-expanding social networks and general 24/7 availability – protecting your privacy is more important than ever, not to mention the fact that identity theft is a very serious problem – which means that giving out your phone number to the wrong person can have serious consequences.
As for our product, we are constantly releasing new features to make Vumber even more useful. For example, we plan to offer low-cost international calling and international Vumbers in the future. We advise customers to go to our website, www.vumber.com, which is constantly updated with the latest happenings at Vumber.
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how do you find time to interview all these people! It must be a great experience though.
i mostly interview via email, so it goes pretty fast.
What a cool interview and new service! I have a ‘virtural number’ through Skype for work that makes it seem that I ‘live’ in Palo Alto. It’s very handy, but it’s not intended to be disposable in the same way that these are.
Now all we have to deal with are accents!
It’s a really cool service. Am looking forward to when they’ll add international codes.
And you’re right about the accents!