It’s something many of us have imagined doing, but one micro-businessman in Britain has changed his home phone line into a pay-to-call number.
Fed up with companies calling him without invitation and since his family and friends usually use his mobile number, he changed to a premium line. Now, when they call, they pay 10p per minute and he receives 7p of that.
It cost him £10 to set it up and he has earned £300 in the two years since he made the change. Another benefit is the number of calls received has dropped from 20 or 30 per month to 13.
He said it was not an easy thing to set up. The phone company says it does not encourage more people to follow his example. But I think more people will do this if they realize it is possible.
I haven’t been bothered lately by cold callers. If it became a problem again, I probably wouldn’t bother to do this. My standard technique is to ask them to hold the line (while I make myself a cup of tea)..
I’m thinking this could be a nice little side business. If you have expertise in a particular subject, opening your phone line for the public to call in could make a useful service. What would be a useful topic to provide a paid call-in service for?