A reader suggested Brring in 30 Money Saving Tips, so I thought I would give it a try. I didn’t think I would really use anything like this, but I was curious to see what the ads sound like.
How it Works
You are assigned a Brring number. When people call your number, first they listen to a short ad, and then are forwarded to your regular number.
People can still call your regular number. As readers pointed out, you would probably only want to use the numbers for telemarketers and such. Giving this number to family and friends probably wouldn’t work so well.
What is it like?
Sign-up was easy and only took a minute. After registering our number, they called to verify that we owned the number.
When I needed to call home yesterday, I tried out the new number to see what the ad sounded like. It was the most annoying ad. The one I heard was for a wheel of fortune game, but the voice was was really annoying and I felt like he was yelling at me.
The call then forwarded and rang for a very long time before our answering machine picked up. While it was ringing, it sounded funny, but once the machine picked up the connection sounded better. However, it connected part way through our message so the timing didn’t quite work out.
The caller ID still shows the person that is calling and not a Brring number as I expected it would.
Positives
Well the only real positive seems to be that you can refer your friends to sign up to earn rewards. However, it’s only $1 per friend and there is a $10 minimum cashout.
Normally, you earn $.05 per call, but they are giving $1 per call for the first 10, so you could use it for ten calls then abandon the idea for a quick ten bucks.
My Thoughts
Well, this is one money saving idea that I won’t be using regularly. I’ll use it to get my $10, then I’ll be done with it. However, I might keep it active to put on lists where I know my number will be sold to telemarketers…
A better model might be one where I can choose to hear ads before I call someone. Let the caller make the choice, not the receiver and there might be better results.
Have you tried it out? What do you think?
I’d have to see a much higher long-term payout before I would be interested in signing up. Seems to be too much trouble to be worth the time. Sure $10 is $10, but I think the time spent signing up could be better spent on other things. JMHO. Now if it was $1 per ad permanently, I’d give everyone that number in a heartbeat 🙂
I’m a little confused. Do they give you a number in addition to your regular number? So you would have a brrng number for irritating folks and a regular number for friends and fam? If that’s the case I would give it a try for sign ups.
Sounds awful! I think we need LESS advertising in our lives…even for telemarketers. Though the thought of them *making* money for me is rather sweet. Still doesn’t sound like it would be worth the trouble.
Ok, I read back a few posts and found my answer. I think I would use this for sign up and anyone I know will sell my info. When I bought my car it seems like the dealership sold my number to the world and we get daily calls letting us know that the warrenty is going to expire.
We’ve signed up, but only to hand out the number to those who would sell our number to telemarketers. We get 5-10 phantom phone calls a day–and our number is unlisted! If I can trim down the annoying calls, it’s worth it. You can find out how many calls you’ve gotten at the website, and that would be a good predictor of its use. The quality of the message, sound, etc. as you say, was pretty bad. It has a place, though.
This is penny-wise and dollar foolish ! Our relationships with the people who choose to call us at home (excluding telemarketers) are FAR too important to expose them to this kind of annoyance. And besides, who rats out friends for a buck ?