Can I Call 1-800 Numbers from Outside the US?

Calling a bank, an airline, or a government office back home usually means dialing a toll-free number - the kind that starts with 1-800, and also 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, and 888. If you have ever tried one from abroad on a normal phone, you will know the frustrating result: the line refuses the call, or it goes through and costs a fortune.

Through CallTuv it simply works. You can dial an American or Canadian toll-free number from any country where CallTuv works, and the call connects like a local one.

Why toll-free numbers are usually unreachable from abroad

"Toll-free" means the company being called pays for the call, instead of you - but only for calls made inside that country. When a call arrives from another country, most toll-free lines either refuse it or charge international rates, which is why so many people abroad give up on reaching customer service.

CallTuv sidesteps this. Your voice travels over the internet to the United States, and the call is handed to the American phone network there - so the toll-free line receives an ordinary domestic call rather than an international one. Nothing on your side needs a US SIM card or a US phone number.

How to call a 1-800 number

On the website:

1. Go to calltuv.com and sign in, then open the Call page.
2. In the country selector (the little flag), choose United States - or Canada for a Canadian toll-free line.
3. Type the number without the leading 1. For 1-800-555-0199 you type 8005550199.
4. The price per minute appears next to the number as soon as it is complete. Check it, then press the green call button.
5. Your call connects within a few seconds, usually straight into the company's phone menu.

In the mobile app it is exactly the same: open the Call tab, pick the country, type the number, and tap the call button.

Already have the number written in full international form, like +18005550199? Paste it in as it is. CallTuv recognizes the country by itself, so you do not need to touch the country selector. More on this in Entering Phone Numbers and Choosing Countries.

Numbers with letters in them

Many toll-free numbers are advertised as words - 1-800-FLOWERS, 1-800-CONTACTS. CallTuv accepts digits only, so convert the letters first using the standard phone keypad:

• 2 = A B C
• 3 = D E F
• 4 = G H I
• 5 = J K L
• 6 = M N O
• 7 = P Q R S
• 8 = T U V
• 9 = W X Y Z

So 1-800-FLOWERS becomes 1-800-356-9377, and you would type 8003569377 with United States selected.

What a toll-free call costs

This is the one thing worth being clear about: toll-free numbers are not free through CallTuv. The number is free for someone dialing it inside the United States on an ordinary line - it is not free for us to carry your call there, so the call is billed per minute like any other.

The good news is that you always see the price first. When you finish typing the number, the dialer shows that exact number's price per minute - it is an ordinary American rate, not a premium one, and it is normally a few cents a minute. Billing then works exactly as it does for any call, rounded up to whole minutes: see Understanding Rates and Per-Minute Billing.

Two practical points:

• You need enough credit for at least 3 minutes at that rate before the call will start - explained in Minimum Balance to Start a Call.
• Support lines put you on hold, and hold time is talking time as far as billing goes. A 40-minute wait at 2 cents a minute is 80 cents, so it is worth having a little credit in reserve before calling a busy helpline. Auto top-up keeps that from becoming a worry.

Getting through the "press 1 for billing" menu

Almost every toll-free number answers with an automated menu. During the call, open the keypad and press the digits it asks for - the tones are sent down the line exactly as they would be from a normal phone. In-Call Controls: Mute, Speaker, and Keypad shows where the keypad button is.

If the menu does not seem to react to your presses, press each key firmly and one at a time, and see Phone Menu Not Registering Key Presses.

If a toll-free number still will not take the call

A small number of toll-free lines are set up to accept calls only from certain places, and no calling service can talk them round. If one refuses:

• Try the regular direct-dial number for the same company. Most banks and airlines publish an ordinary local number "for customers calling from abroad", usually on the contact page of their website or on the back of your card. It is not free, but through CallTuv it costs cents.
• If you call with your own verified number as caller ID and it is not an American number, try switching back to CallTuv's shared number for that call - some toll-free lines are fussy about where the calling number belongs.
• A call that never connects is never charged, so trying costs you nothing. See Charged for a Call That Didn't Connect? and Why Your Call Won't Connect.

Freephone numbers in other countries

The same applies elsewhere. British 0800 and 0808 numbers, Spanish 900 numbers, Italian 800 numbers and their equivalents can all be dialed the ordinary way: pick the country, type the number without its leading zero where the country uses one, and check the price the dialer shows. As with 1-800 numbers, they are free to callers inside that country but billed per minute through CallTuv.