Need US telephone number for infrequent incoming calls

Software
1

I am a US citizen living and working long-term in Asia. I have a US residence, US bank accounts and do all my business from the US App stores. I need to have a US phone number that can forward to my iPhone in Thailand. My need is for a US telephone number of record for certain services I sign up for (right now the problem is signing up for money transfer services that are only usable with a US telephone number of record). I will have no outgoing calls from this number and would not expect more that an incoming call or so a month.

I see a lot of services offering prices in the range of $5/month and up. That’s way too much for my use. I would understanding paying a very minimal monthly charge for the number ($1-2/month seems reasonable), then a per-minute or per-call charge.

I’d like any suggestions you might have on this.

As always, thanks for the help.

Tony

2

Google Voice?  

6 Likes
3

Thanks, but the first requirement in the first page:

You must have an existing US-based mobile or landline phone number to qualify.

4

Try a voip system, such as ooma https://www.ooma.com. They can supply a us based number.

5

With Ooma, unless I am missing something, the problem is that it requires VOIP equipment.

I just need company that will provide a number that will get forwarded to an iOS app on a phone.

6

This may be suitable for your use case. I bought a lifetime version on Stacksocial

Check it out.

7

Thanks for this. They seem to be what I’m looking for. I just sent them an email to see if they will confirm that they can do what I need.

8

MySudo is also an interesting option.

9

Check and make sure that companies can actually phone the number. I found when using one of the services my bank’s phone system recognised the number as “odd” (whatever) and my contact for whom I had set up this arrangement could not call me on that number.

10

I use google voice but sometimes it doesn’t get recognized aka “odd” I’m not sure about the voip or other services. Also, you would need to set it up with an existing number but then you could disable that existing.

11

I heard about hushed, How did you like it?

They have a lifetime promo for $25

Conditions

  • Must use your lifetime number at least once every 6 months in order to keep your subscription active
  • Hushed numbers are not guaranteed to work with 3rd party verification services and cannot be used for emergency call services
12

It’s does the job for my limited use case.

The six month condition is not a concern for me.

What is an issue is that’s some services as indicated will not use Hush for verification. I have found these same services not use Google Voice as verification. I suspect, they need a real mobile number. Other than that, it works fine for what I paid for.

13

Yes, Ooma needs a box that plugs into WiFi. But it’s only $99. I’ve never had an issue of a call to that number being rejected (that I know of).

14

Are there additional benefits beyond what google voice has?

15

Second that Hushed is the way to go. Look for lifetime deals

16

Please note that these internet based phone numbers are often not accepted by banks and other providers.

1 Like
17

I cannot agree more. In one instance, a US Bank accepted this number but refused to use it for verification when the time came. So frustrating.

1 Like
19

Went with Hushed. Thanks for the tip @MereCivilian.

Through Stacksocial (see @MereCivilian’s post above), I got 1 number for a lifetime for $19.99 total. That’s 1000 minutes/year. I had my brother call me from the US and it worked fine. I also used it when I signed up for a service and it was accepted. I had a couple of issues for support, first with checking to see if it was what I wanted and then when I had a problem activating the lifetime account (my fault, I had 2 different accounts). Both times, support got right back to me and solved my problems.

Seems to be just what I wanted after 1 day’s evaluation.

1 Like