[nym]

I worked for a major online car company (like edmunds, autotrader) and wanted to do the same thing with our dealership directory.

It seems to me the same as someone saying "Where can I find a Toyota dealership in Mountain View, CA?" and replying "Here you go, call this number if you want me to introduce you two!". The routed call might say to the dealer when he picked up "Lead provided by SuperHappyCars.com!" before letting the two parties talk to each other. This would help dealerships see the impact ROI based advertising had, in the lowest tech way possible.

Nothing wrong with that, although I can see how it could be abused too, routing calls to the highest bidder instead of the advertised party.

[pyre]

I think the issue here is that someone viewing HelpHive's website would be under the impression that the phone number provided on the listing for "Mountain View Toyota" is their direct number, and not a 'proxy' number that redirects them.

What happens when HelpHive screws up their phone service and loses customers for "Mountain View Toyota" because they got no connection or a 'line disconnected' message?

What happens when the customer puts the 'proxy' number in their phonebook and calls it whenever they want to call "Mountain View Toyota?" When happens when a majority of "Mountain View Toyota" customers have the proxy phone number in their phone? Now it looks like there is a lot of phone traffic coming from HelpHive, but it's grossly exaggerated because you have people using the number multiple times (rather than once when they first find the business through HelpHive).

[nym]

I agree that you have to clear about "connecting" the customer to the business, not providing the direct number. In some ways this is better than a regular phone number because if the business' number does change, the proxied number could stay the same.

The gross exaggeration you're referring to is something that's easily overcome though by tracking total calls vs unique calls. Also you get great stats like how long the customer was on the phone for, and I imagine if they hung up or were hung up on.

Turns out many businesses want this kind of data to better improve their customer service. You would not believe how many leads are purchased, and never acted upon, just because the salespeople are lazy.

[pbhjpbhj]

If you put the ultimate company name (the service the customer is trying to contact) and then your phone number then that's passing off, tortuous malfeasance in European TM law (and I'd be highly surprised if it's allowed in the US).

If you want to advertise a business lookup service the ethical and legal way is to put your own name, then something like "contact Mountain View Cars through SuperHappyConmen.com on 123-456-7890, we are not associates of Mountain View Cars".

If people want to buy tracked phone numbers for their ads they will, I'm more than happy for you to provide them. But it's not your choice whether they take on your service or not.