'Telephone Lines' Business  

Telephone Lines

Patino (207.200.116.65) -

I'm curious why the Hotel Terrazo Del Pacifico would have a telephone number 506 643 3222 published on their website yet the number is "not set up to accept incoming calls" according to the operator. Is this common for businesses in Costa Rica?

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Reply #1 Plain Jane (63.176.159.40) -

Yes, you might find that it is much more common than you'd expect.

I think what happened is that they put an international call block on their line. The purpose of course is to avoid outrageous phone bills if clients or employees were to call OUT around the world.

However, a possibly unintended side effect can be the blocking of INCOMING international calls as well. This is apparently to prevent any possiblity of a collect type call.

It also seems common that third parties will cause trouble with your phone lines, such as reporting your cellular phone stolen when it's not. That will set you about a bureaucratic headache to resolve the situation. I don't think it is that hard for someone else to cause trouble with a regular line either.

Let's hope in this case that it is just a temporary issue with ICE (the Costa Rica telephone monopoly). In anycase, email is probably your best method for communications. Just make sure your email isn't [spam] blocked for messages coming from Costa Rica.

Reply #2 jane doe from down below -

Ahha that makes sense. Still you would think that they would at least place a warning below the phone number on the website that they do not accept international calls. It would save up some time and they can recieve emails instead of confused people just giving up.

Reply #3 Old Grump from San Jose -

I think there are two problems where...

One, many people see a Costa Rica phone number like 506 643 3222, pick up the phone in the USA and dial 1-506 643 3222 and get someone in Montana. Instead of calling internationally with 011-506 643 3222.

The second problem is that in Costa Rica if you ask to have outgoing international calls blocked (like would be wise for any small, independent hotel), the phone company also blocks incomming calls (apparently so no one will call collect).

So rather than just blocking calls international calls that cost money they block all international calls. Resulting in a complete mess of things!

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