What does FuturePhone.com have to gain by offering up free international phone calls, via regular phone service?

Yeah, that’s free, as in it costs nothing. True, you have to make an initial call to 712-858-8883, which is the gateway phone channel from which you then dial your international number. That 712 is an Iowa area code, so it’s a long-distance call for most of the U.S. But these days, practically everyone has some form of free long distance at least part of the time on their phone plans, so it’s pretty easy to set up a call to Europe or South America for nada.

But again: What’s the catch? According to FuturePhone, there’s none. They’re serving up this free wormhole as a hook for future service offerings. That’s good enough for David Pogue, but his readers are looking a gift horse in the mouth, suspecting some sort of phishing scam.

I don’t know what to think. It is an overly elaborate setup if the goal is to swipe phone numbers or other personal info. And it’s not inconceivable that a such a telecom pipeline could be maintained low-cost, and justified as a marketing expenditure. Then again, why chance it?

Even though it shouldn’t factor in too much, I have to say that the rather shoddy presentation on their website — lots of typos, a vaguely auto-generated content vibe — is giving me pause. I guess my pressing calls to Greece and Christmas Island are going to have to wait.