Customers Get Wrong Message About O.C. Paging Company

What’s in a name? For the owners of Econopage of Southern California Inc., the recent demise of a San Jose company with a similar moniker has caused a marketing dilemma.

When the Santa Ana-based paging service company started in 1995, founder Larry Nichols wanted a “popular” corporate name. “At the time, there were about 30 different companies in the U.S. using the phrase ‘econopage’ in some fashion or other,” said Nichols, whose company has nine stores and nearly 30,000 customers in Los Angeles and Orange counties. “We joined marketing forces with one out of the Bay Area.”

Nichols and the staff at Econopage Inc. of San Jose ran joint newspaper advertisements featuring just the name “Econopage” and the slogan “44 West Coast Locations to Serve You.”

Things ran smoothly until October, when the San Jose company abruptly closed its doors and cut off more than 200,000 Bay Area customers. A news release from Pagenet--which supplies some of the underlying service for both resellers--said the closure did not affect Econopage of Southern California.

Yet, the Orange County paging company now is dealing with cranky customers of its own. Local competitors are telling customers that the Orange County company is going out of business, Econopage officials said.

Affordable Portables of Lake Forest admitted it was one of the companies putting out the word but now has stopped. “[It] was an easy mistake to make,” said Michael Freedman, Affordable Portables president and chief executive.

Indeed, there are many similarities between the Econopages. Both positioned themselves as discount chains. Both sold multiyear contracts--up to a decade’s worth of service--to their customers. Both agreed to handle customer-service questions from each other’s clients.

In fact, Nichols has business ties with Aaron Arnott, the chief financial and chief operating officer of Econopage Inc. of San Jose. The two men are listed as co-owners of several wireless telecommunication companies based in Santa Ana, according to filings with the California secretary of state.

“Yes, we know each other. But my Econopage and the Econopage up in Northern California are financially separate entities,” Nichols said.

Nichols’ lawyers recently sent cease-and-desist letters to 39 paging shops throughout Southern California.

And this month, Nichol’s attorneys obtained a temporary court order preventing four J&J; Beepers stores, as well their parent, Alpha Scope Communications, from putting out the word that Econopage was going out of business.

Defense attorney Lawrence Ecoff said his clients deny the allegations.

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at [email protected]