Whirlpool is headquartered in Michigan. This predates my telephone-using career, but my guess is that they published a local number that saved them paying the 8

Whirlpool is headquartered in Michigan. This predates my telephone-using career, but my guess is that they published a local number that saved them paying the 800 fees for Michigan customers. Either those customers were fine with making (& paying for) a local call, or perhaps there was some other within-state free calling product they used for them. (It's also the period when MCI was challenging AT&T's monopoly - possibly both were able to sell 800 numbers and Whirlpool was splitting their business for some reason. But I think the former is more likely.)