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This site gives you step-by-step instructions:
http://www.smallclaim.info/

The bottom line is you can't do it alone. It's not worth your time and money if you don't do it alone. Small claims court, my friend. This guy tells ya how to sue a junk faxer. He lives in Washington state, but you can easily convert his methods to the laws of your state or federal laws.

Very few of them know about the requirement for a WRITTEN do-not-call policy and/or the need to provide it to the consumer on request. Even if they do, just not knowing about it violates the law.

Here's just one active consumer's results: smallclaim.info

My results have been very similar (although I have a little bit better collection record, for whatever reason). Do your checking account, and more importantly, your fellow consumers a favor, and enforce the law congress enacted, as only you can.

As a crusader for freedom on the internet, I believe strongly that unwanted calls are an avoidable nuisance. To help my fellow freedom fighters, I offer these links:

Suing Telemarketers without those sneaky lawyers taking your money!
Suing Telemarketers by Ben Livingston - they say he's crazy, but I say he's a hero!
Remove.org - you can add yourself to the global do not contact list to opt out of all advertisements!
SueTelemarketers.com - because they take away minutes of my free time when I'm trying to eat food, I invest hours of my free time trying to track down and sue telemarketers one by one.

That's all. Good night, and good luck!

I haven't sued any spammers...yet.

If the spammer is stupid, they will put personal information (company phone/address, etc) in the email or in the domain registrations. You can also link things together by looking at informtion contained in places like SpamHaus and the various block lists. You can also call/email posing as a potential customer to get data. Company information can often be researched through state/county/city clerks offices (sometimes over the net).

I'm not sure how the process works exactly (any law-talking-folks want to jump in?), but I think once you have a lawsuit filed, you can use subpoenas to get info from ISPs, domain regsitrars, etc.

Here's a site that has some good info for WA specifically from somebody who has done this successfully. If this bill is signed, then some of the focus on small claims court will be unnecessary, but there's still good stuff here.

Zen and the Art of Small Claims

Investigate your state laws here: http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/index.shtml

Some of the states allow quite significant damages, for example, California law allows "damages of $50 per message, up to $25,000 per day, or its actual damages, whichever is greater."

If you are in a state with anti-spam laws you could really lay a hurtin' on them, and might even collect some dough in the process. (Although, given that we know they are unscrupulous, collecting will not be easy.)

Here are some other resources:
http://smallclaim.info/
http://www.spamcon.org/
http://www.aboutspam.com/
http://http://www.cauce.org/about/resources.shtml

Filed in small claims court, the cost here in Seattle is $21. Plus of course, the few hours it costs you to stand in line to get forms, and court time. That still leaves enough for my next motherboard upgrade :)

This guy's (Ben Livingston) website. He discusses all of his cases, including settlement, backstory, etc. Very informative.

Ben Livingston has a web page with a lot of good hints for anyone interested in suing these people. He also has a complete list of everyone he's sued, the outcomes, and in some cases, even a scanned image of the check they sent him.

Ben Livingston has a web page with a lot of good hints for anyone interested in suing these people. He also has a complete list of everyone he's sued, the outcomes, and in some cases, even a scanned image of the check they sent him.

Small claims is already done by some people in Washington state. One of them is Ben Livingston.
See how he has a little fun with spamers on http://www.smallclaim.info .
On his Homepage http://www.hemp.net/~ben you find also how to "Dunk the Mayor" or "Seattle Hempfest" infos.

Ben Livingston is a WA man that rountinely takes spammers to small claims court...and, get this...actually wins consistenly.

Check out his site that includes court documents, a FAQ on how to successfully sue spammers, and his past/current cases.

A single lawsuit won't do anything to stop spam, but once fifty or one hundred people start suing, it will get too expensive for many spammers. In Washington State, we've nearly a dozen folks filing lawsuits, some of them going for some serious amounts -- to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you've got spam with a phone number or ordering address in it, you can (usually) track it down to a specific company or person. If it's only got a URL, like those mortgage spams, Washington litigants are filling out the contact forms on the site, then going after the mortgage company that contacts them. When these mortgage companies get hit with a lawsuit, they either want to settle right quick, or they rat out the spammer they hired. I've been focusing on spam with phone numbers, as I find it relatively easy and fun to track down the company behind the number. It may not always be easy to find the spammer, but it's not rocket science either. Anyone can do it given a little bit of time.

The Seattle Times had a good article on Saturday about the anti-spam law, some folks who've been using it, their wins, and the troubles they've encountered with the court system. The biggest issue in Washington is that court clerks and judges aren't fully educated about procedural issues like whether one can sue an out-of-state defendant or for punitive damages in small claims court. (The answer to both is yes.) It's been pretty frustrating for us "trailblazers," as the judges are saying contradictory and often quite stupid stuff.

Here's some nifty links:

• AboutSpam.com - Bruce Miller's site
• Peacefire anti-spam suits - Bennett Haselton's site
• Smallclaim.info - my site

For a copy of my 24 page zine, Zen and the art of small claims, send some stamps to PO Box 95227, Seattle, WA 98145. You can also just read it online at my site, but any zinester knows that it's just not the same.