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How to Stop Rampant Junk Fax?
Fascist Christ asks: "The company I work for, like many other companies, uses a fax machine. We get an annoying ammount of advertisements by fax and are looking to find an effective way to stop it. We have tried requesting to be removed from the lists, but we get too many to do this every time. One company told me that they get there info from infoUSA. Does anyone have any experience with this or other companies and know how to stop this activity without getting a lawyer involved?" How difficult would it be to set up a fax system that would use caller-ID blacklists before answering the line? At the very least you can block identifiable spammers by something that's harder to change than their email address: their phone number.
Use a computer based fax machine. Then only print out the ones you want to print out.
That's right, if your in the good ol USA, you get $500 per each violation in civil penalities after the FCC gets it's fine. Junkbusters.org has info on this and links to the complaint pages and contact info at the FCC.
/. last month.
eFax.com Just got fined $24Million for doing this. It was on
Do a search in the article archive next time before wasting time posting.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Set up Hylafax. to retrive your faxes and notify you by email when they come int.
By default fax programs use tiff files which are not very web friendly. Most people prefer pdfs which is why the fax2pdf project exists.
With a little bit of effort you can set up a machine that retrieves all your faxes and delivers them by email. You print only the ones you want, delete, or archive the rest.
I doubt any proper junk faxer has a fax machine hooked up - it's almost always a computer doing the sending.
Why are you lawyer-adverse? If you needed a computer system installed, would you eschew those dirty, stinking computer engineers?
Just because they have a reputation for being lying, theiving, conniving lowlifes, lawyers actually do perform a real function. It seems that if you've got a problem with harrassment, it makes sense to seek the advice of a lawyer.
There are a couple of resources for you and your lawyers to get started with. junkfax.org and http://www.junkfaxes.org are two separate websites dedicated to the cause, the second has an excellent mailing list where you'll find advice and experience on going after junkfaxers with the TCPA law.
Bleh!
That's often all it takes, just politely informing them that they are liable for a $500 fine for every unsolicited fax they send you. Most of the time a lawyer will not be needed. If you are in California any civil suit for under $5000 would go to small claims court, where lawyers aren't even allowed, and if one party doesn't show up they automatically lose. That's one of my Dad's favorite things to remind greedy corporations who try to screw him of (the most recent victim was Earthlink). He's probably the most effective person I know in such situations.
Notice that there are no lawyers involved in any of the above steps. The law is involved, however, which is why it's effective. And, if your fax-spammers refuse to stop you can make some easy money on the side, again with no lawyers involved (in CA, anyway).
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The only way to move Governor Davis to action is with a bribe^H contribution. His signature probably costs a bit more than a toner cartridge, but not much. Check out egray.org to see what the going rate is.
Most junk faxers are small businesses who contract through a faxing service. The faxing service uses special fax servers to send, so the old black construction paper trick won't help. At best you tie up a channel on their PRI.
Others have mentioned that you can use various laws, including the TCPA to go after the small businesses. You may also try contacting the major mass-fax houses. Ask to be added to any dontfax list they have. From what I recall the TCPA does not require the mass fax houses themselves maintain a list. You may try to get around this by asking to be added to the dont send list of all their clients. At the very least it would be a headache for them and some documentation if you ever wanted to sue. It's a longshot, but you never know.
If you are clever you should also be able work out a good set of claims against solitications to your cell phone using that section of the USC, too.
Reading the letter of the code, it should also apply to spam, but lawyers seemed to have dropped the ball on that one.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
...to sign up to the Faxing Preference Service. Once you have done this, you appear on the list of people it is unlawful for anyone to fax-spam.
If you're concerned about the amount of tree-ware spamming you through your letterbox then sign up for the Mailing Preference service while you're at it.
Finally, you can also sign up to the Telephone Preference service and foil those legalised war-diallers that phone you up and then hang up on you when they realise they can't connect you to a sales drone.
All things in moderation; including moderation
If there is a law against Junk Faxing, why are we having such a hard time getting equivilent laws against Junk Mailing....same thing in my mind.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Yeah, and wait 2 months until your number is found again (yes, junk faxers war-dial, which is also illegal.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"