Slashdot Mirror
Stopping Overseas Fax Spam?
iotashan asks: "Likely for most businesses, unsolicited faxes have become quite a problem. They needlessly use up toner and paper, and are usually just scams anyway. Specifically, we are receiving faxes from a company called Flamingo Travel. Now, they appear to bug business across the US, and some innocent parties are falling victim. I have used their automated system for having my fax number removed, to no avail. Is my only weapon having a bunch of friends call this 800 number to make the company's overseas toll-free phone bill unbearable?"
"The latest fax listed a number to call to take advantage of the offer (800-328-9795), so I called it and asked to be removed. The woman took down my number, but rather smugly told me that they are in England so they do not have to obey the US unsolicited fax laws. She wouldn't provide me with any other company information, and then stopped answering calls from my number after repeated hang-ups. The FCC says that it is a civil matter, and to go through the courts. The Fax Preference Service in the UK says they cannot help people outside the UK. Do I have nowhere to turn except an expensive lawyer, armed with no information about the company?"
sorry to spoil it for you all but cant it wait until morning? its like 11:26PM over here. there will be no one in that office!!
D'OH!
How many computers are too many?
A couple of karma-whoring things...
Number 1 : Free World Dialup
Number 2 : Why are you still using a fax machine? Get a cheap computer up on some fax software and you can auto-filter your faxes. Not to mention the savings you'll get from not using any toner. Then just lazer print anything worth keeping.
Scratch that, after searching a little more the number is right, dial away!!!!
My user number is prime. Is yours?
I checked on the guy who posted this.. there's really no history of him posting anything on slashdot prior to this--
iotashan
Seems like a banner click thru scam, but this time it's with a 1-800 number. Brilliant.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Who the hell uses a fax machine anymore anyways???
Normal businesses and people, that's who.
When an editor wants to send back a marked-up piece of copy, they do it by fax. Any real editor in the world will tell you that you don't edit online. You do it with proofreaders' marks, circles, arrows, writing in between lines, etc.
If you are, or are dealing with, a lawyer, a real-estate agent, or anyone who works with contracts, you exchange the contracts via fax. (Typing your name in e-mail doesn't count as a signature.)
The business world still relies on faxes because they work better than e-mail for many purposes.
Most people don't have sheetfeed scanners, so they can't put a 15 page document in their scanner and just walk away. They have to feed it page by page, so don't even bother with the use-a-scanner-and-e-mail-it line.
If you're reading this, dial 1-800-328-9795. One call won't hurt.
Or will it? Now that you've called them, they have your phone number -- ANI displays your number even if you block caller id from being sent. Because you called them, likely from your home number, doesn't that consitute a business relationship with them? Perhaps now you'll start getting tons of phone calls to your number, and they won't be unsolicited.
The best thing is to write down the number and take it with you. If you happen to pass by a phone booth (or hotel courtesy phone, or...) on the way to lunch or something, pick it up and make the call.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
However, spammers always lie - if they're using an 800 number, there's a high probability that it really _is_ in the US, and they're just claiming to be in England to make you go away. Or the 800 number could be going to a VOIP box in the US which connects them to a call center in the UK. So trace the call - at least with callerid, if nothing else (though that's often inaccurate) and see if you can find out where it's from. If the call is coming in on a direct analog phone line, you can also use one of the phone company features like *69 or your local telco's call tracing versions to check further.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Did a search to see if I could find any additional information and found that Flamingo Travel has incorrectly had calls going to their number. They have their front page modified to point people to the correct number as other posters have listed. They also have this link to fcc.gov for filing complaints against unwanted faxes.
Sounds like some people have hit the wrong target.
According to the website provided by Slashdot:
They are coming from a company in Florida calling themselves Flamingo Travel... they sell time shares.
-B
For academic purposes only. Know the laws of your state.
First, you'll need a credit card number.
Visa numbers are constructed like this like this:
Start with the digit 4
16 digits altogether
The checksum they must pass is:
Take the even digits, double them, and add the resulting digits together to get a new digit. (or just map 0-9 to 0246813579 for the even digits).
Then add all the digits together. If it's a multiple of 10, the card number is valid. A quick way to generate would be to start with 4 plus 14 random digits, calculate the checksum of those 15 digits, and subtract from 10 to get the remaining digit.
Their machines will initially accept them, and be forced to contact visa to verify their correctness, at which time they'd fail, but result in small charges to their merchanct account. Enough bad card numbers can get an account suspended.
More than likely, the spammer will just end up sticking the phone company with the bill. If this effort generates enough traffic to actually make an impact on the spammer's finances, the spammer will probably be able to point to a malicious /. thread and get the phone company to absorb the charges.
/.ers dial away, about 1 out of every fifty calls is dinging an innocent bystander. (assuming that there are innocent people who have 800 numbers.)
The other innocent group getting hit right now are people who have phone number similar to the spammer. As fat fingered
http://www.flamingo-travel.com/Home/News.asp?ID=1
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We have been recieving phone calls from people angry that we are sending them fax specials like $99 to Disney and Kids Free. Please know that they are NOT coming from Flamingo Travel Group in Pennsylvania. They are coming from a company in Florida calling themselves Flamingo Travel. Their phone number is 1-800-328-9795 and they sell time shares.