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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?"
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!
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.
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.