Fax Spam

Slashdot has a post of a guy asking how he can stop fax spam from overseas.

"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?"

I'm amazed that they bother making long distance phone calls - shows what I know about fax spam... apparently not a whole lot.

The best reason to read that post is for the responses. They are also trying to get a call to arms to wait until morning in the UK when they will have business hours and then just call that 1-800 number all of the time.

They raise the good point that the best way to tie up things like that are with queries that look like they are legitimate, so that a human has to waste time sorting through them and following up to see if they can get business from them.

Posted by Eric at May 10, 2004 09:32 PM | TrackBack