Stopping Overseas Fax Spam? 439
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?"
Spam him back (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really not such a bad idea. Being that they're in an other country and illegally spamming, you can assume they aren't going to attempt to prosecute somebody that they themselves have illegally wronged.
Get a free VoIP service like Free World Dialup or something that lets you make 800 calls over the Internet. With most of them the caller ID shows up as random numbers across the US that they use to dial out. Then fax them tons and tons and tons of junk (read: goatse's) faxes through that.
Or you could just automate your VoIP program to call them every 30 seconds. Rack up the bills and annoy the hell out of them. Didn't Scott Richer get really pissed off when everybody submitted his email address to zillions of email lists?
Re:Spam him back (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Spam him back (Score:4, Interesting)
In 1993, we used Hylafax. We sent things out THROUGH it (and a row of modems) and we received faxes through it. It never needs to hit paper.
We had a machine to send stuff OUT of on occasion (like a filled out form), but didn't take IN on that line.
In days of yore, we just showed the first page and someone could route it by that. Privacy issues were pretty moot as it was replacing a pile of paper that the administrators (secretaries) piled through).
Junk Fax? Delete.
Need to have it on paper? Fine, print it. About 20% ever needed to become paper.
A Friend ordered some new modem (28.8kb). Needed it the next day. Coached them on how to send it international (he was in canada for 2 weeks on a job site with no access). "Sir, we do this all the time." And yet they screwed it up. Nothing in the promised AM. Noon. PM. The next morning, he's written a long 4 page screed. In large print, 3 thrice a page, he has in 100 pt font, "Call me: My number is..."
Prints it on a trusty dotmatrix as one sheet.
He "dials around" the tech supports local(ish) direct number until he gets a fax squeal.
Feeds the fax. Tapes the ends together.
After 90 minutes, the phone rings. "Are you .....?"
Yes, did you get my fax? ... really? wow, my machine must be screwed up. But not like your shipping dept is. Where's my damn modem you charged me for a swore up and down would be here yesterday?
Faxing them back won't make a difference. It will cost you. Perhaps a smart fax modem program with caller ID set with an access list (ala sendmail: Block THESE countries).
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Interesting)
does anyone know what these people want to sell me so that I can lead them on a bit more?
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Interesting)
Congratulations, in 5 minutes they're already Slashdotted beyong annoyance!
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Informative)
The other innocent group getting hit right now are people who have phone number similar to the spammer. As fat fingered
Re:Dialing error rate (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to point out that the when the phone system was designed, they had no term "high availability". It is a machine. They built it well. Just as everyone who built any kind of machine at the time.
The term "high availability" wasn't invented (due to lack of necessity) until people began attempting to run web servers on Wind
Re:Spam him back (Score:3, Interesting)
The website says timeshare (Score:5, Informative)
They are coming from a company in Florida calling themselves Flamingo Travel... they sell time shares.
-B
Re:The website says timeshare (Score:3, Informative)
AHA! Then the original poster can grab them by the balls and squeeze until they pass out!!!
Under federal law a U.S. based company who contracts to have spam faxes sent to U.S. phone numbers is subject to the $500/$1500 per fax fine regardless of what country the faxes are sent from. In other words: although you can't touch the U.K. company that's actually sending the faxes, you can sue the company on wh
Re:Copy of Original Spam?? (Score:3, Informative)
###
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4 Days
3 Nights
in Orlando
$99 per person
double occupancy
This Special Rate is Limited to the first 50 Purchasers Today!
{[Ask about our all inclusive 3 day 2 Night Cruise to the Bahamas!]}
INCLUDES: 2 Disney Tickets FREE!
Buy (Disney Vacation Package) get (Cruise Vacation Package) FREE!
BONUS: Daytona Beach 3 Days 2 Nights
Purchase Today and Receive Complimentary Air Voucher to Jamaica, Mexico or Las Vega
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Informative)
D'OH!
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of karma-whoring things...
Number 1 : Free World Dialup [freeworldialup.com]
Number 2 : Why are you still using a fax machine? Get a cheap computer up on some fax software [google.com] 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.
Dial-a-thon (Score:2)
Lets not keep them waiting!
Re:Dial-a-thon (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/tmarkg/to
Re:Spam him back (Score:2, Informative)
There is a Google cache here [216.239.41.104], however.
Maybe this is the over-seas company doing the faxing? I don't know, I can't read Russian , so I can't verify if the company discussed in the article is the same as this one.
Oh and BTW the number for the company that is doing the faxing is 1-800-328-9795 for those who don't want to RTFA.
Re:Spam him back (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like some people have hit the wrong target.
Re:Spam him back (Score:3, Interesting)
The trick is in the timing. call on Friday after buisness hours, and let it fax. Once the paper you are faxing starts to come through your machine, loop it back around and tape it together to form a nice continuous loop. I've heard of this fax continuing all weekend until somebody comes in Monday to shut it off.
Re:Spam him back (Score:4, Informative)
Do remember that the recipient of an 800 call gets your phone number reported to them.
Calling from a pay phone will prevent you from receiving phone-spam (or legal) retribution.
In the US, calling from a pay phone has an additional benefit: the recipient is charged ~$0.35 per call to compensate the owner of the pay phone for the money you're not putting in. So if you don't get the information you need the first time, keep calling back until you do.
Re:Spam him back (Score:3, Interesting)
My new business model:
1) Buy a bunch of pay phones and install them in a big room.
2) Hook them up to computers/modems/whatever
3) Call 1-800 numbers found on spam faxes/junk email all day and night.
4) Profit!!!
At $0.35 a call, how long does it take to pay for the pay phone?
Re:Spam him back (Score:4, Insightful)
You think you're getting back at the spammer, but here's what's really happening. I work for a mid-sized toll free 800 services provider. These bastards sign up for our services, pay the first month's cost on the system, advertise illegally, and then never pay the cost of the usage. They collect whatever amount of successful business they get, many times by spamming starting Friday night so we don't get the complaints and shut them down until Monday morning, and then when we cancel their system for abuse, they don't pay the usage bill, which is often a flood of callers screaming at them in voicemail. Then a few of the callers look up who manages the 800 number of the spammer, figure out it is our company, and they call us and scream and/or report us to the FCC or FTC for spamming, when we're not the ones doing it. This is a very very common problem for 800 toll free services providers. There is little we can do to stop it. We rapidly answer supoenas from Attornies General of states, and we report these spammers to the FCC, including every bit of information we can gather regarding the spammer. Sometimes the systems are purchased with fake credit cards. We try to ban their names and aliases, and we have a person who visually screens the orders for known spammers and fake looking orders. With all of our efforts, and by complying with all telecom regulations and reporting fraud and phone/fax abuse to the FCC, we still suffer from these morons every month. There's nothing to stop some fax spammer from getting a new name, new credit card, buying an 800 number, fax spamming up a storm, and putting that 800 number they bought from us as the call-back number.
Now, we do NOT allow people to abuse our outbound fax system for the spamming, this is typically done either with their own equipment or through some spam-friendly service. Our fax system doesn't allow faxing to large enough groups of numbers for anything but standard office groupware type faxing. All of our outbound services are heavily monitored for abuse.
My point is this: You think by flooding the 800 number with phone calls and wasting their minutes that you are punishing the spammer. That's assuming the bastard is going to pay his bill, when quite frequently, he is not. We end up paying his bill while we do everything possible to rapidly kill spam accounts and report them to authorities. If you really want to help resolve this problem, the proper response is to report them to the FCC. If the FCC receives enough complaints, they act and people get taken down (we've seen it). You can easily fill out the abuse report form located here on the FCC's site: http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm [fcc.gov]
Please, understand that unlike email spammers who have positive relationships with their providers, phone providers are actually under the gun with the FCC and rarely do they ever willingly partake in phone/fax spamming which is clearly illegal under FCC and FTC regulations. Since they aren't working with us in a positive relationship, they know they can screw us and not pay their bill.
Re:Spam him back (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know anything about your business or the size thereof, but there are lots of ways to prevent getting scum for customers. You could only sign up customers with D&B numbers, require an audited credit statement, and so forth. Sounds to me like you want to not screen customers very carefully and also not endure the problems associated with bad customers.
Consistency here will be key (Score:5, Funny)
--H
Count me in. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you guys want to organize a day where we call all the 800 numbers of spammers and junk faxers count me in. I've got a couple of numbers I've been collecting that I can throw into the pool.
Re:Count me in. (Score:4, Informative)
The idea is that the Telezapper (and devices like it) send out an SIT tone (the beeps that you get when you call a number and get the recording, "This number is not in service"). The telemarketing machines are supposed to recognize that and assume that the phone number isn't in service anymore (and thus, to avoid calling you again, which wastes time and money, remove you from the list).
At the telemarketing company I worked for about six years ago (*hangs my head in shame*), even though the computer did the dialing, we'd get to listen once the connection was made, no matter what is was. It was then up to me to determine whether to add that number to the bit bucket (for that list) or not.
So, depending on the setup the telemarketer has, it's easy enough to listen to the tone, and then wait for the person to answer the phone. Heck, I think that they have it automated by the dialing machines now.
-- Joe
/.ing (Score:3, Funny)
Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
While it probably won't get you off the list, it will make you feel better.
Even better (Score:3, Redundant)
Reminds me of an old trick (Score:5, Funny)
That'll use up their toner
Re:Reminds me of an old trick (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of an old trick (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of an old trick (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, that's assuming there is a toner to use up.
Ie it's not the pentium box with a fax-modem and huge harddrive on other end as every normal computer telephony company would have.
Use a fax-modem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And they're almost certainly receiving the fax on a fax modem, so sending lots of black bits just uses up jpeg space, not human attention. You really want to send them lots of faxes that _look_ like they're real requests, so humans need to waste time reading them.
Re:Use a fax-modem.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But isn't the paper-loop trick just as annoying on a fax-modem? Sure it's not wasting paper/toner on the other end (which is good for everyone really) yet it is hogging their resources. At least one modem from their pool will be out of 'normal' service all weekend while the loop runs. And that's if only one attacker is at work. Who cares if they readily recognize tons of obvi
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a reasonable solution (Score:3, Insightful)
When you work for a company someday, you'll find that no one wants to pay someone to hack a damned fax machine solution. Believe it or not, most people have jobs that don't allow them such free time. Wanting to "just plug it in" is a quite reasonable expectation. Just because everyone around here has the time, skill, and disposition to fuck around with their hardware doesn't ever
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not a reasonable solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you're willing to work for free, not everyone has the willingness or ability to pay you. As for your "solution," caller ID can be spoofed, and you ignore the problem where busine
Sure (Score:5, Funny)
One call won't hurt. Keep them on the line as long as possible. Ask what they're wearing and when they stopped beating their kids and stuff.
Re:Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sure (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Sure (Score:3, Funny)
A pay phone fifteen miles away from my house gives them my home phone number?
I just called the 800# (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I just called the 800# (Score:5, Funny)
Beep boop boop beep beep boop boop beep boop boop beep.
*ring*
*ring*
Unintelligable greeting.
"Hello, has anybody told you how despicable fax spamming is?"
*click*
International Law anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Now, I don't know about some third world countries, but isn't there a treaty that says something like "If a law is illegal in our country, your 'citizen' can't do it in our country.
Re:International Law anyone (Score:3, Insightful)
the 800 number is not ./ed yet (Score:2)
How much does this cost THEM? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Em
Spammers Always Lie - Trace the call (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:How much does this cost THEM? (Score:3, Informative)
do a Google search on the 800 number.
Found them in the BBB under the following:
FLAMINGO TRAVEL
2137 N Courtenay Pkwy Ste 23
Merritt Island, FL 32953
Local Phone Number: (321) 454-9070
Fax Number: (321) 452-0606
TOB Classification: Travel Agencies & Bureaus
Re:How much does this cost THEM? (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW they were running IIS (hah).
Re:How much does this cost THEM? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.flamingo-travel.com/Home/News.asp?ID=1 [flamingo-travel.com]
-----------------
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.
Re:How much does this cost THEM? (Score:3, Informative)
Never mind VoIP; you're missing the incredibly cheap cost of international POTS calls originating from the UK. I can get 1 penny per minute [telediscount.co.uk] (~1.6c/min) as an end-user to make calls to the USA (and Australia, France, etc). If I was a bulk business user, I'm sure I could get an even better price.
CallerID blocker (Score:2)
You could probably cobble something together using an old PC and a modem. Write a script which picks up the modem for a second then hangs up. This may cause them to redial several times, costing them money. Of course, it will tie up your incoming line as well.
Dunno if this would be practical in your case, as caller id from a foreign country can show lots
Stupid Question.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Somebody still uses fax machines? (Score:4, Funny)
Something not to try (Score:2, Funny)
For proper testing equipment, keep in mind that a normal telephone circuit runs about 40 VDC with 200 VDC spikes when ringing (your mileage may vary). Data lines tend to be much more voltage limited. As such, application of high voltage, say from a Megger or a VanDeGraff Genera
Black Construction Paper (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Black Construction Paper (Score:4, Insightful)
The black paper trick is nice and all, but probably will just end up making your phone line busy.
yes consistency (Score:4, Funny)
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Funny)
Probably only work once though.
A question of scale. (Score:5, Funny)
Not a bad weapon if you consider Slashdot a bunch of friends.
Wonder-slash powers activate!
Form of a massive 800 number DoSing!
Shape of a six digit phone bill!
Hylafax (Score:2)
I deliver it to e-mail (fax2mail), so it's just like all other spam. All I still need is some PrettyGoodOCR-software to make it realtext, then I can filter them out.
Glavin! (Score:2, Funny)
Fax Broadcasting WORKS, people (Score:5, Interesting)
I know somebody who runs a fax list. He's very religeous about getting you off his lists right away if you want off, but he's more liberal than I would prefer about what constitutes "opt in"...
It works.
He's getting business - lots of it. In his own words, he's "on a roll". It's cheaper and more effective to send junk faxes than to post legitimate ads in the trade magazines!
He's not selling penis pills or anything like that - just an independent broker promoting his services, which services he otherwise competently provides.
He'll continue this until the money runs out, like anybody else in his position.
Re:Fax Broadcasting WORKS, people (Score:4, Informative)
For $10 you can send a few thousand junk faxes, burn up a over a hundred dollars worth of toner and paper from the thousands of victimes, tie up thousands of fax machines blocking in-coming or out-going faxes for a while, and receive $15.
Of course those profits will vanish pretty damn fast when a couple of people file TCPA lawsuits in small claims court becuase those faxes are illegal. Not only do you need to show up in court for each suit filed, but each fax results in a minimum $500 fine. Of course each fax is almost guaranteed to actually be a double violation, and the damages are TRIPLE if the fax was not sent by accident (i.e. a genuine innocent wrong-number). So each and every junk fax is generally $3000 in damages if the judge fully enforces the law.
It doesn't matter HOW profitable junkfaxing is, just a handfull of such cases and you lose your house.
I suggest you tell your friend to do a quick Google on JunkFax penalties.
-
I just called (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I just called (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're right (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I think you're right (Score:3, Interesting)
Somethings definitely up with these people (Score:5, Funny)
So then I called and said "You're gonna die bitch". And then heard a bunch of women laughing.
Be careful with "revenge attacks" (Score:2, Insightful)
My solution: "I won't purchase from you for a year (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the most persistent offenders is a two-bit little box-pushing laser printer and supplies company in the north of Sydney called 'IT Imaging' (sales@itimaging.com.au). Their business practises are pretty suspect at the best of times, for eg I called them for a quote on a printer once (that I didn't go through with - too expensive) and they started calling my contemporaries in other departments saying "We're doing business with him, maybe you want to buy from us too?". They're big on junk faxes too.
When I get cold calls or junk faxes, I just add them to my "don't buy from these arseholes" list, and they stay there for a year. A polite email/fax to the effect of "As a direct and specific consequence of your decision to send me junk [mail|spam|call], I have added your company to my department's do-not-buy list, and your company will not be considered for any [insert product here] requirements for one year from this date]".
The Apple Centre in Taylor Square [applecentr...are.com.au] are another junk faxer of note here in Sydney, and they're pretty much a permanent resident on the "do not buy" list too!
Got a call from a girlie trying to be all official sounding, "calling on behalf of sales executive Mister Sales Droid from Fuji Xerox, wondering if you want to buy printers, blah blah". "We like Fuji Xerox as a company, here, because FX sustainable business practices are something we like, BUT, as a direct and specific result of your call...". They get off the phone real quick when you tell them that. I guess they want their year to start as soon as possible, so it will be over ASAP! :-)
Admittedly, this doesn't help with the anon and hard to contact fax spammers, but it seems to work pretty well on the ones who actually want to do quasi-legitimate business with you.
How to fake an order (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:How to fake an order (Score:5, Insightful)
They could argue that you tried to fraudulently obtain a product using a credit card number you knew to be invalid or which you had no authority to use.
Got to be careful, a pissed-off spammer can be an wicked beast and may just decide to make an example of someone. At least cover your tracks by calling from a public phone.
Re:How to fake... --- can't this hurt the innocent (Score:3, Informative)
Faxes on Voicemail (Score:3, Informative)
A friend had been getting faxes through voicemail for office supplies. I transferred what part of the fax that was on voicemail to a real fax machine. A complaint to the telephone company (Bell Canada) later and no more! The telephone companies usually take action pretty fast.
Update on Flamingo's Website (Score:5, Interesting)
Call from a payphone! (Score:4, Informative)
Junkbusters have lots of advice on this topic (Score:3, Informative)
HOW I FOUGHT IT AND WON!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I got those same FaxSpam messages and tried getting unsubscribed many many times. I left messages, I left my contact information and in turn got fed up and applied a technical response to the problem.
The number listed on my FaxSpam was a 3+ minute recording of some guy yacking about the fool proof money making method of the month. I'm sure it cost him $.25 per call considering the legth of the message.
I had a bank of innactive modems for a newly de-installed dial-in system for my company. I fired it back up and attached it to a management computer. I then proceeded to plug all 48 modems back into our PBX lines (no numbers listed to be blocked) and wrote a cute script to war-dial on all 48 modems the 800 number listed. I ran the script for about an hour to test its stability and then shut it off.
I figured I'd give the spammer one more shot to remove my company's information and called the number in person. I left a polite message saying who I was and that I was once again requesting to be removed from his fax list. I left my number and a temporary e-mail address saying, that I was aware of how much each call was costing him and that I would repeatedly call to take up his time and money. I waited 24 hours and gave him every chance to remove me. That next night we received the same barage of fax spams to all of the fax machines at my company. I turned my script back on and let the program run away. It ran for about 36 hours before I received a call back from the guy that ran the FaxSpam list. He had left the message whie I was out of my office but it boiled down to him begging me to stop calling. By the time I got the message(2 hours later), the 800 number had been disconnected. We noticed a significant drop-off in FaxSpam before I left the company.
Answered your own question... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you could always post an article on Slashdot with the actual 800 number, implicitly urging innumerable irritable geeks to inundate them with bizarre crank calls.
Wait, you already did that.
some more numbers for the bored (Score:3, Insightful)
1-800-KaBloom
1-800-884-9510
The first seems to want to sell flowers. You have to press 1 or 2 to talk to someone, so configure that into your modem dial scripts (a comma will add a pause in the dial sequence, so put in enough to let them answer before autodialing the extension).
The second is trying to sell computers, and a human answers right away.
I chatted with the people at both ends, and they were quite friendly. They said I'd have to ask customer service if I wanted to get my questions answered about how profitable their spamming was. Unfortunately customer service has already gone home for the day.
Have fun!
Data Protection Act (Score:3, Interesting)
To all the posts claiming that it is too expensive to send faxes from the UK, think again. For $2.95 a month here in Canada I get 6 cents (Canadian)/minute to the UK whereas for an extra $2.95/month I can only get 7 cents/minute to somewhere else in Canada so it would actually be cheaper to fax Canada from the UK than from within Canada!
Getting them back (Score:3, Funny)
FPS is the wrong people. (Score:3, Informative)
First, a bit about UK law, which they do have to comply with if they are doing this from the UK. If you contact them directly and ask to be removed from their list, then they are committing an offense if they call you again.
The FPS is a UK-wide do not call list maintained by the Direct Marketers Association. All marketers are supposed to treat it the same as having called them directly to be removed from the list, but the only penalty for not following this seems to be a slap on the wrist and maybe getting booted out of the DMA. The DMA is not interested in enforcing the law, particularly against non-members.
Ultimately, enforcement is up to Ofcom and the Information Commissioner [informatio...ner.gov.uk]. If you do make a complaint, be sure to include the response you got from FPS, I'm sure they'd be interested to see how self-policing by the DMA really works.
Complain to Ofcom (Office of Communications). (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuisance/Unsolicited calls or fax are certainly against the rules and the company can be cut off of even prosecuted.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk.
Re:Too many fishy facts... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too many fishy facts... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Solutions: (Score:3, Informative)
As a result you may receive both legitimate and spam faxes from the same number. Most companies will send faxes directly over the phone, but individuals or thrifty small businesses have a fair chance of sending them by either method.
Since they're spamming, they're probably not paying long distance charges.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Normal people, that's who. (Score:3, Interesting)
And just how crazy is that? I kept a scan of my signature on my PC when I ran a web design business [bfinternet.co.uk]. If anything needed changing at the bank, I'd write a letter to the bank and plop the TIF sig in and fax. And my employees could do it too if I was away. Could I email them a GPG/PGP signed email? Nope. Can I do that
Re:Normal people, that's who. (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, when I worked with my real estate agent it was as you said with changes faxed back and forth until the final document was barely ledgible, but in the corporate world I've seen with a couple of contract negotiations take places via email and MS Word with track changes turned on.
The final versions were of
Re:How about a linux based technology solution? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, works great for me. It re-writes caller-id based on the names in my Mac's address book, recognizes certain callers and uses distinctive ring to tell what's happening, blacklists other numbers. I'm using it to send long-distance calls out via VoIP while still sending local calls via the POTS line that I can't get rid of. Great fun. Details on my blog [scottstuff.net].
Re:You had better not. (Score:3, Funny)
anyone got the real addy?
Here is an FTC link clarifying this... (Score:3, Informative)
Seems you need to agree beforehand to a billing arrangement or provide a CC # before you begin recieving 'services'.