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Diagnosis: Fax-itis
Did you ever wake up and check your fax to find a fax advertising the Yummy Yum Yum–Shrink Your Bum diet had arrived during the night? If so, you're suffering from unsolicited fax-itis. Symptoms include staring at the fax in disbelief, quickly followed by a feeling of anger that an advertiser would dare to use your paper, your precious fax ink and your equipment to ask for your money.
Don't worry–you're not alone in your diagnosis. "Though not nearly as much of a plague as telemarketing and spamming, unsolicited ads worming their way into our private lives via the fax lines are quickly becoming yet another bothersome byproduct of the Information Age," writes Don Oldenburg in the 2/12/99 Washington Post.
And the businesses doing the faxing are not always the most reputable. A "Gun control poll" sent to millions of business fax machines nationwide in the weeks following the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, CO, cost $2.95 per minute to respond. And what do you get out of this? Nothing. But you can see how many others are afflicted by checking the poll results at www.pollresults.co.uk
The cure comes in the form of the 1992 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which banned all unsolicited commercial faxing to private homes and businesses. In addition, many state laws also prohibit the practice.
Lots of afflicted people are taking the cure to rid themselves of this intrusive disease. According to Dorothy Attwood, chief of the enforcement division of the Federal Communications Commission's Common Carrier Bureau, since the TCPA was enacted the number of written complaints made to the FCC about junk faxes has multiplied tenfold, from 300 to nearly 3,000 in 1998. "It is a problem, and it has increased, partly because of technological advances," she says in the Washington Post. "We're seeing almost a new industry practice moving toward mass mailings using vehicles to get into the home in an automated way, and fax machines are like that."
The FCC's Consumer News: What You Can Do About Unsolicited Telephone Marketing Calls and Faxes. (This is a PDF file and requires Adobe Acrobat.)
Junkfaxes.org: Includes news, a junk fax library and information on state and federal junk fax laws.
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Slam Bad Ads! If you receive a junk fax, the first step is to fax the sender a message stating that unsolicited faxes are against federal law *, you want it stopped, and you want to be removed immediately from their fax list. You can also mail the fax to the FCC:
Enforcement Bureau - TCD Put at the top of the letter in bold print "TCPA COMPLAINT - UNSOLICITED FAX." Include the date the fax was received and the phone number it was received at. You must mention that you did not invite or give permission for the sender to send you unsolicited faxes. Note: To get results, you must write "I request that the Commission take appropriate action against the sender" in your letter. Otherwise the FCC will just record the fax for statistical purposes. If the problem continues, keep the junk faxes as evidence and document your cease-and-desist faxes to the company. Consumers can go to federal court, state courts, or small claims court, and sue to stop the faxes as well as sue for damages. - - - - - - - - - - * The Telephone Consumer Protection Act The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 USC § 227) and its implementing FCC regulations (mainly 47 CFR § 64.1200) prohibits the transmission of any material advertising the commercial availability or quality of any product, service or property to any person without that person's prior express permission or request. Under the TCPA, recipients of unsolicited fax advertisements, if otherwise permitted by the laws in their state, can file suit in state court to collect the greater of $500 or actual damages for each fax, and/or obtain an injunction. If a court determines that the violations were willful or knowing, the damages can be tripled at the discretion of the court. |
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