in a worst case scenario... only turn on your fax when you want to send and use an old pc with a fax modem so incoming faxes goto the hard drive instead of printing it out and wasting paper...
Posted on 04/14/2005 6:58:37 AM PDT by thoughtomator
[I received this today in my email, figured it would be worthwhile to give everyone the heads up - thoughtomator]
You are getting this email because you (or someone you know) registered your email at www.junkfax.org.
I promised we would rarely contact you. Most of you have NEVER been contacted. But now we need your help URGENTLY because Congress plans on passing a bill TODAY that will render your fax machine useless. Congress wants to turn your fax machine into a printing press for advertisers. If you don't call BOTH your Senators to complain, they will think nobody minds, and this bill WILL PASS (see instructions below on how to make the call).
If you thought you were getting too much junk on your fax machine before, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Due to pressure from business groups and trade associations, they are about to LEGALIZE the sending of junk faxes!
That's right, they are going to do for junk faxes what they did recently to spam....make it LEGAL to do as long as the advertiser adds an "opt out" notice on it (with no time frame for compliance) and remembers to put the number to use to opt out (if they forget to do that, you can't opt out). And non-profits don't even have to put an opt out notice on their faxes. So it's a real bonanza for businesses. So now all these businesses can save major $$$ on their advertising costs since fax advertising is MUCH cheaper than direct mail (about 20 times cheaper!) because they are shifting all the costs to you!!! And you have no say in the matter and may be completely unable to opt out. Think of thousands of business letting you know about all the great deals on health insurance, mortgages, vacations, and stock tips.
Today it is ILLEGAL to send junk faxes and so only a few people did. But that's about to change. Congress is about to make sending junk faxes LEGAL so you'll be getting 10 to 100 times more unwanted advertising sent to your fax machine without your consent.
You can read my Senate testimony against this bill at yesterday's hearing: http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=1457
At the hearing, they didn't dispute a single point I made! But it didn't change the bill one bit!!!! Even though they said I made good points (such as "no recipient wants to receive more junk faxes...ask them yourself!"), they didn't want to change so much as a comma.
If you are as outraged at this as I am, you MUST CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY. Not tomorrow. Not in a week. RIGHT NOW. This bill is going for a vote TODAY. It could pass the Senate TODAY. You MUST ACT RIGHT NOW.
Do NOT assume someone else will do it and you don't have to. They count the TOTAL number of calls, not whether one person called. The more people call, the better. Get your friends to call too if they get junk faxes.
step 1: go to: http://www.senate.gov/index.htm and select your state from the drop down.
step 2: call each senator at the number listed. You only have to make TWO phone calls. A staff person will answer the phone.
step 3: say the following: "my name is john smith. I live at 124 easy street in san jose, California. I am calling to DEMAND that Senator vote AGAINST S.714 (the Junk Fax bill) unless the "EBR exemption" is REMOVED ENTIRELY.
Your Senator NEEDS to hear from you. The business community is VERY well organized and has been lobbying heavily to be able to open up your fax machine as the next frontier in low-cost mass advertising.
For more info, please see: http://www.junkfax.org/fax/legislation/jfpa.htm
If you care about being able to use your own fax machine without having tons of ink and paper and telephone-line time consumed by advertisers (almost all of whom are dishonest) this is a good time to rattle the cage.
If email spam bothers you, this is 100x worse.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to bombard them with FAXES? :)
So what is the bill number?
If its up for a vote, there should be a number....
Sounds like BULL to me. We already get more spam faxes and legitimate ones.
We get a few of these junk faxes every day. I suprised someone hasn't come up with a low end fax machine with either a small built in screen or a VGA port for a monitor so that I can review faxes before printing them. Just hit delete instead of picking up the "hot stock picks" fax and dropping it directly into the trash can.
"and legitimate ones" should have been "than legitimate ones".
This message (or one nearly identical to it) has been going around the net for years. Let's see if we can verify it before you tie up the phone lines into D.C. Rats would probably report "switchboards were overloaded with calls in opposition to Bolton!"
One guy retaliated. He found the fax numbers of the junk fax sender. He then took a xerox of his hand -- third finger extended. He than made four copies and taped them end-to-end. He then started the fax to a junk sender at 2AM. As the top of the string emerged from his machine, he taped it to the other end, creating a perpetual fax of The Bird. He named it The Black Finger of Death. When the junker came in the next morning, he had an empty fax machine and 2,000 copies of The Finger. Poetic justice.
Only if you can get their home fax numbers.
Other than that, these scumbags don't care - - the taxpayers pick up the bill.
BTW, are 527's considered non profits for purposes of the bill? Perhaps this is the hidden reason behind the change. Sure it is couched in rhetoric about allowing charities to function. But why not structure it as "Opt In" instead of out?
How do these "spaxxers" get ahold of fax numbers?
Is there a directory somewhere of phone numbers that are identified as fax numbers?
Most of these are sent using computers, so the spammer just deleted the file most likely.
in a worst case scenario... only turn on your fax when you want to send and use an old pc with a fax modem so incoming faxes goto the hard drive instead of printing it out and wasting paper...
A lot of them just dial serially.
Have you ever tried this? The reward is supposed to be $500/fax, but you would have to determine whom to sue and go through all the hassles.
Now individual and business recipients of junk faxes can sick a "junkyard dog" on the spammers. Send Fax Recovery Systems, Inc. your faxes and they will leverage the Federal TCPA Law to sue the fax spammers. The service is free, and if FRS recovers any funds, you will get $100.00 per fax.
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