<p>Does anyone have any tips for stopping junk/spam faxes? I get a couple a day (and often at 7 am on weekends - - since the fax line is shared with my land line, it is quite a wakeup call…).</p>
<p>I just got one today that said, “To Unsubscribe, Please Register Your Fax Number at <a href=“http://www.nationaldonotfaxlistregistry.org”>www.nationaldonotfaxlistregistry.org</a>” But as far as I can tell, the FCC does not have an official do not fax list. This site appears to maybe be a private org trying to create a do not fax list. But I assume there is nothing to stop an unscrupulous faxer from taking that list and spamming faxes out to it, so I am reluctant to sign up on it.</p>
<p>Has anybody tried this? Or found another way to stop the inflow?</p>
<p>unplug it.
I’ve found that if I called and tie up their line, I can get some small satisfaction.</p>
<p>I do wonder if I bought in on the ground floor of one of those gold mining firms, 8 yr ago, I would be rich today.
Are they still pushing gold mines or is it something else?</p>
<p>I finally got rid of the only one I got regularly by telling them I was going to the lawyer and report them to the FCC. In this particular case though, it wasn’t really a junk fax, they were a book company that I worked with when I was in charge of our school’s Reading is Fundamental Program. But it was awful they liked to send out faxes at two in the morning and like you we had a fax machine in the office that was tied to the home telephone which also had a line in the bedroom. I didn’t want to unplug the bedroom phone.</p>
<p>The problem with unplugging or turning the fax machine off at night is that I forget to turn it on in the morning. It is in my home office, and I don’t always go in there in the morning (so don’t have a visual cue to remember to do it). And I do get legitimate faxes that I need to receive, so I don’t want it off during the day.</p>
<p>Could you get a fax service that just sends you emails with the faxes as attachments? That way you could review them and just print the ones that are business related.</p>
<p>I do this with my phone in a way. The phone can associate pictures with a phone number so I get a picture when someone I know calls. If I don’t see a picture, I don’t answer and then later look up the calling phone number and call it it I think that it isn’t a junk call.</p>
<p>We use to have two phone lines, one a dedicated fax line. We finally dropped the second line and AT&T gave use a second number to be used as our fax line on the main line (did that make sense?) This second number has a different ring so I can tell if it is the home phone or a fax. Because this was a new number, we no longer get all the spam faxes. We only use our fax for personal use, so we don’t receive very many faxes; we send more than we receive.</p>
<p>I researched that national “do not fax” option and it is definitely not like the do-not-call registry. It’s checking to see who responds and you will only end up with more faxes - just ignore it and hope it goes away. I got one a few weeks ago and nothing since. I do get other junk faxes about once a week; if I get the same company at least three times I have called their unsubscribe and it stopped.</p>
<p>The do not fax option doesn’t work because it’s connected to numbers and each fax has a different number and/or they switch from one to another. </p>
<p>Problem is they’ve identified this line as a fax line and that information has been sold online. You could easier change your number than stop the faxes. </p>
<p>You don’t have to unplug a machine. It should have a button that switches it from fax to telephone only. </p>
<p>It’s also possible to get a fax machine that only accepts faxes from specific numbers.</p>
<p>Snowball, I have the same arrangement you do. Unfortunately, I have had it for about 5 years, and spam has crept in…</p>
<p>Seems like there is no reason we COULDN’T have a do not fax registry just like our do not call registry, we just… don’t. Not as big a problem as telemarketers, I guess. Not to derail my own thread, but I got a call a couple of days ago from a telemarketer (non profit, so exempt from do not call) for a fundraiser who got very crabby when I said no thank you to donating, and asked me what I had against the pool of people she was raising money for. I have nothing at all against them, they just aren’t on the list of organizations I have committed to already this year for charitable giving. She was VERY persistent. I asked to please be removed from their calling list, and she said that she would only do that if I explained what I have against those she was raising funds for. Um… nothing. But that doesn’t mean I will give you money…</p>
<p>Have not really noticed much improvement from the DO NOT CALL registry anyway. Still get some odd random warranty cars on makes & models we have never owned. Get tons of calls about political & non-profit groups trying to convince me of things, as well as surveys. :(</p>
I’ve solved the persistency problem simply. (Sorry for taking this off-topic again!) I say, “I’m sorry, I cannot donate at the present time.” And hang up. I don’t care if they’re still talking. I say it politely and nicely; I don’t want to yell at them since they’re only doing their job. But then I hang up. </p>
<p>That’s how to get them to take “no” for an answer.</p>
<p>My office handled this by somehow having faxes come in through the computer, which gets turned off between 5:30 PM and 8:30 Am. You can look at the faxes and only print what you want. Sometimes causes a problem because some important ones might not get through and nobody realizes it.</p>
<p>Chedva, I really wanted her to confirm that they will take my name off their calling list, and she refused unless I would answer this question. So I could have hung up… but then I bet they would have called me back again. So I stuck with it, and was persistent right back I finally got her to confirm (VERY grudgingly) that she would remove it. No more calls so far from them.</p>
<p>I get all sorts of calls: political, requests for donations, scams and companies that I do business with. In many cases they go into a mode where they start reading a script and they don’t give you a chance to interrupt. One company in particular is fairly persistent and will call back if I hang up after listening for two or three minutes. The last time I just asked them not to call me back and that appears to have worked. Being polite often does not work - but I think it is that way by design.</p>
<p>I’ve taken to telling all charities, that I won’t give to anyone who calls me on the phone, they are welcome to mail me something. Mostly it works, but sometimes they get my husband who hates saying no.</p>
<p>We were having a huge problem with scientology. They claimed that hubby was owed money by them, yea, right! Anyway, I finally started asking them for their name, supervisor’s name, address, etc. because we were in the process of serving documents and complaints against them for nuisance and harassment. That lessened the calls, but they continued. We became more insistent about speaking with the supervisor (who was never there) and getting names and identifying information, informing they they were breaking the law by their continuous harassment and that they would be reported to authorities and complaints were issued against them and their org. </p>
<p>The calls have FINALLY stopped, after years! Politeness and firmness didn’t work, but FINALLY threats of lawsuits got them to get the message!</p>
I finally got her to confirm (VERY grudgingly) that she would remove it. No more calls so far from them.</p>