Wee-hour faxers should have fax paper shoot out of their noses!

The BBQ Pit
1

It happened again last night, TWICE, and I have had enough.

At 1:00 a.m. and again at 3:00 a.m., some anonymous faxer rang my home voice line (I don’t have a fax machine). I blearily grab the phone to hear…beep…beep…beep. I hang up. I wish them a painful disfiguring chronic illness with great sincerity.

Since i have moved in to my new house, I have been getting a lot of this. Always in the middle of the night and almost always, multiple tries per night.

Recently, this has dropped off significantly, so I thought I was off their lists, but NO! I am still the target of these late night anonymous faxers! I am sure they are hoping I will first, have a fax machine, and second, be up late worrying about my next vacation, my low toner supply, my stock portfolio, or finding a new mortgage and that, LOW AND BEHOLD, the answer to all my worries will magically appear pooping out of my fax machine. OF COURSE they are not ever intending to wake some pool shlub up in the middle of the night who could give a crap about whatever thay are flogging with their negligent faxing schedule.

It is my fervent wish that all of these twits, whoever they are and wherever they are, will have a 10 page fax spew out of their noses every single time they bother me in the middle of the night I can think of no earthly reason why anyone would need to fax trash in the middle of the night. I am sure these wee-hours fax attempts are not some surgeon faxing life or death medical information to help save someone’s life, nor are they a governor trying to fax a last minute reprieve to a late-night execution.

Are there not enough hours in the business day to bother me?

I resent having to even consider turning off the ringer on my phone. This should not ever be an issue. I choose to leave my ringer on in case of an EMERGENCY.

So, if you see someone suddenly start spewing 10 page faxes out of his or her nose, please pat them on the back and say, “GraphicsGal says Hello.”

2

If you got a new phone number when you moved, it might’ve been a business fax number and is either polling the (now) nonexistent machine, or the fax machine belongs to someone in another time zone who sends faxes so they’re there first thing in the morning.

It might be worth it to get a trace from the phone company, then contacting the offender to let them know that that number is no longer a fax number and to please knock it off.

Robin

3

What I don’t understand is how fax advertising is legal in the first place. You’re using my damn resources! My office gets 3 faxes a day minimum. That’s more than a ream of paper a year.

I pay for that you assholes!!! :mad:

4

As I have gotten countless dunning calls at my new number for someone named Patricia, I’m guessing whatever business she had is now in the dumper. Fortunately, most of them have gotten the hint that Patricia is no longer at this number (I even put that on my out-going-message).

I had not thought of getting the phone company involved for a trace, but maybe that is worth a try. Since my number was new in May 2004, I am wondering why these people don’t notice that the calls never go through and give up. The only thing I can think of is that my number is on hundreds of lists being sold hundreds of times a day, in which case this shit will NEVER stop.

Thanks for the idea, MsRobyn.

5

Years ago I heard of a lovely fax-prank, and I’ve always wanted to use it on the purveyors of all those mortgage/cruise/toner/stock tip offers. I’d want to make sure I had the correct fax number, of course.

The suggestion was to take a couple of sheets of black paper (or leave the copier lid open while you copy nothing - resulting in all-black copies). Tape them together, and start the fax. When it’s halfway through the machine, scotch-tape the ends together, making an endless looping cylinder of black paper that will fax to the other machine indefinitely. This will tie up the offender’s fax, and run the toner cartridge completely out, unless they notice what’s going on and stop the transmission.

I’ve been waiting for years to use this idea, but I have the feeling the commercial faxsters are sending from a computer, not a regular fax.

But this doesn’t help you in the middle of the night, sorry. Bastards.

Maisy

6

I’ve had this phone number for damned near five years now and I still get those damned middle of the night faxes a few times a month! (Well, it’s down from a few times a night.) Anyone tries to call my home line between 10 pm and 6 am, and I’m not picking up the phone. (Those who are important enough to get answered between those hours know to call my cell anyway.)

7

I’ve got some pals in the broadcast fax business. It’s a part of marketing.

Yes, your number is on someone salable list of fax numbers. That’s why your getting stuff. It arrives in the night because ‘off-peak’ broadcasts are much cheaper than daytime broadcast (more than 50% off!).

Yes, they’re all sent by machine. There’s no actual fax machine involved. Generally the marketing piece is converted to postscript (though some use PDF) and then dropped into a queue that feeds to thousands of outbound lines. So faxing to that number won’t do you much good.

It is illegal to fax someone with whom you have no existing business relationship. But if you’ve bought from someone (or even made business contact through a phone inquiry or such) they can fax you until you tell them to cease and desist. Then they’re required to stop it, immediately.

Unfortunately, there are still many folks who just violate the hell out of that and count on the ignorance and apathy of the masses to get them past.

Good luck. Beyond that knowledge I don’t know what to do that would help you.

8

Oh, my god! Hilarious. I want to do this now. It would be so great.

9

Junk faxes are indeed illegal in the US.

However, I see that you are in Canada, so YMMV.

10

Browse eBay and see if anyone is selling a BelTronics AD100 Caller ID box. They’re not being made any more (alas) but they have this great little feature. You can put callers on “reject” if they have a number that shows up on Caller ID (you can also block people whose numbers come across as “blocked” but that’s a separate issue).

What happens is, the phone rings once, the Caller ID box picks up and tells the caller their call is not acceptable, and hangs up on them.

Granted, you’d still have a one-ring call in the middle of the night, but that won’t be as annoying as a “real” call.

Alternatively, you can buy a TeleZapper. That sends out a tone that tells commercial dialers that your phone is no longer in service. Since the fax machine that’s calling you probably has no human anywhere near it at that hour of the morning, chances of it paying attention to the “disconnected” tone are pretty good and it won’t call back.

11

I believe that this is illegal as well (can someone back me up on this?). Also, as **Mr. Chance ** pointed out, it’s pointless.

12

Yeah, but I wouldn’t do it to anyone I don’t know. It would be fun as a practical joke or something.

13

Proof that marketing, in general, is the devil’s profession. Would you terribly mind slaying those friends so that they can’t harass the rest of us? :slight_smile:

14

I have call block and managed to stop a couple of machines from calling my house. If it shows on caller ID, you can block it.

And, the fax machine trick mentioned above works. I know this because, eerm,. a good friend of mine told me. Not that I would ever do anything like that. :wink: