Unsolicited faxes are illegal, according to U.S. law. See:
Also see Cornell law archives: US Code Title 47, Section 227(b)(1)(C): "It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine" A "telephone facsimile machine" is defined in Sec.227(a)(2)(B) as: "equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper." Under this definition, an e-mail account, modem, computer and printer together constitute a fax machine. The rights of action are as follows. Under Sec.227(b)(3)(B): "A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of that State -- (A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation, (B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater, or (C) both such actions. If the court finds that the defendant willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph." If you receive junk faxes, you might want to file suit in small claims court. Nevertheless, here is an interesting solution: Faxes generally specify the fax number of the sender. To really get the attention of the originator, create a complaint letter written in 72 point font (1 inch height) which produces, for a typical two-paragraph one-page letter, about 17 or 18 pages of text that can be read from across the room. Fax the letter to the advertiser. One person using this technique has received calls of apology from CEO's whose staff members felt compelled to bring this unusual style of complaint to their attention. For additional information, see:
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