FAX Spam

Mr E

We get 4 or 5 spam faxes a day to our office (different companies, but all using different 0818 412* numbers).

They have unsubscribe instructions to fax the page and our number back to the 0818 number. I'm not doing that for each individual piece of junk. Is there a way of finding out who runs the 0818 412* range, and opt out globally across that range?

dardoz

My company have been receiving them for the past few weeks. I rang one of the travel agents just a few minutes ago and asked how our number came into their hands. They replied that their marketing was handled externally and would I like my number removed. I refused to give them number and the just asked repeatedly for my number to so he could remove it.

Eventually, when he realised I wasn't going to give him my number and I wasn't going away until I was told who was conducting their spam marketing he put me on hold. He did eventually come back and give me the name of the company. They are called Prism Fax. http://www.prismfax.ie

So I rang Prism Fax and had the same merrigoround with a woman asking for my number to remove it and me stating I wanted to know how they got my number. At first she said they bought numbers from another company but then changed her story to tell me about the "national directory opt out list". It is apparently an option when you ring eircom now to be on this list. Her story was that if you're not on this opt out list, that it is not illegal to send faxes to you.

So let me get this right, eircom just decided everyone in their directory is fair game unless they ring up and ask to be added to an opt out list even though we never asked for our number to be used for marketing pruposes?

I haven't decided whether or not to ring eircom yet because I hate holding for an hour.

dardoz

just an extra reply cos I forgot to subscribe to this.sorry.

Out Of Order

This has been bugging me for a while too.

I had been sending the faxes back asking to be removed but they kept coming.
I then started ringing the number given for the various offers and found out that they are customers of Prism Fax (web address above). They removed me from their list no problem, but I would still get them from Prism Fax's other customers.

Seemingly, Prism get the numbers from the National Directory Database and its legal to send unsolicited faxes to business fax machines.
All the details are here including how to opt-out. Eircom in my case.

I got a number for Prism 01 6302402, and was removed.
Time will tell if this is an end to it.

To finish on a high note, in a google of 'Prism Fax List', this thread, titled 'Fax Spam' is the first result

Oryx

Our business is on the opt out list with eircom, and we still get a couple of those faxes a week. Its down from a couple a day, though. It stopped the cold calls completely though which is great.

I havent done anything about those that are still sending, because like someone already said, I hate that guy on the eircom helpline and I cant be bothered staying on hold. :mad: I just chuck them in the bin.

Mr E

Thanks guys, I'll pursue this tomorrow.....
Boards to the rescue, once again.

dardoz

After having a go at Prism the last day and being removed from their list I never received anything until today. I received a fax spam from a website called txt2win.ie. There were no contact details on the website but a quick investigation revealed it was Prism sending spam faxes to me again.

http://whois.domaintools.com/txt2win.ie

Needless to say I rang up and of course they had no idea how I ended up sneaking back onto their list.

irishshogun

Get yourself a nice black sheet of paper and hit return to sender with it. It'll use all their ink and take ages to print, less likely to send you crap again.

snappieT

I'd print out 8 sheets of paper with large font reading
F
U
C
K

O
F
F
One letter per page. Invert the colours for added ink wastage on their end. ol.

dahamsta

Nice!

SouperComputer

haha 600pt font FTW.

ba$tards probably dont receive faxes at that number tho

tampopo

yeah, funny. heard this trick to gain attention (Customer service) or to p!ss someone off.

sellotape three pages together, end to end, when the first comes back out of the fax machine, sellotape IT to the end of the third sheet. Let this merrygoround go for about 5 minutes and it should cure it. Like the idea of black paper wasting the ink cartridge!!!

aidan_walsh

snappieT wrote:

I'd print out 8 sheets of paper with large font reading
F
U
C
K

O
F
F
One letter per page. Invert the colours for added ink wastage on their end. ol.

Nice.

Although I would imagine that if they are spamming from that address its probably a virtual fax machine by them.