The best success story is the shutdown of fax.com. That happened
after the CA attorney general got an injunction against them.
Had they continued to fax after the injunction they might have
to spend 5 days in jail for every fax that was sent thereafter,
i.e., spend the rest of their lives in jail. They chose not to
risk that.
Therefore, when I go after fax broadcasters to shut down their
illegal faxing, the first thing I shoot for is a preliminary injunction
to force them to comply with the law, e.g., they should audit
any customer sending to a list of more than 100,000 people by
selecting some fax numbers at random from the list supplied and
then asking the advertiser to show how express consent was obtained
and from whom it was obtained from. The broadcaster can then call
that person, and fax to the number that was tested, and verify
that the person does indeed own that fax number.
The story of a junk faxer who parlayed a $5K judgment into over
$50K, felony charges, and much more
US
Record Search
Beware! You can get scammed even by people who claim to help you
collect your judgment
Stupidity stories
Stupidest
junk fax ever sent
If you are going to send this type of fax, I'm probably the last
guy on the entire planet you'd want to send this to. I initiated
the largest class action in history against fax.com. I've shut
down other large fax operations. So you've got to be incredibly
stupid to send me a junk fax advertising junk fax services and
claiming they are legal.
Spoof
junk fax
This fax was never sent, but was created as a joke. Pretty funny.
Millions
Of People Already Have A Email To Fax Account. Do you?
Success stories
Got
$2,000 just by talking to the sender's attorney
This reader found that in North Carolina, the law is even tougher
than the federal law. The other side has to pay your legal expenses
if you win!
Just
Fax that Junk Right Back
A small-but-beautiful example of how one businessman kept a tight
lid on junk faxes at his former company. And another story of
someone who followed in his footsteps.
Got
$1,600 without going to court
Mark Buchler got paid $1,600 for one fax without going to court.
Hooters
hit with $12 million damage award (April 5, 2001)
Richmond County Superior Court Judge Carl C. Brown Jr. assessed
full trebled damages of $1,500 per violation against Hooters.
It took 6 years before it finally went to the jury in March after
a long battle in the courts with various appeals and maneuvering
by Hooters. Here's the one
page Hooters verdict. See also this longer
article about the Hooters award from the Augusta Chronicle.
ESPN.com
NFL - Cowboys to pay $1.73M for sending unsolicited faxes (Dec
3, 2001)
Plaintiff's lawyer Julius Glickman of Houston said American Blast
Fax sent the fax at least once to 125,000 locations.
Houston
Cellular recently agreed to pay $400,000 (July 9, 1999)
In what could be a first-of-its-kind settlement relative to unsolicited
faxing laws, Houston Cellular recently agreed to pay $400,000
to settle a pending class-action lawsuit, according to the Houston
Chronicle.
Putting
An End to Telemarketers
It can be done. This person got a $10,000 check from Discover
Card, $4,000 from Sears, and the list goes on...see The Victories.
However, while all these were victories under the TCPA, none were
for junk faxes.
Hold
That Line
How a Telecom manager shut down a fax.com affiliate using a touchtone.
Miscellaneous
Small Claims Court Success Stories
Miscellaneous
Less-than-Successful Stories
Victim stories
Kirsch
fax.com story
Kirsch started collecting faxes and noticed a pattern. Even though
the faxes had 9 different removal numbers, all 9 belonged to the
same company: fax.com!
A thank
you from Ed Markey
Ed wrote me a nice note to thank me for helping enforce the law
he wrote in 1991
"I
receive several junk faxes each day ... last Spring I was able
to track down a junk faxer." Gene Carmean set certified
and regular mail asking the faxer to stop. When they did not he
sued and won more than $2,000 in a small claims court.
"For
2 years ... I have been tormented by unsolicited faxes calling
my residence between 11pm and 5am."
Billie Henry's private phone number somehow found its way onto
an InfoUSA CD -- now not even InfoUSA can help her stop the faxes.
Lawrence
M. Markey, Jr. filed 7 lawsuits against fax.com and they still
keep coming!
Markey spent 800 hours of his personal time over one year and
filed seven lawsuits against fax.com and the junk faxes from fax.com
keep coming.
Joe
Giardella found using the removal numbers made things a lot worse!
Giardella tried calling the removal numbers only to find that
the problem got worse, not better. Changing phone numbers to a
number that was out of service for 9 months has provided temporary
relief. Stay tuned...
Cartheuser
gets up to 300 junk faxes an hour
After 6 weeks of bombardment (including 1,000 faxes in 2 days!),
he got fax.com to stop by threatening legal action. But fax.com
is back again... sending him junk faxes at the rate of 298 faxes
per hour.
Fenerty
escaped detection for a whole 2 weeks
A newly purchased fax machine was able to survive for 2 weeks
before junk faxes started arriving every day. But Fenerty won
in small claims (Fenerty v. Cedar Mortgage), and the defendant
appealed to Superior Court but settled right before trial when
it was clear to the defendant that Fenerty was serious about pursuing
the case. Fenerty was awarded $1,500 for the one fax he received.
AIRCO
group has their phone lines tied up 30 minutes every day by fax.com
AIRCO has 80 fax numbers, but only 4 incoming lines so it takes
fax.com 30 minutes each day to send the same junk faxes to every
phone line at AIRCO.
Frontier
Justice
An effort to sue in small claims court over unauthorized junk
faxes was dismissed without comment in East Mesa, AZ. The plaintiff
was told there was no appeal because there had been no judgment.
"Stop
Freaking Calling Me"
A San Francisco resident was awakened most morning at 6 a.m. for
six months by incessant and unwanted faxes. When she complained
to police, they told her that it happens to everyone and there
was nothing she could do. And the phone company wasn't even willing
to try to block the calling number.
Even
if you work at the FCC you are not immune!
fax.com sent an advertisement for one of their clients, Advanced
Cellular Communications, right to a fax machine inside the FCC
headquarters in Washington, DC.
Fax.com
inundates Covington and Burling
Why stop at the FCC? Why not get one of the most prestigious law
firms in the entire country? And what better firm than the one
where the guy who wrote the TCPA works? So they sent 1,634 faxes
in one week to his law firm (including 908 on the day after they
sent a cease and desist letter) prompting the author of the TCPA
to file suit for $2.4M on behalf of his law firm.
Washington
hospital shut down by fax.com
(video: requires Windows Media Player)
San Francisco KGO-TV documents how the University of Washington
Medical Center in Seattle was shut down by fax.com leading to
this settlement agreement with the Attorney General of Washington
State to stop sending faxes into Washington state. Here is part
2 of the KGO story where fax.com CEO Kevin Katz admits on camera
sending out unsolicited faxes.
Businessman
to customers: "Call me before faxing"
Despite sending email to the "800" opt-out number and
calls to police, Jaff still gets so many junk faxes that he keeps
his machine off-line. He's anxious to join the class action lawsuit.
L.A.
Judge dismissed $500 small claim suit without comment
A French freelance journalist working in L.A. got so fed up with
junkfaxes that she filed a small claims suit against one local
company. She spent 40 hours preparing and submitted a thick file
folder of supporting information. However, a day later, the judge
denied her claim without comment.
Anaheim,
CA: 10 fax calls a day to a regular phone line
This family disconnected their fax to avoid unwanted faxes. It
didn't help. They still worry that important calls will be lost
because the line will be tied up by unwanted junkfaxes.
No
Fax Machine, Just Endless Faxes
Unwanted calls come in groups of 5, about a minute apart, at all
hours of the days and night. PacBell and the police are both protecting
the junk faxers identity.
Stop
wasting paper & ink on Junk Faxes!
Find out Why you should be using an online fax to email service!
If you're interested in retiring your fax machine, reducing
costs and gaining office space, while not compromising customer
service - click on the Google links
on the right and left sides of this page. If you
are just looking for an extra fax line, a fax
to email account may be what you are looking for. You
can get one for as low as $3.95 per month. It sure beats paying
the phone company $40 - $50.00 per month!
