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Junk fax real-life stories

The best success story is the shutdown of fax.com. That happened after the CA attorney general got an injunction against them. Had they continue 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.

First Chartered Investments
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.

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.