Almost all orders are now made online, with just a few received by phone and by mail. Very few orders are received by fax. As 99.99% of the faxes received are now unsolicited junk mail, I’ve decided to do away with receiving faxes. It will save half a forest of trees, plus a quantity of ink. And it will stop giving me the irrits.
Unfortunately many other business people I know have done likewise and they all say the same thing – they gave up their fax because they got sick of receiving large amounts of spam faxes. Invariably these faxes arrive without a person’s name or contact details, other than a phone number that has an infuriating, automated messaging system attached. Finally the Federal government has allowed fax numbers to be added to the ‘Do Not Call’ register, but many people are probably unaware that it is now possible (I didn’t know, until today).
While I could have re-used the paper by printing on the back, I had been keeping these junk faxes and when the pile was large enough I mailed them off to a politician in the hope of getting something done about it. It also draws attention to all the businesses who thinks sending spam faxes is a good idea (not the sort of publicity they are after).
On principle I’d never do business with anyone who thinks it acceptable to waste the money (i.e. paper & ink) of someone they don’t know by sending unsolicited info on cheap Bali holidays, employment training and a myriad of other irrelevant offers. I don’t treat customers/potential customers with such disrespect and resent being on the receiving end. Spam faxes are far more irritating than junk mail – at least junk mail doesn’t cost the recipient anything, only the producer. I suggest other people also add their fax numbers to the ‘Do Not Call’ register.
Ideally the Federal Government would introduce anti-junk fax legislation similar to the anti-email spam legislation. People shouldn’t have to go the trouble of ‘opting out’; it should be an opt-in system, similar to emails; and junk faxes waste a lot of paper, that the sender hasn’t had to pay for.
Tags: Fiona Lake Photography