Business Opportunities Weblog

July 5, 2005 by Dane Carlson | 4 Comments

Congress passed the Junk Fax Prevention Act this week, exempting businesses from previous Federal Communications Commission regulations barring unsolicited fax messages. The amendment would allow businesses, to send unsolicited faxes to customers, with whom they already have an established relationship.

This change makes me very happy because the the old rules were very harsh, and at one point directly affected my livelihood.

I used to run a advertising supported newsletter of humor and inspirational stories that was faxed to local businesses five days a week. Each newsletter was one page long, and faxed in the dead of the night.

Everyone who received the faxed newsletter had subscribed by placing their business card in one of our card bowls at restaurants around town. We didn’t offer a prize or anything with the subscription, so there was no deception. Our offer was simple, put your card in the bowl and we’ll send you a daily fax.

At the bottom on the newsletter we put the unsubscribe instructions: write unsubscribe on this newsletter and fax it back. Everyday we’d get unsubscribe requests, and everyday we’d process them. Many times someone would call from a business and unsubscribe one day, and then a couple days later a receptionist or something who sat near the fax machine and depended upon us for her daily chuckle would call wondering what happened to us, and we’d resubscribe them. Then, a week or two later someone from the business call and unsubscribe again, ad nasuem.

One day, without any notice, I was sued in small claims court by a local attorney who claimed that I was sending him unsolicited faxes, and as such, owed him $500 for each of three faxes that he’d received unsolicited from me. The faxes weren’t unsolicited, as I had recorded in my files that someone from his office had called in to request the fax. Also in the files were notes detailing that someone had canceled, then restarted, then canceled the subscription over the course of a week and a half.

I took this information with me to court, but the judge explained that unfortunately his hands were tied and he was bound by the statute that required that he fine me $500 for each of the three faxes — no matter what the opinion of the court might have been about the excessiveness of the award.

That night, I removed every attorney and legal aide off the list, and within a year I totally ceased operation.

In News | 4 Comments