Meta-Fax
Posted on:: November 7th, 2003
In case you were thinking for a moment that spam sucks but the rest of communicative life is ok, just about the only faxes I get are unrequested ads. Spafax? Faxam? Fam?
Anyway, one came through today that says in big letters:
Shall we continue to send our
great fax offers to you?
great fax offers to you?
YES NO
All you have to do is check off one of the answers and fax it back to 1-900-622-1550.
I have to give it some credit: It does noet in small letters that calls to this 900 number cost $3.95/minute.
If the the 900 number in your fax is 900-776-4343 it is provided by MCI to the the sender of these faxes. You can lodge a complaint with MCI. Ask to speak to their Fraud group. The 800 numbers found on the faxes for supposedly removing you from the fax list are not owned or controlled by the fax sender. The fax senders are using the toll free numbers without permission and illegitimately. Calling the 800 numbers will do nothing towards stopping the faxes. The only way to affect the situation with unsolicted faxes is to complain to MCI, or whomever the “resporg” company is that provides the the 900 number and bills for calls to it. I also suggest complaining to the FCC and local PUC. They can contact the telecom companies to determine who owns the 900 number. For every fax received there is a hefty fine that can be imposed on the sender. I am sure the sender is reading this thread and already making plans to change their 900 and 800 numbers. No matter where what they change the 900 number is the key to this illegal activity. Without a 900 number they are out of business.
Go to junkfax.org
and find out what a problem this has become in the Unied States.
Unsolicited fax’s are a violation of (TCPA) Telephone Consumers Protection Act of 1991. U.S. Code Title 47 Section 227b. Minimum fine of $500 per violation additional $500 violation if the faxbroadcaster or business does not identify themselves. Both fines are trebled if they are found to be “willfully and knowingly” (repeatedly) sending you faxes.
The reason it is illegal is because the burden of the cost falls upon the receipient not the sender as it normally would in a direct mail piece.
Atty. General of CA, Bill Lockyer in California vs fax.com stated, ” the worse thing you can do is to call that toll-free number to unsubscribe because all you’re really doing is verifying that you have a live and current fax number”.
I have three fax lines in my business. I was getting 15-20 pages a day. It was disruptive to my business. Since I started suing these people – there are ways to find out who they are – I’ve collected closed to $15,000 and the number of faxes have declined.
In the United States you should put all your telephone numbers on the “Do Not Call Registry” at donotcallregistrycom
It won’t stop them from calling but you will have additional ammunition when you go to court to sue them.
Anyone looking to exact a little revenge? How about sending a message to companies that hire these spaxers to advertise for them? I received yet another vacation offer via unsolicited fax with an 800 # to call to book a vacation. Of course, the # to call to remove myself from the “client list” was non-functioning so I called the travel agency at this 800 # and asked them for the address and phone # of “Corporate Vacations” out of “Altamont Springs, FL” (That’s all they would tell me). Manager Mark Johnson said he could not give out this information. I refused to hang up until he did, so he hung up. I called him back repeatedly for about 10 minutes (on his company’s dime, thank you) to give him a taste of his own medicine.
May I suggest that if everyone who reads this calls Mr. Johnson or associates repeatedly at
800-211-7612,
it may convince these companies that the marketing tactics they employ are detrimental to business and BOTHERSOME.
Everyone who reads this, take 10 minutes (or more) to ask the faxmarketer at Corporate Vacations “How’s the weather” or “What should I eat for dinner,” or any number of frivolous questions repeatedly….for about 10 minutes. For myself, it was thoroughly gratifying having the annoyed employee repeatedly ask me to stop calling.
I just got on the net to learn more about this obivious scam by the folks at “Champion Communications”. These scams always interest me. These Champion Communications guys are really committed! They spend $0.37 each time they mail us (although they are probably scamming that postal machine too). All for what??? Let’s assume that they spend 40 cents total for each mailing. I was billed for $20. That means they have to find one sucker in every 50 mailings. That’s an expensive scam!! On top of that, they are paying for and 800 number and a girl to answer the phone? That’s really expensive! It must be working, though, because these posts date back a while. Forget the FCC…it’s a waste of time. They best thing to do is to throw out the letter. The more they send, the more it costs them. It won’t do any good to locate the PO Box physical address, just in case you want to pummel the dude who picks up the checks. They probably have them collected and processed by a bank. You can send them, say, $5 and see what account the check clears and provide that to the State Attorney. But, again, the good guys have bigger fish to fry.
These crooks at Champion Comminications Inc., POB 267007, Weston FL 33326 arte still at it.
Last year they billed mer for calls made from a tel number I had back in 2000. It was an ISDN line number!
After multiple billings I finally got the local telephone company to issue a letter stating that I haven’t had that number for the last 5 years.
That shut Champiuon up for a while. Except now the keep sending bills addressed to all thse companies I never heard of, using MY HOME ADDRESS.
These people are obviously crooks and the FCC should inverstigate them up the wazoo and shut them down.
I’ve seen a lot of stuff on here about Champion Communication in Weston FL. I sent my complaint to the BBB today. I got a bill (3 months old) for calls I didn’t make. The envelope had self-adhesive address lables stuck on it and was sent to an address that I haven’t lived at in almost 3 years. There was no number to call and only a P.O. Box address.
I recently received a bill from Champion Communications. They claimed I made calls to “900” numbers. I did not make those calls. Has anyone resolved a situation like this with Champion Communications.
Champion is still up to no good. My problem is they have my correct address & phone number. I know for a fact no one at this address made those calls back in May. I thought I had 900 blocking on my line and do now. I am contact the Credit Bureaus also as I don’t want this on my credit rating.
my solution is find the sender’s fax number and start sending them fax msgs with local news stories, currently i am on the receiving end of some outfit with the fax number 818-710-8920 i hope they are reading the news.
I also rec’d a bill for 900-988-1564 champion commmunications (aka automated transaction corp) weston,fl called 800-439-0426 and asked for a supervisor. still no response this bill is for a screen that came up on my computer in may,,,could not get it off, the number to call was the 900 number, it said that if you stayed on the line, you would be charged 34.95 so i hung up. i had to hunt on the internet to get a number to call to get it removed..now i get a bill for 3 calls 104.85
Found this at the BBB site: Champion Communications
1801 S Federal Hwy Suite 300 Delray Beach, FL 33483
Principals: Eric Bachkoff, President
Local Phone Number: (800) 439-0426
Fax Number: (954) 453-4198
Membership Status: This company is not a member.
TOB Classification: Telephone Communications
The information in this report has either been provided by the company, or has been compiled by the Bureau from other sources.
Customer Experience
Based on BBB files this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to a pattern of unanswered complaints concerning credit/billing issues. Consumer complaints allege they were billed for calls and faxes sent to 900 numbers that were not made by the consumers. In some instances, consumers were billed for making calls from telephone numbers that they had disconnected prior to the date when the call was made.
When evaluating complaint information, please consider the company’s size and volume of business. The number of complaints filed against the company may not be as important as the type of complaints and how the company handled them.
363 consumers have requested a reliability report on this company in the past 36 months.
The Bureau processed a total of 82 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total 82 complaints in the last 36 months, 29 of those were closed in the last 12 months.
I got one of those the other day. And I’m not a bit surprised to see this is a scam. My letter is simply one page on pink copier paper saying that I owe $10.00 and that it’s outstanding. It doesn’t say what it’s for. What tipped me off that it’s fraud is that it shows my phone number, address, and my mom’s name. My telephone is in my mom’s name so I know that they either got the info from the phone directory or my phone carrier sold the info(typical). Anyway, I ran off the sheet and sent them back a copy with a $10 bill I swiped from my daughter’s Monopoly game with the words “I know who you are” written on the back. Don’t worry about these freaks. You should just play mindgames with them and they’ll eventually get scared. The “company” resides in drug-trafficking Bush country so nothing will get done about it.
I have been receiving bills from Champion Communications to Chamipion Title at my home address for months. We do not know and have never been or used Champion Title before. I called the number on the bills and was told in order to get this cleared up, I need to send a letter! This is total BULL! Who are these people? And, how do they get away with scaming people? Be aware of bills from Champion Communications from Weston, FL. T
I received a bill from this company for 900 number phone calls that were not made. I have contacted my phone company to be sure, and they comfirmed that no 900 # calls were made from my line and in fact I have a block on my phone that does not even allow those types of calls to be made. When I call their so called customer service…I get rude answers to my questions and they tell me that it is my responsibility to prove to them that I never made those calls and until I do…I am responsible to pay the bill. I believe that this company is a scam, because I did some research online and they have been doing this to people for quite some time. I do not know what to do now because I don’t want this company to get any more info about me and I don’t want them reporting this bill to any credit bureaus. I am not paying the bill because it is not true. When I insisted that they send me a revised statement showing that I owe them nothing..they hung up on me. Keep calling these Bozos and keep reporting them to the appropriate authorities…I know I will.
I just received a bill from Champion for two 17 minute calls alledgedly for Sports results. Never happened. Anyone know how to stop this? total amount is $191.68.
We just received a bill from this company saying we’ve paid all but $14.64 balance. the total bill was close to $125. I know for a fact we didnt call these numbers or pay this. And these phone calls were supposedly done a year ago from a phone number we no longer live at. We would have lived there at the time they said that we made the calls. I called the phone company we had at the time, Hickory Tech, and they were of no help to me. No history and really no advice. She was basically accusing us of dialing the numbers. Will this actually get put on our credit report if we dont pay? do you just ignore? or file a report with fcc or someone else.
We received an invoice from Champion Communications in the mail today, June 28, 2007. The name was wrong, the address was missing two of the five numbers (i.e. 1??11), the street name, city and zip code were correct. The part that concerned me was that it was our old phone number from 4 years ago!!! The bill was for various 900# calls adding up to $19.88. I called the same customer service number at 800-439-0426, spoke to a gentleman who I could hardly understand, and he said he would note the discrepancy and to disgard the invoice. The address on the invoice is P.O. Box 267007, Weston, FL 33326-9917. Judging from the many messages I read, it appears that these guys are still trying to scam people!
I agree, these guys suck. I will be reporting this to whomever will listen.