I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not a pessimist. I do not dwell on negative thoughts.
However, I am being challenged on most of these positions by the fact that our fax machine spits out faxes from companies wanting to sell products/processes/loans/systems to us at work. Really? This is effective marketing?
It is waste. Pure and simple waste. I feel sorry for the fool that actually faxes back the form with their pertinent personal data for a chance to win a cruise with other gamblers through the Caribbean. And I would definitely give my social security number to a faceless fax machine for a chance at reduced-cost tax preparation.
STUFF has a fax machine that sits next to me and directly behind Casey in our office. We scrape the bottom of the toner cartridges because toner is expensive. We use it up. We let it tell us 30+ times that the “toner is low,” and even then we do nothing. We do nothing until we can’t print a project we just sent to the printer. (Our machine is a fax/scanner/printer.)
The great thing about the brains in our machine – or the curse – is that, when ink is getting low, it stops automatically printing incoming documents. It continues to print what we send to it, and then, when it gives us the “toner is empty” screen, we gripe and moan and change the cartridge.
When that happened today sixteen (16!) different faxes ripped out of the machine offering us the cruise listed above, a qualifying business loan for $327,000, and a directory listing verification form for the upcoming edition of the Yellow Pages. As if people look at the printed Yellow Pages.
These little gems had obviously been pent up in our machine waiting for us to get off our cheap butts so those anonymous companies could waste our ink and our paper.
Business is expensive enough without these intrusions. If you want to really get my attention, call me. An actual phone call is truly kickin’ it old style.
A fax just makes me think the ink and paper industry is out to make us buy more and all the bad guys are in cahoots. But I don’t believe in conspiracy….
Rant over.
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Yes indeedy! More than annoying. One trick you might try, if you haven’t already…register your fax number on the federal do not call list. It’s not fool-proof but it does help.
Deborah:
Thank you for reading our blogs and for reminding me to do my “yearly” listing with the federal call list and the Missouri call list. It doesn’t knock them all out but it does knock them back a bit.
If other ideas occur, keep me posted. I might be on a gambler’s cruise but I’ll get back to you ….
– sloane
I feel your anger over these wasteful, idiotic faxes. A suggestion….possibly your business line phone service offers an online messaging service where you receive faxes. That’s what I did for my company and I do not receive any of those unsolicited solicitations by fax any longer. AT&T’s (my phone service company) is called Unified Messaging where you can also receive/send emails and recorded voice mails. Just a thought to save your toner and paper.
Therese:
These are the calls that slip through all the filters, blockers and walls we have in place. I have a feeling that even Fort Knox has holes …
Thank you for reading our blogs and for commenting. I never really got all the way to anger today but I was clearly on my way to frustration!
– sloane
By law (supposing that they abide by the law), the Junk Fax Prevention Act requires that all faxes include an “unsubscribe” number or email address – If they don’t have this, can you check your machine for their fax number? if so, you can report it once the No-Call list has been activated. Here is the link to the Junk Fax information from the FCC: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/fax-advertising
If you don’t feel comfortable clicking on a link – just Google it. 🙂
Pat:
Thank you for your advice! I have done most of these procedures in the past. Again, it is a waste of my time to keep deleting and responding to these junksters.
Waste is waste. And my time is infinetly more valuable than paper and ink!
Thank you for reading our blogs and sending us comments.
– sloane
It’s a conspiracy plain and simple.