Fax Spam on my cell phone

December 14, 2004 9:40 AM

Fax Spam on my cell phone - does anybody else get this? Every once in a while, I get a call on my cell and when I pick up I hear a fax machine on the other end.

So I called Bell and they can't do anything about it unless they know the number. So they made me pick up the Call Display option. However, even when it isn't an unlisted number when I call it back Bell gives me a message saying "the number is not in service."

This is driving me nuts and I have a feeling I don't have any recourse.
posted by RockCorpse to Technology (14 answers total)

You could change your number. That sucks but unless you can't get ahold of the people who are calling you or get the phone company to block the number, I think you're hosed. Is it always the same number calling when you get the fax?
posted by trbrts at 9:49 AM on December 14, 2004

Response by poster: No, that's the brilliant thing...it's *always* different.
posted by RockCorpse at 9:54 AM on December 14, 2004

RockCorpse, I've had the same thing happen a couple of times. Sometimes I try to Google the number, etc, and perform some investigative reporting. But otherwise, T-Mobile couldn't do anything about it, short of suggesting I block the individual numbers.

Good luck.
posted by symphonik at 9:58 AM on December 14, 2004

I see you're in Toronto. I had this problem in Montreal not long ago. All the faxes were coming from the same exchange and Bell Canada disclaimed all knowledge of it. I described the problem to our local livejournal community and someone pointed me to this page, which can at least tell you who's responsible for the exchange that's calling you.

The upshot for me: I emailed the company that owned the spamming exchange, saying I wanted my number removed from their list or I would lodge complaints all over - and it worked. No spam faxes any more.
posted by zadcat at 10:00 AM on December 14, 2004

I presume you have no way to actually recieve the fax? (Do they come at predicatable times? You could have your number forwarded to a fax machine temporarily.) If you did you could find out who is sending it (or at least who is paying for it to be sent).
posted by o2b at 10:14 AM on December 14, 2004

See also this thread.
posted by pardonyou? at 10:30 AM on December 14, 2004

Response by poster: o2b: nope - seems to be totally random, and it's my cellphone line, so I really don't want to be paying for data transfers even if I could receive faxes.

zadcat: interesting. but the only information I'm able to get is (a) the switch that handles the exchange is owned by Bell Canada (which I knew) and (b) the exchange is out in Islington. So emailing Bell might help? It just seems so unlikely.

pardonyou?: thanks. I saw that but I didn't see anything I can use.
posted by RockCorpse at 10:51 AM on December 14, 2004

There's a do not call list for cell phones out there on the Web...
posted by ParisParamus at 11:11 AM on December 14, 2004

Response by poster: PP - yeah, it's State-side only so far. Sorry, I should have mentioned I'm in Canada. Canada's working on a similar legislation which is still pending, I think.
posted by RockCorpse at 11:19 AM on December 14, 2004

RockCorpse, the one thing I saw in that thread that I thought might help you was a three-way call a fax machine (if you have access), and then getting information from the fax -- either the header or the fax contents. (Of course, now that I write this, I'm not even sure if my cell phone has three-way calling.)
posted by pardonyou? at 12:15 PM on December 14, 2004

Uh, any chance you've p*ssed someone off lately? I used to work with a guy who did this to people once in a while.

(It wasn't me, I swear!)
posted by vignettist at 12:28 PM on December 14, 2004

Response by poster: pardonyou?, good point, but no I don't have access to a fax machine. although, yeah, I guess the fax contents would be the way to do it.

vignettist, heh heh, well it's possible...I used to be a sysadmin. But I thought I was using my powers for good, though. Damn. Evil is so sneaky that way.

Anyway, thanks all. I think I may have to just grit my teeth and bear it.
posted by RockCorpse at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2004

RockCorpse, you should contact the CRTC regarding this problem.

We have no general laws against Fax spam in Canada, so there's no too much you can do, but the CRTC has a way of leaning on the provider of the service if it is disrupting your enjoyment of your phone (which it clearly is).

There are a set of specific laws, which I can't recall the name of right now, but these laws do require all faxes to include things such as contact numbers, adresses, fax number, and names of the company / individual sending the fax. If any of those are missing you could tell the CRTC you want to file charges (good luck).

Considering fax machines have become less and less used in Canada it is unlikely we will now ever make an anti-fax-spam law. However, some network providers do have their own in-house rules against it. For example, Telus (Sprint?) will terminate fax spammers service for their customers, and will send a nastygram to the party if they are not a Telus (Sprint?) customer (yeah, this broke my habit of calling them e-slut).

I'm sorry, I lost the link to that phone number / website. I swear it exists, though (I used it once). Maybe I'll find it if I'm lucky.

Here is a helpful CRTC page, which outlines that junk fax calls in Canada may only be made between 9 am and 9:30 pm weekdays, and 10 am to 6 pm weekends (it's preliminary, may not have made it to law). Here's also a CRTC phone number.

HTH!
posted by shepd at 1:25 PM on December 14, 2004

I got a couple of fax attempts on my cell within a couple of months of getting the line set up. I howled at Rogers and they offered to switch me to another number, gratis. I was also able to get one of their stores to fax back a reply to one of the numbers that was trying to call me. In the end it petered out; I still have the same number, and I haven't had a fax call in ages.

(I also had this problem seven to eight years ago on my land line, and it was much more persistent. The basic issue is that phone numbers are getting recycled way too fast, and there's no firewall between residential, commercial, and data numbers.)
posted by mcwetboy at 6:20 AM on December 15, 2004