Common Craft Blog
The Most Expensive Spam
By leelefever on August 23, 2005 - 12:12pm
Spam has been around for a lot longer than computers or email, but we’ve gotten used to it. Ever since I had a real world mailbox, it’s been filled with spam every day. A percentage of my phone calls are spam. Some might even say that billboards on the side of a highway are some sort of road spam, or maybe not.
Mailbox spam is expensive. It wastes resources to print all those brochures that I just recycle immediately (which takes time). Phone spam costs a little of my time and there is a certain annoyance cost.
The most expensive spam, for me, is fax spam. It doesn’t happen often, but it is perhaps the most costly and insidious form of spam. I say this because it uses MY paper and the ink in MY printer cartridges and ties up MY phone line. I don’t have a choice. Then, I have to recycle it, just like mail spam.
Like email spammers, they are a clever bunch, in there own half-witted spammer ways. The fax spam I just received has an article on weight loss with a hand written note at the top by “Jillâ€. Here is what it says:
Here is the product I used to use all that weight and inches. Dr. Palmer down the hall told us about it. Everyone is losing weight on this stuff- it was proven on Dateline NBC. ~Jill
Wow Jill, I can't believe you took the time to write a hand written note just for me! Tell Dr. Palmer thanks for me! I’ll run out to the store right now!
The Most Expensive Spam
Fax spam is also illegal in Washington State and has been for many years:
Washington state law prohibits the transmission of unsolicited facsimile messages to anyone unless there is a prior contractual or business relationship between the sender and the recipient. (RCW 80.36.540)
Even if there is a previous business relationship, if a recipient sends a written or fax message to the sender clearly indicating that they do not want fax messages from them, the sender cannot legally send any more faxes. Washington’s law provides for $500 in damages if a consumer files and wins a private lawsuit.
Go get em.
The Most Expensive Spam
Lee: The only thing more annoying than fax spam is having a fax spammer call your home at 3am, trying to reach a fax machine that isn't even hooked up.
The Most Expensive Spam
Wow, great to know Carrick, thanks.
The Most Expensive Spam
i have finally come to terms with spam...whether it's at the office, on my cell phone or in my inbox. although if it was *my* fax machine, i can see where it would really get annoying. what's interesting to me is the way that you can track trends through spam, but that may just be the geek in me talking...
The Most Expensive Spam
Lee,
This is soooo true. And the funny part is that I just received that fax spam yesterday from Jill. I even had to pause a moment and wonder if a former employee had sent it to someone in the office. But then realized we don't really have any dieting women here so likely a spam.
I would love to know attach rate across the various spam channels. Really I'd rather they all just went away ;)
Oh no, the most expensive
Oh no, the most expensive spam seems to be plastic cards in mail boxes, I think it costs more..