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FAX and Voice Broadcast
Faxing is the ultimate advertisement at the lowest cost. Trigger Touch™ IP Fax Solutions has revolutionized both the structure and economics of message delivery for integrated Broadcast Voice, Fax and E-mail messages.
Our technology simplifies your communications on every level - voice, email, fax, short message service, multimedia message service and whatever else the future may bring.
Our scaleable platform is the first completely web-based, integrated solution that lets you meet the full range of your organization's messaging needs.
What about the Junk Fax Law?
Most people, have it all wrong. The new laws DO NOT REQUIRE written permission, only verbal permission (including calling any secretary and asking for the fax #) or a previous "two-way" communication that qualifies as business relationship (not a purchase, just a communication, as in Hello, Hi, Yes Hello, and Wella! you're established). It is alos acceptable to pull a fax number from a publicly posted forum, such as a companies web site.
These new laws were specifically developed and lobbied through congress by business PAC's to remove the teeth in the law and shift liability away from businesses. The anti-fax people are furious because it's damned near impossible to prove your case anymore. The law purposely has no teeth.
Many folks also think there is an $11,000 fine for Do Not Fax violations.
Not true. The law allows someone to sue you for $500 per violation (in some rare cases triple punative damages to $1500). But now, the burden of proof rests on the consumer and is virtually impossible to prove.
Trigger Touch is 100% FCC / TCPA Fax compliant.
More on Junk Faxes: The preeminent lobby against junk faxes, in our opinion, is Junkfaxes.org. Needless to say they are hopping mad about the new law. In fact, here’s what they have to say:
“Q. What did the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005 (June 2005) change?
A. In June 2005, Congress passed S.714, the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005 in order to legalize the sending of junk faxes. Bush signed it into law on July 9, 2005. No, that wasn't a typo. The legislation makes the problem worse. This amendment to the TCPA legalizes junk faxes sent by persons or entities that you have a relationship with (called an Established Business Relationship or EBR). For example, if you spoke with someone 45 years ago, that creates an EBR both ways so you can send junk faxes to them and they can send junk faxes to you until you fax each other to stop.
The key provisions of S.714 are as follows:
- If the sender has an Established Business Relationship (EBR) with you, they will now be able to send unsolicited advertising to your fax machine(s) without your consent at any time of day or night for any product or service whatsoever (including other people's products) as long as certain conditions are met
- The conditions that must be met include: 1) the fax number(s) used must be obtained either directly from the recipient or from a public source to which the recipient gave the number for publication (e.g., a website, advertisement or directory), 2) they must include a toll free opt out number on the first page of the fax so you can opt out of future advertisements 3) they must honor your opt out requests (no time limit is specified in the bill; the FCC will determine this)
- There is no time limit on the length of the EBR in the bill but the FCC may limit this.
- An EBR is defined as "a prior or existing relationship formed by a voluntary two-way communication between a person or entity and a business or residential subscriber with or without an exchange of consideration, on the basis of an inquiry, application, purchase or transaction by the business or residential subscriber regarding products or services offered by such person or entity, which relationship has not been previously terminated by either party (see Venable LLP for a more in-depth discussion). Thus, virtually any interaction will create an EBR sufficient to allow faxing.
This means that nearly every person or entity that you've ever had a two-way conversation with in the past are now legally allowed to send you unsolicited advertising to your fax machine at any time of day or night about any topic whatsoever until you tell them to stop (and they have an unspecified amount of time to comply with your request). Of course, this will increase the amount of junk faxes you get.
They called it the junk fax "prevention" act because common practice in Congress is to label the legislation to be the opposite of what it really does because if it were accurately labeled, nobody would vote for it. This bill didn't prevent a single junk fax from being sent; it created a whole new category of junk faxes that could legally be sent.
It was truly a historic move: Congress for the first time in history has legalized the taking of your property from you (paper, ink) without your consent by another person (or private entity). They also legalized the invasion of your privacy so that commercial messages can be delivered to you on your home fax machine without your express consent at any time of day or night! Remarkably, Consumers Union was silent on this bill. When asked, they said it was "fine" with them. Funny, when I asked people whether they wanted junk faxes from companies they do business with, everyone said "No!" I couldn't find a single person who would consent if asked. So why is Consumer's Union so clueless?
The reason Congress did this is because businesses and membership organizations (who like to fax their members) were strongly backing the measure and no consumer groups were opposed. Businesses love it because it results in lower advertising costs for them. Instead of sending you a direct mail piece that would cost them a whopping 37 cents plus printing costs or calling you on the phone or sending you an email, they can now send you that same advertisement for less than 3 cents each because virtually all the costs are shifted from the advertiser onto the recipient. And there's nothing you can do to prevent it
It's simply cheaper advertising for businesses because they can now send you ads you don't want at your expense without your consent.”
Bottom Line: It’s OK to Fax again. That was quite a rant from the anti-faxers, but as always, if you’re compliant and you send a message of value to your prospects you have nothing to worry about. A strong value proposition with integrity to the right targeted consumer would have avoided any legislation in the first place.
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