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Spam is not just email. Turns out that junk messages for an older technology seem to be on the rise. Vito Emanuel has this story.
(SOUNDBITE OF FAX MACHINE BEEPING AND BUZZING)
VITO EMANUEL, BYLINE: You probably haven't heard this sound in a long time, if ever. But Diane Rosa hears it every day.
DIANE ROSA: We are inside the pharmacy, behind the counter, where the fax machine is. This is a ancient form of communication from back in the days. We still have it around.
EMANUEL: Rosa works at a pharmacy in New York City that still gets faxes on paper. Pharmacies and doctors' offices have clung to the fax machine, even as most consumers have left it behind.
How often does this thing go off in a given week?
ROSA: As of now, it'll go off, like - maybe, like, once or twice a day.
EMANUEL: And she says about 90% of those faxes are junk.
ROSA: Sometimes I don't even look at them. I glance at them and I just - garbage.
EMANUEL: Even though fax machines are fading into obscurity, FCC data suggests that junk faxes are strangely on the rise. Last year, consumers made 40% more complaints about them than in 2022. Dr. Bruce Katz is a dermatologist in New York City. He's drowning in junk faxes.
BRUCE KATZ: We can get 60 or 70 faxes a day. But, you know, half of them may be junk faxes. You know, sometimes roofing companies would send us the same fax every month.
EMANUEL: And they're not just annoying. Once, Katz had to postpone a surgery when his staff mistakenly threw out a blood test result that got lost in junk fax purgatory.
KATZ: Enough is enough. I'm going to sue these companies now because they're making my life difficult. They won't stop it if you just ask them nicely, so you have to come back with a hammer.
EMANUEL: Not an actual hammer - a lawsuit. Back in the '90s, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. That law gives consumers like Katz the right to sue junk faxers for $500 a page. And when you need to file a junk fax lawsuit, you probably call...
BRIAN WANCA: Brian Wanca. I'm a principal in a law firm in the Chicago area, and I've been handling junk fax cases since 2003.
EMANUEL: Wanca is prolific. He files class action lawsuits where legions of small businesses band together to sue one junk faxer. With enough people and faxes, that money adds up. One lawsuit settled in 2014 for $21 million. And money aside, Wanca hates junk faxes.
WANCA: It's still a nuisance. It takes you away from your business, and it makes you pay for somebody else's advertising.
EMANUEL: Still, suing junk faxers is not so straightforward. First, it might not be possible to identify who's faxing you. Or you might be getting faxes via email, where the law is a lot muddier. Or you might just be one person. And so if suing isn't an option, you can always try the John Etkins (ph) method. He used to get junk faxes at work back in the '80s. Here's how he got even. Let's say Etkins got an electronics ad. He'd tape four sheets of paper together in a loop, write...
JOHN ETKINS: Do not fax us again. Take us off your mailing list, yada, yada, yada.
EMANUEL: And then fax it back to the junk faxer. He let that run as long as he could. During the daytime, someone on the other end might see what's happening and unplug the fax machine.
ETKINS: But if you sent it at 3 o'clock in the morning, you knew there was no one going to be watching that machine. So they would come in in the morning and find half a roll of paper on the floor.
EMANUEL: Did it work? Did people stop sending faxes?
ETKINS: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We never heard from those people again. Yeah (laughter).
EMANUEL: Katz has stopped using a physical fax machine. Now he gets faxes sent to his email. He still gets a couple junk faxes in his inbox. And this year, believe it or not, the Supreme Court will decide whether he can sue for those ones, too.
For NPR News, I'm Vito Emanuel.
(SOUNDBITE OF NUJABES' "SEA OF CLOUD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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