On January 2nd I put a post on monoblogue called Pumpin’ and Dumpin‘. In essence it was a study of how the stock picks which come unsolicited to the place of business I work at actually performed and also who’s really making the money off these stocks. This was a post that didn’t necessarily deal with Delmarva in particular, but something I have an interest in because I do invest in the stock market (just not in those particular shares.)
The first item of business is to thank all of the commenters who have taken a few minutes of their day to add their input. When I make comments on other blogs (here are a number of examples) generally I’m trying to add to the conversation by either making a point in agreement with the blogger, adding to the post through relating experiences I’ve had, or making a cohesive counterargument to his/her point. On the Pumpin’ and Dumpin’ post I’ve had 21 comments (which is the record for monoblogue’s 300+ posts so far) and they’re apparently people who found the post because they were frustrated by spam faxes and were led here by a Yahoo search (or other search engine.) Best of all, they’ve added to the conversation, which in a local blogosphere that sometimes sees comments stoop to simple personal attacks is extremely refreshing.
While going through the regional media the other day, an idea struck me. (Fortunately it didn’t hurt.) I was reading an article about Doug Gansler, Maryland’s newly sworn-in Attorney General, and how he’s promising to crack down on polluters and modeling himself after former New York AG (and now Governor) Eliot Spitzer.
Think about this. How many hundreds of trees are killed in a week to provide the reams of paper that these faxes waste? And, while it so happens our fax machine sits right over our recycling bin and makes recycling our waste paper easier to achieve, how much landfill space is needlessly wasted promoting stocks that plummet the moment the folks at Gemini News sell out? Doesn’t that toner eventually separate from the paper and find its way to Chesapeake Bay?
But seriously, this did get me thinking further about the problem of these junk faxes.
A couple years back, there was a bill passed by Congress called the “Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005.” Unfortunately, it seems to have had the opposite effect as businesses are allowed a loophole based on an “established business relationship.” Apparently, having a semi-public fax number (ours is on my business card for example) is good enough to consider an “established business relationship.” Proponents of the bill were legitimate businesses (realtors were one prime example) who do depend on faxes to get information to and from clients but were technically violating previous rules. But the EBR loophole’s big enough to drive a Mack truck through so the federal government was no help. Big surprise there.
Also, here’s part of a short article I found on the MSNBC website:
First, you need to figure out where the call is coming from. If you don’t have caller ID, you can use the *57 call trace service (there is a small charge for this). You may be able to use your phone company’s “call rejection” service to block the call.
If not, you’ll need to contact your local phone company. Most have a call annoyance or unlawful call center. They can help identify where the call is coming from and may be able to figure out a fix.
If you get the runaround from the phone company, contact your state’s utility commission. They may be able to help.
The problems I see with this are twofold. Spam faxers tend to have more than one number in a lot of cases – block one, the person just uses another number. The other problem is anecdotally I’ve found that many of these come from Canada or overseas. It’s not clear whether the phone company can block those numbers, but even if so that just leads back to problem #1.
I guess I did a service in some respects though by tracking their performance. If the word gets out that these stocks are about to become absolute dogs, then maybe the companies recommending them will be shunned.
By the way, with the Dow hitting another record close, thus far this year 3 of the 7 stocks are up, 2 are even, and 2 down. If I readjusted my imaginary portfolio to the end of 2006 numbers, that $7,000 would be $8,318.53 (mostly because HSFI has gone from 4 cents a share to 9 cents a share.) Apparently the dumping is complete but don’t be surprised if we see these and other over-the-counter stocks pushed on a fax coming soon to your machine.
Found your blog by searching for “gemini market news.” I too have had it with junk faxes. This week, you can’t even call the numbers to get off the list – either busy or disconnected. Hot Stocks is not the only one doing it – I have two more from other companies that came just today. Ink is expensive and it galls me that these entities waste mine. This is my personal fax. BTW – if you do manage to get yourself off of their list, it only lasts for a few months. Then you are right back on. I am thinking of writing to my congressman about the loophole.
I too Have been getting these anoying junk faxes,
and I am still trying to figure out a way to stop them.
Unfortunately any attempt has ben futile.
The heading on this one this morning was about Southridge Enterprises,I did a little research and found
no truth to what it was saying.
If there are anyother sugestions on how to stop these junk fax from comeing though I would be more than happy to here them.