It's Monday morning and you enter the office to see that your trusty fax machine is half submerged by a weekends worth of unsolicited faxes.

The "green" side of your conscience tells you that within a one year period half a tree gives its life for this pile of unwanted rubbish. The business side of you kicks and you realise that these faxes are burning ink and paper at your expense.

The good news is that you can stop unwanted faxes quite easily through the Fax Preference Service.

The government introduced legislation on May 1st 1999 that made it unlawful to send unsolicited faxes to individuals, sole traders and partnerships without prior permission.

Following the adoption of the Telecommunications Data Protection Directive in 1997 by the European Parliament, the DTI (Department of Trade & Industry) and OFTEL entered into a consultation period which resulted in The Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999. These regulations affect all fax-marketers and telemarketers in the United Kingdom and they came into force on May 1st 1999.

"Don't shoot the messenger but you could have stopped your unwanted faxes over 9 years ago."

In February 1999 OFTEL issued an Invitation to tender for the management of fax and telephone opt out schemes. The Direct marketing Association (DMA0) was successful in their tender and was awarded the contract to run the Fax Preference Service (FPS) along with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

Now you've had your history lesson here's the nitty gritty on how to stop unwanted faxes...

It's simple: ring the Fax Preference Service (FPS) on 0845 07 007 07.

This automated service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All you have to do is state your fax number and address when prompted.

If you are a client facing organisation then you may want to consider sharing this free service with your customers. If you see a fax machine that has spat out unwanted faxes when you are on a sales call you will earn massive kudos by asking your customer if they you would like you to make those type of nasty faxes go away with one phone call.

Within 48 hours of registering with the Fax preference Service my unwanted faxes had stopped. At most I get 3 unsolicited faxes a year which I can live with. I registered over 3 years ago.

One point worth noting is that some companies flaunt the law and still; send faxes. These faxes contain an opt out number which you can ring to unsubscribe. Beware! The unsubscribe number is very often a premium rate number charging as high as £1.50 per minute.

So, if you want to be free of those unwanted faxes, just register your fax number with the FPS - it really is as easy as that.

What you might find a little irritating is leaving your fax number plus business name and address on an answering machine. Be assured this is how it works.

If you want to contact the Fax Preference Service directly then here are their details;

Facsimile Preference Service (FPS)

DMA House

70 Margaret Street

London

W1W 8SS 

Tel:  020 7291 3330

Fax:  020 7323 4226

Email: fps@dma.org.uk

Web : www.fpsonline.org.uk

Complaints Department- 020 7291 3324

So, what are you waiting for? Stop your unwanted faxes and enjoy a new lease of life.

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