| Here is a copy of a letter I recently sent to Senator Feinstein's office; "June 21, 2007 Senator Diane Feinstein Dear Mr. Knapp Congress first passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 1991. Among other things, it created civil penalties for sending unwanted Faxes and gives recipients of these unwanted Faxes the right to sue both the company that sent the Fax along with the person who hired them to send the Fax.. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to determine who is sending unwanted Faxes. For example, the typical Fax I receive is promoting stock in a company that someone has taken a position in. The owner of the stock employs a promotion company to send millions of unwanted Faxes promoting the stock. The ploy is to run up the price of the stock so that the stockholder can sell their shares for a profit. These are referred to as "Pump and Dump" Faxes. These stockholders typically pay fees ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 for this service according to the required disclosure information contained in the Faxes. The Faxes normally contain the required toll free number that you can call to be taken off of their distribution list. However, the companies don't normally honor these requests. The Faxes normally contain the name of the company doing the promotion (Cyber Communications Services Ltd., Gemini Market News Inc., Strategic Dip Trading, Zenith Publications Ltd. and etc.). However, I defy you to run a Google, Anywho or any other kind of search to actually find out who these people are so that you can take legal action against them. Now, consider a real example. Gemini Market News Inc. uses 800-918-2902 as one of it's toll free Fax removal telephone numbers. Obviously, their telephone service provider (AT&T, MCI or etc.) knows who they are and how to contact them. However, the service provider can not give customer information to a victim of these junk Faxes without a court order. To get a court order directing the carrier to release the information, you first have to know who the carrier is. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for assigning blocks of telephone numbers to the various telephone companies but will not tell a victim of the junk Faxes which company 800-918-2902 or any other telephone number is assigned to. My suggestion is that legislation or regulations need to be put into place that requires the FCC to make public the names of the telephone companies that various telephone numbers are assigned to. In the interim, I would greatly appreciate it if you can use your influence to have the FCC release the names of the companies that the following telephone numbers are assigned to;
Thank you for whatever assistance you might be able to provide, Lloyd Leighton |