How can I find out who keeps sending faxes to my home phone?

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Request for Question Clarification by darrel-ga on 23 Jan 2004 06:52 PST

Have you tried connecting a fax machine to your home phone and letting
the fax go through?
darrel-ga

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Clarification of Question by laho-ga on 23 Jan 2004 17:06 PST

No I haven't tried this. I don't have or know anyone who has a fax
machine I can borrow and haven't wanted to rent one.

Hello Laho--

I have carefully considered your question, researched it and have your answer.

Your best bet would be to hit *69 on your phone immediately after you
get one of these calls and before you get a call from someone else.
This is referred to as a "return call" feature on your phone. *69
allows you to find out from which phone number (including the area
code) you received your most recent incoming call. You may read more
about *69 online. One link is
http://www.voicepulse.com/features/basic/ReturnCall.aspx

To find information about this service, I searched the following
terms: "*69" "phone service"

You may view the results of my search online. The link is
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22*69%22+%22phone+service%22

Other ways to find out the number of the person who's calling you
include: filing a police report and asking for a subpoena to your
phone company to find out from which phone numbers all incoming calls
originate, subscribing to a Caller ID service and obtaining a Caller
ID box which will show you every phone number of every incoming call
before you answer the phone, and connecting a fax machine to the phone
line (loaded with paper) and letting the fax come through. At the top
of the fax, there will be a phone number listed that is the number of
the origination of the fax.

Once you have the phone number of the incoming call, there are many
ways you can find out to whom the phone number is registered, and
thus, who is trying to send you faxes.

I conducted another Google search for the following terms: "who's calling me"

You may view the results of my search online. The link is
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22who%27s+calling+me%22

Once you discover the phone number of the fax machine sending your
faxes - or even after you achieve a phone number of the company who's
sending you faxes (if you're eventually able to connect a fax machine
to your phone), there are a number of ways to find out to whom the
phone number(s) belong.

Perhaps the easiest would be for you to call information on your phone
(either dial 1411 or 1+(area code)555-1212) and ask the operator if
you can give her a phone number and he/she can tell you the name of to
whom the number(s) are registered. Again, this may be the simplest way
for you to find this information.

But there are online ways you can find out the registrant of a phone number.

I conducted another Google search. This time for the following terms:
"reverse phone directory"

You may view the results of this search online. The link is
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22reverse+phone+directory%22&btnG=Google+Search

This will connect you to a number of different online reverse phone
directories. At these directories, you may simply type in the phone
number and click on "send" and the directories will give you the name
of the individual, business, or group to whom the number is
registered.

Some of the best reverse search directories online are:

Reverse Phone Directory. You may search this database online. The link
is http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/

Anywho. You may search this database online. The link is http://www.anywho.com/

White Pages. You may search this database online. The link is
http://www.whitepages.com

I hope this helps. If you need any further information or any
clarification, please don't hesitate to hit the "clarify" button. I'm
happy to help.

Thanks,

darrel-ga

I haven't tried all these ideas but now have somewhere to start. I
liked how you anticipated that I would need to have the information to
find a reverse telephone number and had that information for me too.

The header line on the fax - small letters at the top - should (and by
law I believe) have a "station number" on it.  You could use this as a
starting point, but it may be absent of fraudulent.

Caller ID? - may be blocked of course

Talk to your telephone company - record times of incoming calls and
ask for their assistance - may not help.

Sorry - I hope somebody else has a definite solution for you.

Hook up a fax machine to your phone. May be you can borrow one, or may
be your computer modem has some fax receiving capabilities?

The same thing happened to a friend of mine and he found out a
newspaper mistakenly published his phone number in one of its ad.

Worst case scenario, you can change your phone number free of charge
if you tell your phone company someone is stalking you. Have you
talked to your phone company?

This happens to me a lot. If the faxer forgets to input the correct
area code when sending a fax to a certain truck parts company
interstate, then I get the annoyance of answering the phone at home
only to receive 'beeps' from the other end. If I hang up, then
guaranteed, I'm going to receive two more of these fax calls in 10
minute intervals.

After absolutely no help from Telstra (what's new?!) the only way I
have worked out to find out who's sending the fax is the forward my
phone to a fax number. (Here in Australia, we can do it by pressing
*21areacodephonenumber*). I then receive their fax and read it and I
give the truck company a call, seeing as how it's their number that's
causing all the trouble.

It's a lot of hassle (and expense) but I do it because otherwise, the
faxer keeps sending it and I keep getting bothered. Believe me, I'm
not terribly friendly when I call and once, when it had happened
several times in one week, I spoke to the manager and told him I was
going to start charging him for my phonecalls and ink cartridges and
paper. They must have wised up their people because the nuisance faxes
reduced substantially as a result.

You may find this article interesting, and disheartening:

Fax.com Still Dodging Legal Slaps  - Wired News
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61861,00.html


aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher