Steer clear of these bad ideas
Just a short section on bad ideas and marketing methods I would never use myself, and would not condone anyone else using. The main reason is that both methods will cost the recipient money, either in telephone time or paper costs. Here they are: Unsolicited fax transmissions. I know businesses whose fax machines chunter away most of the day receiving ‘junk’ faxes. Apart from the cost of paper, which is considerable over a year, it also ties up their fax machine. Customers and true suppliers can get very frustrated at the lengthy periods of engaged tone. Once you’re on some fax ‘mailing list’ it’s difficult to get off. You need to contact anyone who sends you such faxes, ask them to remove you from their list, and find out how they obtained your number. Be wary of ‘faxback’ services charging premium rates for removal! In 2005 U.S. Congress passed the Junk Fax Prevention Act, which requires senders of unsolicited commercial fax messages to broadcast privacy notices and instructions on how to opt out. Unsolicited electronic mail. Similar to the above. This costs the recipient time, effort and possibly increased Internet and telephone charges while mail messages are downloaded to their computer. Bulk unsolicited e-mail is known as “spamming” in the Internet community. Persistent offenders have been barred by their Internet Service Provider. Others have been “flamed” by angry recipients (“flaming” involves the perpetrator receiving hundreds or even thousands of messages generated automatically by angry recipients). This, in turn, can cost them a lot of money. The United States has tried to legislate against unsolicited email with the CAN-Spam Act. Unscrupulous operators have either taken no notice or diverted their bulk email generators “offshore”. At the time of writing, the UK Government is also planning legislation to limit or prevent both of the above bad ideas. This will undoubtedly be very difficult to police, and I can’t see the situation changing significantly in the near future.
|
