How to Stop a Calls from a Fax Machine?
I keep getting calls from a fax machine on my voice line. I don’t even have a fax machine, so I don’t know who is trying to send faxes to my number. How can I make it stop?
The cheery chirping of a fax machine trying to connect isn’t pleasant when a fax machine is trying to connect, again and again… and again. Perhaps your phone number used to belong to the fax line at a business, or someone just misdialed their fax machine.
If you do have access to a fax machine — even a borrowed one — an easy workaround is to let it take the call, see who the fax is from, and call or fax them back to explain the problem. If you don’t have a fax machine but do have Caller ID, it should be easy to identify where the fax is coming from: call or fax the sender’s number and ask them to cut it out. Dialing *69 isn’t likely to help: you’ll probably just call the fax machine back.
Calls from fax machines usually come in pairs or threes, because after the fax machine fails, it tries again a few minutes later. Use this to your advantage: once the first call happens, forward your incoming calls to a friend’s fax line (or to a free fax service like eFax.) When that second call comes, it will print out on the friend’s machine.
If these tactics fail, write down the times and dates of these calls for a few days. Call your phone company and explain the problem. Armed with your call log, they should be able to find out who is calling and, hopefully, make them stop. (Depending on their privacy rules, the company probably won’t tell you where the calls are coming from. But getting them to stop, that’s the important part, right?)