Faxing - The Rules.
Late last year an ammendment was made to Fax Legislation which meant that it is now illegal to send a fax broadcast to anyone who has registered on the DoNotCall register, within the last 30 days.
This sent the industry into a bit of a spin and all professional Fax Broadcasting Organisations have complied with these (still) relatively new laws.
For the advertiser there was little impact other than the number of available faxes reduces each month but the main responsibilities have been those of the company undertaking the transmitting of the advertising. You need to comply with this legislation in the design of your fax mailer and pay particular attention if you are doing your own design.
On June 1st 2011 a new set of laws came into being but this time there are a number of obligations that the advertiser undertakes and we have laid these out below - in simple, easy to understand language so you don't have to trawl through the jargon!
If you prefer to have a look through the official stuff just click here and it will take you right there!
- All Fax Marketing must now contain the advertisers ABN
- Contact details must include a telephone or fax number suitable for receiving telephone calls or faxes during normal business hours at the location of the advertiser, and at least one of the following:
(a) street address
(b) postal or business address other than a street address
(c) email address
- NEW – The only permitted Fax Broadcast times
We may never fax before 9am
We may never fax after 8pm We may only fax on work days (i.E. Mon - Fri non-holidays)
- We as the sender must be Identified as such – so there has to be a line somewhere near the ASK OFF line which states “This fax has been sent in accordance with current legislation by Prospect Marketing PTY Ltd.”
- Ask Off processing.
Ask Off is the term given to the process of a client requesting their number be removed from the fax database you are faxing to. It must be a simple process for the recipient to complete.
All ask offs MUST be done in real-time and that includes those received by clients' verbally.
Clients MUST enter any ask offs directly onto NoFax, in real-time to be compliant with the Fax Standard. The days are over where these can be accumulated on spreadsheets etc and passed to us later for manual entry.The ASK OFF line must be in a minimum PT 10 Arial font and must appear on the front page of any multi page faxes and must contain a verified Ask Off code.There is lots of legislation that covers the DNC register which I am sure you are already aware of. Suffice to say we work really hard at meeting those standards and to date have managed to do so. This is a costly and time consuming exercise we undertake every month which ensures that we stay well on the right side of legislation, now we must all work together to make sure that we all succeed in doing the same with these new laws.
If you are unsure about anything please do give us a call - we will help as best we can!!
For full information on the legislation please go to The ACMA Com Law page here.
Please be aware this covers fax broadcasting only. There are very specific laws in place re Email Broadcasting. If you want to contact businesses by Emailing them you MUST check out the ACMA site for guidance or speak to a supplier of this service who you trust to give you the very best information.