We all hate phone spam. Republican fake cost-benefit analysis: prosecuting spammers costs too much. Yes, for just one prosecution. But a systematic program of prosecution would get all of those who take the financial and other penalties seriously out of the “business”, and reduce it to a minor nuisance at the level of junk fax. One-step, single idea analysis is always wrong. We must always consider further steps in the chain of cause and effect, aka karma.
At the height of junk fax, fax machines were tied up continuously, and legitimate business and communications could not get through. Being able to fax back a bill for damages cut that way, way down. All-electronic fax then did away with jammed up fax printing machines.
Yes, spammers can just get new e-mail addresses or phone numbers, but as long as their service providers have to take their billing addresses, and they have to provide real financial contacts to their marks in order to get paid, we can just penalize them again and again.
Did you know that when you get a junk fax, you can fax back a bill for statutory damages, and take the sender to small claims court? Some people thought that they could make a living doing that for others, but junk fax dried up too quickly for that to be viable. Those who got dinged told everybody else who the dingers were, to begin with, but then it just got to be too much for the whole “business”.
Did you know that you can tell a phone spammer to pay up, and go to small claims court to collect? And that you can get someone else to do it for you?
Oh, yes. This is where the story really starts.