Totally OT: Reverse Telephone/Fax Numbers

[John]

Sorry to be totally OT but does anybody know of a site or facility to find a company name etc. from a fax number? The reason being is my Mum is constantly getting a call from a fax machine (01623 869384) on her phone, she doesn't have a fax m/c, and BT are being as helpful as a unhelpful person from Unhelpful Land! I can find sites on the web but they only seem to deal with USA numbers.

Thanks in advance for any help, and once again sorry to be totally OT. It is sort of DIY as I will be making the call on her behalf!

Cheers

John

[Steve P]

How often is "constantly" ?

01623 in Mansfield area

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Why not fax them and ask them - or just explain the problem?

[Lobster]

Pretty sure the facility's been nobbled now, unless you can find an old copy of the ukinfodisk (?) CD a few years ago which allowed reverse lookup? (always assuming the number hasn't changed since then).

Entering the whole number into Google works surprisingly often, but unfortunately not in this case. It's a no-brainer to get the approx location from the STD code - plenty of sites that will do that - but another tip is just to enter the first few digits - especially if it's an oldish number (ie pre-number-portability rules coming in), that may narrow it down and at least provide clues?

So in this case, looking for "01623 869" brings up two numbers in adjacent villages in Notts: Walesby and New Ollerton. Help any?

But why didn't you post it in uk.telecom where there will be hundreds of gee^H^H^H experts on the subject???!!!

David

[Colin Blackburn]

When I lived in Oxford I would get fax calls every day at 6pm with the machine trying again shortly after failing the first time. After a while it became an annoyance. The number was withheld so I couldn't call anyone back and BT were next to useless. In the end I got some software for my modem and captured the fax one day. It turned out to be several pages of detailed, internal, financial information from Lloyds which they were sending to the previous occupant of the house. The fax had a telephone number on it. A quick call explaining that I would happily forward the documents to their competitors on a daily basis soon got them to stop.

Colin

[David]

But he doesn't have a fax machine!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Err, I'm using a 10 year old RISC OS computer and I can fax anyone from it. Are you saying a PC can't?

[Martin]

Still OT - sorry. But I suspect a lot of people have suffered, as we have, from finding the old "Cheyenne Bitware" voicemail and fax system (packaged with cheap and cheerful modems over many years) is unusable on modern PCs with Win2K or later. If anyone knows of a fix, or an alternative, I'd love to hear about it!

[Gary Cavie]

If you want to email me off list with her details, I'll happily send a fax on your behalf to that number, asking them to desist.

[dmc]

Fax them for free from

- the number you give is covered (replace the leading 0 with 44 though). I've not used this service for years but it used to work well...

Cheers,

Darren

[Lobster]

That's a good idea - and if they don't desist (ie if its some sort of automatic fax) the daily ( or more?!) waste of fax paper might make them look into it!

But if you could temporarily hook up a fax machine to your mum's line, that would be the obvious solution, then you'd be able to read the faxes.

[ARWadsworth]

The local library will/can send a fax for for you and it will cost less than a pint if you not want to get technical and DIY.

Adam

[John Rumm]

If you have either three way calling or call diversion[1], then you could redirect it to a real fax to see what it is...

[1] So called "star" services you rend from BT for 4 quid/quarter)

[John Rumm]

Many years ago Delrina did a free "lite" version of Winfax. It used to be available from the Son of Spy freeware site. If you can't find it then drop me an email since I still have a copy.

Remeber also that Win2k does have some rudimentary fax software included (as does Win98 but not 98SE - no sure about WinME)

PlusNet offer a fax-to-email service with all accounts from their 4.99 flat rate dialup package (alas not the free PAYG one), others have mentioned TPC for sending faxes.

[clowes_ian]

Are you sure its a fax and not a modem?

Not sure what you do if it is a modem, but I can't think of any obvious way to 'talk' back to it without knowing what its trying to do. One hint might be that a fax machine would generally pick up the line, whilst most modems wouldn't.

IanC

[Owain]

Reverse search directories are illegal under UK Data Protection laws. Faxing the number will only work if their equipment accepts incoming faxes, which it might not if it is some automated fax-out system.

If you report it to BT Malicious Calls Bureau they can give you Choose to Refuse for a month free. You can also report it to your local Police as a crime under the Prevention from Harassment Act. The Police do have access to reverse search facilities.

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

Chances are it won't even answer. Autodialler and computer generated fax with no autoanswer, or worse still, hiding behind a non existent CLI.

[Mike Clarke]

MightyFAX is a good simple basic send and receive program for faxes. Free 30 day trial then 20 dollars to register.

[Rockmead]

should help

[Rockmead]

this one is for faxes