The British Fax Directory

Junk faxes to domestic fax lines in the UK are not yet common. But one company is responsible for many of them. That company is the "British Fax Directory" which hoovers up all the UK fax numbers to be found - including from the net. They do indeed publish a directory of fax numbers. The pending Euro legislation should deal with junk faxes, if and when the Directive is implemented in UK law.

The British Fax Directory is in fact a trading name of:-

Launchasset Ltd
20 Bourne Court
Southend Road
Woodford Green
Essex
IG8 8HD

... which was founded on December 17 1991.

Launchasset has had a number of changes of Directors, but they are currently [May 97]:

Anthony Leslie Moore
Flat 3 Egliston Lawns
11 Egliston Road, Putney
London SW15 1AL Gordon Stukeley Ritchie
39 Gun Wharf
130 Wapping High Street
London E1 9NH

Both Ritchie and Moore are unlisted / ex directory.

The company Secretary is:

Ruth Steele
30 Selby Road
Leytonstone
London E11 3LT

Fax Polling Associates & the "Society for the Promotion of a European Referendum"

During the 1997 General Election, Moore and Ritchie junk faxed out a claimed 800,000 junk faxes, supposedly a fax referendum on exit from Europe. They used a "fax polling organisation" and a "client" (both of which were in fact trading names for Launchasset). Both client and polling organisation had overtly different addresses which led to one and the same convenience address.

The idea of this poll involved the use of premium rate lines (from Vodafone) for the fax machines receiving the completed incoming "poll" forms. This latter point was made clear on the junk fax. It appears that so many people realised what was going on that Ritchie has claimed the whole thing had made a net loss. However, the process may well have helped Ritchie and Moore acquire more fax numbers to add to their British Fax Directory.

British Fax Directory fined

This website reported the British Fax Directory to the Data Protection Registrar for an offence under the Data Protection Act and parent company Launchasset has now been fined £500 with £1200 costs at Thames Magistrates Court.

The Building Society Repossession list

Another junk faxer operating in the UK is the "The Building Society Repossession List" or BSRL. BSRL is a trading name for a company called:

Spaceair Limited
20 Bourne Court
Southend Road
Woodford Green
Essex
IG8 8HD

And the Directors of Spaceair are:

Ruth Ketchenson
21 Durham Road
Manor Park
London E12 5AY

Gordon Stukeley Ritchie
39 Gun Wharf
130 Wapping High Street
London E1 9NH

More recently Ritchie has been junk faxing using yet another cutout company - Second Telecom.

Is junk faxing illegal?

In many States in the USA, it has been established that the sending out of junk faxes is roughly equivalent to theft in that it uses your fax paper without permission and also costs wear and tear on your fax machine. Recipients of junk faxes have successfully recovered surprisingly high damages from junk faxers.

Very recently at least one company has started using automated machines which sequentially dial numbers (and hang up on answer) to identify unlisted or unknown fax numbers for the purpose of junk faxing. Enforcement action is being taken by Oftel to make them stop doing it.

Alongside the list of junk callers,
we are now compiling a list of junk faxers

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