Make Money Online: How Keeping Your Old Fax Machine Could Make You Rich
Why the most valuable piece of office equipment might be gathering dust in your closet
The Backwards Economics of Fax Technology
Want to make money from spam? Buy a 1990s fax machine. Those clunky, paper-wasting relics turn every piece of junk mail into a potential $1,500 payday. Meanwhile, your sleek email fax service – the one that saves trees and desk space – might leave you with nothing but deleted files.
This isn’t some elaborate get-rich-quick scheme. It’s the unintended consequence of a 30-year-old law that made unsolicited faxes incredibly expensive for companies to send. The catch? The law was written when faxes meant paper, and nobody’s quite sure if your iPhone email app counts as a “fax machine.”
Some people are literally keeping old fax machines around just to catch spam, while early adopters of email fax services are potentially missing out on thousands in easy lawsuit money. It’s the rare case where technological progress might actually cost you cash.
How We Got Here: The Law That Made Fax Machines Slot Machines
In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to stop companies from wasting your paper and toner with unwanted advertisements. The penalties were intentionally harsh: $500 to $1,500 per unwanted fax, payable directly to you.
The logic was simple. Unlike email spam, which costs you nothing, fax spam literally steals your resources. Every junk fax forces you to buy paper and toner for someone else’s advertising. It’s like if telemarketers could reach into your wallet and take a quarter every time they called.
The nuclear penalties worked. Most companies stopped sending junk faxes entirely rather than risk massive lawsuits. But the law was written for a world where “fax” meant a physical machine that ate paper.
| Communication Type | Your Cost | Legal Penalties |
|---|---|---|
| Email spam | Nothing | Weak (CAN-SPAM Act) |
| Fax spam | Paper + toner | $500-1,500 per message |
The math made perfect sense… until email fax services came along. Understanding whether fax is more secure than email helps explain why the technology persisted and why the legal distinction matters.
The Modern Dilemma: When Your Email Becomes Your Fax Machine
Email fax services let you send and receive faxes through your regular email account. No paper, no dedicated phone line, no bulky machine taking up desk space. You get a fax number that forwards everything to your inbox as PDF attachments.
It seemed like the perfect upgrade. Why waste paper when you can handle everything digitally? Companies embraced the technology, individuals switched over, and old fax machines started gathering dust in storage closets.
But here’s the problem: when a medical supply company sends a promotional fax to Dr. Smith’s office, they have no idea if it’s going to a paper machine in the break room or Dr. Smith’s iPhone email app. They just dial the number and hope for the best.
This created an unexpected legal gray area. If Dr. Smith has a paper fax machine and gets junk mail, that’s a clear $1,500 violation. But if the same junk fax goes to his email? Maybe it counts, maybe it doesn’t. Even lawyers couldn’t agree.
Companies caught sending fax spam suddenly had a new defense: “Your honor, that wasn’t a real fax machine, so the law doesn’t apply.”
The Case That Could Change Everything: McKesson’s Hail Mary
McLaughlin Chiropractic got junk faxes from McKesson, a $273 billion healthcare giant. Some faxes went to their traditional fax machine, others to their email fax service. When McLaughlin sued, McKesson faced potentially massive penalties under the TCPA.
That’s when McKesson’s lawyers got creative. They argued that email faxes don’t count under the law because an email inbox isn’t a “telephone facsimile machine.” It was a Hail Mary defense – without it, McKesson was clearly on the hook for serious money.
Surprisingly, some courts bought the argument. In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a ruling agreeing that “an online fax service is not a ‘telephone facsimile machine.'” Lower courts felt bound by this interpretation and started dismissing email fax spam cases.
McLaughlin appealed, and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court. The stakes went far beyond one chiropractic office. If email faxes don’t count under the TCPA, entire industries could return to junk faxing via email with complete impunity.
For consumers, it meant the difference between your email fax service being worthless or worth thousands in potential lawsuit settlements.
What the Supreme Court Actually Decided (And Didn’t Decide)
In June 2025, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in McLaughlin v. McKesson. Legal experts analyzing the decision noted that the Court didn’t actually decide whether email faxes count under the TCPA. Instead, they ruled that courts don’t have to automatically defer to the FCC’s interpretation that they don’t count.
The Court sent the case back to lower courts with a simple message: decide for yourself whether email fax services qualify as “telephone facsimile machines” under the law. Don’t just rubber-stamp whatever the FCC says.
This was part of a broader trend where the Supreme Court has been reducing the power of government agencies to interpret laws. The same Court that ended “Chevron deference” last year essentially told lower courts to think for themselves rather than blindly following agency rulings.
For consumers, this means continued legal uncertainty. Different courts might reach different conclusions about email fax spam. Your potential payday could depend on which judge you get and which federal circuit you live in.
But it also means companies can’t hide behind the FCC’s protective ruling anymore. The door is open for courts to decide that email fax spam deserves the same penalties as paper fax spam.
The Current State of Play: Your Fax Lottery Odds
Right now, your chances of collecting on fax spam depend entirely on the delivery method:
Paper fax spam: Still definitely worth $1,500 per unwanted message. The law is clear, courts agree, and companies know they’re liable.
Email fax spam: Maybe worth $1,500, maybe worth nothing. Depends on your judge, your circuit, and how persuasive your lawyer is.
This creates a geographic lottery where identical spam might be worth thousands in one state and nothing in another. Companies sending fax advertisements are nervous because they can’t rely on blanket FCC protection anymore.
If you’re getting unwanted faxes of any kind, don’t throw away the evidence. Document everything – save the faxes, take screenshots of emails, note the time and sender. Consider consulting a lawyer if you’re receiving regular fax spam, especially if it’s going to a traditional paper machine.
The legal landscape is shifting, and your spam folder might contain more value than you realize.
The Broader Absurdity: When Progress Costs You Money
Step back and consider the environmental irony here. The law created an incentive to keep paper-wasting fax machines specifically to catch spam and collect money. Going paperless – the environmentally responsible choice – might cost you thousands in potential lawsuit settlements.
This is what happens when laws written for 1990s technology collide with modern innovation. The legal system is struggling to keep up, creating unintended consequences that punish early adopters and reward people clinging to obsolete equipment.
Most people who switched to email fax services thought they were being modern and environmentally conscious. Instead, they may have unknowingly given up a valuable legal protection. It’s a perfect example of how technological progress doesn’t always align with legal frameworks designed for a different era.
What Happens Next: Your Action Items
The legal uncertainty around email fax spam will likely continue for months or years as different courts issue competing rulings. Eventually, either the Supreme Court will provide clear guidance or Congress will update the law to address modern technology.
In the meantime, here’s what you should do:
Keep that old fax machine if you have one gathering dust. It might be the most valuable piece of office equipment you own for catching spam. Document any fax spam you receive, whether it comes through paper or email. Save everything – you never know when a court ruling might make your spam folder worth serious money.
Watch for developments in lower courts, especially in your federal circuit. The law is evolving in real time, and staying informed could literally pay off.
Before you dismiss this as irrelevant because “nobody uses fax anymore,” remember that fax technology stubbornly persists across multiple industries – from healthcare to legal services to government agencies. These sectors generate enough fax traffic to keep the spam problem alive and the lawsuits flowing.
The ultimate irony? In 2025, when most technology gets smaller, faster, and more efficient, the most profitable piece of office equipment might be the fax machine everyone thought was obsolete.
This article is for informational purposes only, represents the author’s opinion, and does not constitute legal advice. Consult with a qualified attorney for specific legal questions about TCPA violations.
