TRADING standards officers have warned people to check their faxes carefully after a company charged up to £3 for people to vote in a poll on the fuel dispute.

The poll, commissioned by London-based 21st Century Faxes, invites people to fax back a sheet of paper with the question "Do you still support the actions of the fuel protesters?" and two boxes, one marked yes, the other no. Under them are phone numbers to fax the paper back to. But small type at the very bottom says the cost is £1.50 a minute and the fax will take up to two minutes to send.

A spokesman for 21st Century Faxes denied the company was cashing in on peoples' emotions, but refused to comment when asked how much of the £3 call went to the company.

Chris Allen from the trading standards department at Blackburn with Darwen Council said he was not impressed with the way the fax took so long to return.

"Even though it is not illegal, because it says on the fax it takes two minutes to return, one must question the economics of the spending £3 to express your opinion through a fax machine.

"If such a fax came through on my fax machine and I found my staff to be wasting resources by returning the fax I would be extremely disappointed." Mr Allen also offered advice to businesses and residents who did not want to receive such faxes again.

He said: "If you run a company and are receiving such faxes then you can ring the Fax Preference Service on 0845 070 0702 and within a month these faxes will stop coming to your number.

"If the company then continues to send faxes they are liable to face a £5,000 fine under the Data Protection Act.

"Residents who have a fax machine at home should not be targeted at all by these companies and if anyone receives junk faxes at home then they should contact their local trading standards department."

The 21st Century Faxes spokesman said: "The reason why it takes one to two minutes to return a fax is because all faxes go through to a modem and the speed of the modem means it takes two minutes to get through.

"If people are upset at the price of the call, they can always send the fax back through the post for the price of a stamp if they want," he added.