Fax machines

[bwringer]

Fax machine - LOL
Land line to plug it in to - LOLOLOLOLOL

But yeah, some archaic stone tablet type processes require it. Just plain stupid, but whatcha gonna do?

I've used Faxzero many times with no issues at all:
https://faxzero.com/

You can send up to five faxes per day of three pages each. They are delivered with a cover page, but the system at the other end will have no trouble with it. Or you can pay $1.99 each to send up to 25 pages.


This is another legit one for occasional use:
https://www.myfax.com/free/
You can send two free faxes per 24 hours.


HelloFax is also quite nice and has a free option where you can send five pages for free:
https://www.hellofax.com/info/pricing


A darn nice paid fax service:
https://www.ringcentral.com/plansandpricing/ringcentralfax.html

A while back when I got hit by a car, there were so many documents being faxed back and forth between hospitals, lawyers, insurance companies, etc. that I actually paid for online faxing service for a few months so I could receive faxes online and send as many as I needed to.

 

[timbitca]

We got rid of our fax at work last year. Our fax number now re-directs automatically to an email inbox. Probably 95% (if not 99%) of faxes that I get in are spam.

 

[BFBOB]

Every multipurpose machine I've ever had- starting waaaaayyy back in the mid 90's - has had faxing capability built in. No extra charge (unless the fax phone number is a toll call) I still use faxing sometimes just because it's so much faster/easier than scan+email. But scan+email has better image quality, so I use both. No extra monthly or per/page fee either way. (I say "extra" because of course I already have to pay for the phone line and internet connection)
You should be able to find a used MP that doesn't print very well anymore for little or nothing. A few months ago you could have had mine for free. I ended up scrapping it when eBay elicited no takers.

Hey, Timbitca, now I feel unloved. I've NEVER received a spam fax!!
oh, well, at least I still get spam phone calls

 

[BFBOB]

Just easier to buy one, they've become very inexpensive. Just a few times a year use should last a long time before you need more toner.
Alot of businesses still live in the 1980's technology wise; purchase orders, W-9 forms, medical records, etc.

Toner? What toner?? He only needs it to SEND faxes.

 

[Lee Celtic]

Nothing to do with your problem but I'm gonna tell you all anyway..

Many years ago I owned an Upholstery and interior design company and we bought a Fax machine.. now please remember this was back when Filofax's and briefcase sized mobile phones were the new thing..

Anyway a mate who owned the local motorcycle shop saw our fax machine and wanted to go one better so he bought the much bigger model that held a 50 yard roll of fax paper as opposed to our lowly 10 yard one..

His mistake was bragging about it..

After visiting his shop for a coffee one lunch time my business partner came up with a plan and I selected a really nice roll of Laura Ashley wallpaper. Then we ran the sealed roll through our bandsaw to get it the same width as an A4 sheet of paper and set it in our fax. We waited to hear the sound of our mate leaving work (he had a loud bike and used to do a wheelie past our shop everyday) Anyway after he left we started faxing the roll of wallpaper, threading under our desk adding a strip of tape and letting it feed through again..

He came into his shop the next day to find 50 yards of flowery fax paper filling his office.

Just thought I'd share..

 

[Nexussian]

I recently replaced the HP Multifunction document center at home (Printer, Fax, Scanner, copier) with another from Epson.

Not nearly expensive as the HP, cheaper cartridges, and so far they seem to last longer.

No appreciable difference in print or scan quality of what I scan, print or Fax.

I probably wouldn't have connected the fax feature, except I already have a land line for it.

You'll have to decide if a land line is worth it, or if you want a digital line, some service providers can give you a box to get a "land line" through your internet, or you could get a Magic Jack or similar type device.

Lots of options already mentioned.

 

[rharman]

As mothers have mentioned, if you have an all-in-one printer/scanner, you likely have fax capability.

 

[PugetDude]

A standard fax machine won't work on most VOIP phone services...
(cable modem, such as Vonage, etc)

 

[Marctrees]

Nothing to do with your problem but I'm gonna tell you all anyway..

Many years ago I owned an Upholstery and interior design company and we bought a Fax machine.. now please remember this was back when Filofax's and briefcase sized mobile phones were the new thing..

Anyway a mate who owned the local motorcycle shop saw our fax machine and wanted to go one better so he bought the much bigger model that held a 50 yard roll of fax paper as opposed to our lowly 10 yard one..

His mistake was bragging about it..

After visiting his shop for a coffee one lunch time my business partner came up with a plan and I selected a really nice roll of Laura Ashley wallpaper. Then we ran the sealed roll through our bandsaw to get it the same width as an A4 sheet of paper and set it in our fax. We waited to hear the sound of our mate leaving work (he had a loud bike and used to do a wheelie past our shop everyday) Anyway after he left we started faxing the roll of wallpaper, threading under our desk adding a strip of tape and letting it feed through again..

He came into his shop the next day to find 50 yards of flowery fax paper filling his office.

Just thought I'd share..

Awesome funny prank. Love it. Marc

 

[HOTFR8]

Nothing to do with your problem but I'm gonna tell you all anyway..

Many years ago I owned an Upholstery and interior design company and we bought a Fax machine.. now please remember this was back when Filofax's and briefcase sized mobile phones were the new thing..

Anyway a mate who owned the local motorcycle shop saw our fax machine and wanted to go one better so he bought the much bigger model that held a 50 yard roll of fax paper as opposed to our lowly 10 yard one..

His mistake was bragging about it..

After visiting his shop for a coffee one lunch time my business partner came up with a plan and I selected a really nice roll of Laura Ashley wallpaper. Then we ran the sealed roll through our bandsaw to get it the same width as an A4 sheet of paper and set it in our fax. We waited to hear the sound of our mate leaving work (he had a loud bike and used to do a wheelie past our shop everyday) Anyway after he left we started faxing the roll of wallpaper, threading under our desk adding a strip of tape and letting it feed through again..

He came into his shop the next day to find 50 yards of flowery fax paper filling his office.

Just thought I'd share..

I did that to a company that tried to scam me a few years ago as they had a free call fax number 1800 made a few copies taped them in a loop and just let it go.

I got my money back.

 

[Nexussian]

A standard fax machine won't work on most VOIP phone services...
(cable modem, such as Vonage, etc)

Most devices that have issues like that need a dial tone before they will dial out.

I remember having to use a special converter (port replicator? been too many years) with a credit card machine to make it work with a cell phone back in the analog days.

 

[primuspaul]

The easiest to set up is efax. There are definitely services that fax a few pages for free and there are even some services (though not many) that give you a free incoming fax number and forward the scanned image to your email account, so I'm sure you can find something reliable for a few $ a year.

Alternatively, just make sure your next printer has faxing capabilities and hook it up to a phone line. It may be cheaper to use a USB fax modem if you can have a computer running at all times.

 

[Viper98912]

What's a fax?

 

[Radio Flyer]

Fax file phone app is what I use as well.

 

[Whitworth]

Toner? What toner?? He only needs it to SEND faxes.

But there's always the temptation to use the "copy" button...

 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Toner? What toner?? He only needs it to SEND faxes.

No i would like to print out the communication journal as legal proof that it was sent.

 

[wrench409]

Just thought I'd share..

I did much the same thing often to fax spammers. I'd make 10 copies of black pages, then make a loop with tape. Set it for send, sometimes doing it several times a day. The new machine here doesn't do loops, so sending 100 faxes of black pages was my fun for the day.

 

[captaindiode]

This is from Scrypt, Inc:

The modern fax machine has been around since 1964, when the Xerox Corporation introduced the Long Distance Xerography machine. In 1966 they released an improvement on the LDX called the Magnafax Telecopier, and little about the core mechanics of manual faxing has changed since then.

However, despite the original technology being almost 50 years old, it has managed to weather the telecommunications storm of the internet, email and technological modernization, primarily due to its secure nature.

Email is intrinsically insecure, with multiple third parties including ISP’s, servers and virus scanners all having some access to the data sent in emails. This makes it inappropriate for sending confidential, private data, and has allowed the fax machine to retain its place among the modern office, sitting alongside smart phones and tablets, its half-century old technology still providing a service that could not be replicated through other means.

Any kind of faxing uses the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) which is inherently secure. When a document is sent by fax it is converted into base64 binary at its source, sent through the PSTN and then reassembled at the other end. Hacking into the PSTN would require direct manual access to the telephone line, and even if a file was intercepted it would appear as nothing but noise, making it impossible to interpret / read.

This is why many finicial documents should be faxed and why scaninng an attatching to an email is insecure. Just look at Hillary Clinton's problems and at other public figures who have been hacked. Never send your social security number, credit card number, banking informaion or usernames and passwords via plain text email.

There are secure ways to send documents via the internet, but not with plain email. Some companies offer this service, and the last credit union I took a loan with had a secure website with encrypted upload capability.

Fax is old technology, but inherently more secure. Encryption can secure documents traveling over the internet, but it must be implemented correctly. How trustworty is that "free" service? What country are they in? How sensitive it the data?

Just some questions to ponder.

 

[zendriver]

Some banks have free faxing service for customers


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gungatim]

Some banks have free faxing service for customers


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another place is Hotels.

as to why you may need one: 4 yrs. ago I had some inop vehicles picked up several states away to be transported home. one was in a storage facility. even though I had been out there and showed my paperwork and set everything up, then flew home, the clerk refused to release one of the vehicles without my signature and left the driver unable to get it.

this was before I had a smartphone, still on a blackberry. I had to receive and then re-fax a signature release form immediately on a Sunday night or the driver was going to leave without the last car. took forever to find a fax machine, til someone at a gas station suggested to try the hotel across the street. that was a Duh moment, every hotel I've ever been at has fax, and usually internet/computer etc. for their guests in the lobby. Slipped the clerk $5 and crisis averted...

so there are times when you need to get a document, even if emailed, printed off, sighed, re-scanned, and resent. fax can still be useful in that aspect, until smartphones have printers built-in....