Five Good Reasons to Trash Your Fax Machine - Comments Page 1

Great article.

Many of the suggestions in this article assume that the party that you are contacting is using a fax machine or an on-line fax service, with a telephone number.

Why not just do away with fax phone numbers altogether, and just send attachments via e-mail. Makes it even simpler without having to subscribe to a fax service. I know that we can't control the rest of the world, so not that easy to do away with faxes completely, but maybe by suggesting to the people that you are working with that you would prefer to transmit documents by e-mail, eventually we will all move in that direction.

I have fortune 500 companies that want my fax #. Is the email version safe? Does it carry the legal weight-I belive the old fashioned way is now a legal document-is it the same by email?

Especially financial and GOVERNMENT organizations are frightened to death that something could be mis-represented. that is to say, a file could be edited and changed.

newsflash: almost anything can be edited and changed, however, and I am not an attorney here, I believe there are legal precedents that say that the original document and identical images of that document are the only thing that counts.

At least with a fax machine signed documents are easy to send. To email them after signature they must be scanned! I would rather have a fax machine than a scanner.

Presumably internet faxing must be quicker than scanning and emailing?... or there wouldn't be any point in all this.

Reasons not to trash a fax machine

A..Small ones dont take up that much space
(mine does not)
B...Most of them have a handset (used as a normal telephone)
C.. Most solicitors will not accept documents
scanned and sent via the internet
D... Mine has a detachable scanner..and thus can scan documents larger than an A4
E....It looks good (well mine does)

I started having all my incoming faxes redirected to email a few weeks ago and am loving it, for all the reasons you mention. i would do it even if it didn't save money. In fact most of my incoming traffic is CVs seeking jobs I don't have available so the delete key is a big money saver here. However, for outgoings I am hesitant. It is so much quicker and easier to pop a pre existing paper document in the fax than to scan it, save it and then edit it to make it look half way decent. What am I doing wrong?

So just how secure do you think your personal or business information is sitting on these fax servers?

It's really good that internet faxing is now available. Fine, but how do we get the internet fax account? Thank you.

The situations that I run into where you STILL have to fax:

Forms:

a hotel credit card authorization form

payroll forms (W-4, I-9, bank direct deposit)

Anything that requires a signature...
I have in the past scanned signatures and
dropped them in when possible but you cannot
do this on a pdf form...

Actually, it's hard to imagine why even internet faxing is necessary when everyone has an email account. I scan everything I want to save, convert it to pdf, and email it if I have to send it to anyone. If you want to keep your received faxes separate from your regular email to avoid it getting lost in a sea of spam, set up a separate account.

First of all my fax is part of my all-in-one printer and I love it! I fax my doctor's office and receive my lab results a lot quicker than I would by paper mail. My apt.complex requires written maintenance requests so I fax them to the office. God bless fax machines!!! An after thought if I may..are you a computer guy or an English teacher?

I generally agree with you, the Fax is nearly obsolete, however there is one instance where it remains convenient, necessary: for SIGNING DOCUMENTS!

I am in RE and if I could simply copy it into my computer signed without a scanner (which requires additional programs on both ends) I would get rid of my fax machine immediately, however signed documents over faxes is considered legal documentation which is what I primarily deal with. I do have an e-mail program that utilizes e-signing documents, but most of my clients are not up and savvy and simply prefer me to bring them documents to sign and accept.

If there were a common program to sign documents online available to all, it would solve my problem and necessity to have a fax machine to fax signed documents for proper record keeping and requirements of having paper documents for legal purposes.

I believe you completely overlooked this necessity for fax machines.

Still, if you have a simple solution for faxing signed documents, I am open. Please let me know ASAP, I am 'open ears' for something to simplify my office work. Wayne

Have there been any instances where the information contained in faxes have been hacked from these servers? Are there any additional steps to take to keep the info secure?

Otherwise it certainly seems the way to go.

Unless you have a printer that scans and transfers the page to the computer with ease it remains difficult to get a handwritten page, letter sent to you, completed insurance form, etc. into the computer to email/fax. My iPhone takes a pretty good picture or scan but sometimes not good enough for legal type actions.

Looking for other ideas on how to do with ease.
Thanks

What is even harder is that a fax machine can still communicate at 300 baud for backward compatibility. Yes, at my work place, we still use one with regular paper. An older unite with the shiny paper was dumped in the basement, just in case it is needed, again. It is not used.

Will I need then a scanner to send a document that wasn't produced in my computer? And also to send a signed document when a real signature is needed?

If I need a scanner, which would you recommend, one that would be an affordable and practical one?

Thank you

I am constantly on the road. When a purchase is requested from most of my suppliers, They want a signature. How do I sign an E-fax and return the order?

You missed out on usb fax/modems. With one of those you don't need the internet fax thing.

I can fax anything out of my machine at any time courtesy of my fax/modem thing. Cost a few dollars. Needs no ink or paper.

Can receive faxes, too, same way.

Much software available. No problem.

The only problem I see with this is that when it is a form to be filled out and sent back, this doesn't work. You either need a scanner or something of the sort. Otherwise, I can agree with all of the above.