Posted on February 14th, 2010By now, most people have gotten used to communicating online, via email, instant messaging or VoIP (phone and video calls over the Internet). But there are a lot of companies that haven’t adapted, and are still using old-school communication methods like the fax or even mail.
You’d think, why not just forget them, and they’ll either have to adapt or fail, and you’re right, but most of these companies are big corporations that are established in the industry and you just can’t work without them. So even with all the inconveniences, you have to learn to take it slow and write and sign a document, then find an old fax machine to send it.
There are some baffling examples, like when applying for a credit card or bank account online and if you’re rejected they tell you that you’ll receive a letter in 30 days telling you why. Why couldn’t the reason be displayed right on that page?
The newer companies accept all forms of communication, but prefer the faster online methods. I once opened an account at a mail forwarding company with only a few minutes on the phone, a digitally signed PDF form and a driver’s license which I “scanned” with my digital camera, as I don’t have a scanner. I absolutely loved the experience – very fast and easy, and the identity verification was on par (or even better) with that of bigger companies that require a copy of your ID sent by mail.
I’m sure that everyone will make the switch in the next 5-10 years, but for now, we’ll have to adapt.
Anyway, this article will show you a few great online services that you can use to replace your fax machine, or send a document by fax when you don’t have one at all.
- 1. MyFax.
- 2. PopFax.
- 3. Drop.io.
- 4. GreenFax.
- 5. RingCentral.
My personal favorite. I’ve used MyFax for 2 years and it has always been fast and easy. For $10 a month, you get a fax number and the ability to send 100 pages (never used more than 20). You also have the option to direct your incoming faxes to any email (a copy is always available in your MyFax account, if you need it), so you can use faxing almost as easy as email.
This is one of the cheapest fax services, especially if you send a lot of overseas and international letters. They also offer per-page rates in addition to plans, which might be useful for some people who don’t use fax a lot, but still need to have one just in case.
This is a multipurpose file and document sharing service (you can use it to share your files by web, email, phone, cellphone, fax, etc.), but it can also be used as a standalone service for sending and receiving faxes. And it has a nice feature that others don’t – you can receive faxes for free. So if you only need to receive a few pages, you can easily do so by creating a free account. If you need to send faxes, you’ll have to pay for the premium account, which is priced quite well, taking into consideration the other features.
This is a faxing service that plays the “green” marketing strategy. Technically, all of the online fax services are green, as they allow people to save trees by not having to use paper, but only GreenFax openly states that. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard service, and it’s very cheap, at only 7 cents for the first page and 5 cents for the subsequent pages of domestic faxing (in the US). You can also send international faxes, although they’re more expensive, and pay a fixed monthly fee if you use the fax a lot.
A pretty standard faxing service from RingCentral, which started out and specializes more in its phone services. The pricing is a bit more expensive than other services, but they have a free trial option if you need to send a few faxes only once. It can also be useful if you use other RingCentral services, as they can be cross-integrated.
There may be some other services, but the above ones have recommended themselves as the most reliable. Now you really don’t have an excuse as to why you still have a fax machine (if you own one) or why you didn’t send that fax 
.