My experience with "efax"

[ixl]

I've been using these folks for receiving the rare fax for years now.. since 1999 I think. Over the last couple of years they started bugging me to upgrade to their pay service. I considered it, but I rarely use the service so really didn't want to pay >$100 a year for their "premium" features, which I don't need.

On Sept 3 they send me this nasty email saying they have "suspended" my account and implying that this is because I have been abusive, like I had a friend fax me "War and Peace" or something. Guess what I have to do to unsuspend my account? That's right, upgrade to their pay service.

They gave me 2 whole days to do this. If I didn't upgrade by Sept 5 they would give away my fax number, which I have had for 4 years. What if I had been on vacation that week??

So I sent them an email expressing my concerns. I pointed out that I have received only TEN faxes all year. I pointed out that their note was rude and obnoxious. I asked why they did this without explaining these limits to me ahead of time.

They sent me back a form letter.

I replied back, asking for an explanation and wondering why they would want to lose a customer due to such shoddy behavior, since I would certainly not pay for a service where nobody could answer simple questions.

They sent me another form letter.

Caveat emptor.

Anyone know of an Internet fax service that understands what "customer service" means? I'm willing to pay a few bucks a month for it, but I won't shell out $12.95 a month or whatever it is they wanted to be treated like that.

c

[ErnieK]

Charles
Here is a link with a couple of Free Faxes (Including your beloved e-fax)

http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/services/fax.php3

Hope one of the is of use.

Als what about using MS fax direct to your telephone?

[Budfred]

Don't you just love those form letter responses??

I just recently invested in an HP 6110 multifunction printer so I could have fax capability without having to deal with the internet services. I use it even more rarely than you so paying by any method except per usage would be ridiculous to me. Good luck with your search.

[tokotin]

I subscribed eFax Plus service for my small business for two years.

I used it for the occasional documents that I had to send to my mom's shop (she doesn't use computers so email was not an option), and for the few contracts that were faxed by suppliers instead of scanned and emailed.

The first year or so, the eFax service was working fine. I had a very low volume of fax traffic, say less than 30 pages in & out.

Sometimes it happened, that after I had sent the email fax, it would take hours before it was actually received. Although a bit irritated, I thought their system just is sometimes slow.

However, lately in 2007, whenever I had to fax something, it would not work, I kept getting error messages like "Unsuccessful".... "the line was busy" or "there was no answer".

I could not believe it since I know my mom's shop fax is actually very little used, the line could not be busy. Many times I phoned her, and she said the fax machine keeps beeping but in the end nothing come out.

Her sending faxes to my eFax number were often unsuccessful, as well, for "number busy" etc.

The problems occurred not only between my PC and my mom's fax, but when I had to fax something urgent to suppliers etc.

I had contacted eFax support for help, but they could not solve the problem. They said they had tried to call the receiving fax number, but "there was no answer".

A few times I had to go out and send an urgent fax from a convenience store, and it always worked, so I don't believe there was any problem with the receiving fax number or machine.

Finally I had got enough. The end of the subscription period getting close, I phoned the eFax Plus customer support and announced that we wished to terminate the service. The customer service rep was very cooperative, and requested my credit card details for confirmation. I didn't have the card details at hand, and I told her I'd have the check which card was actually used for paying the service. The service rep the said that the eFax pin number would do. I got the pin and all was fine.

However, afterwards I did not get any email confirmation of termination, but when I tried to log on to the eFax website, I was not able to. So it was indeed terminated.

Honestly, I'm very sad the service was getting very unreliable, but for business use I had no choice but to terminate it. They had a great concept, and if you could rely on it, it would be a great system for any small biz, especially with lot of fax traffic, since that could make it easier to bear the annual charges.

I am now setting up a mobile fax service, provided by my mobile phone carrier.

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

Your comments are on topic, but this thread is more than 4 years old, so if you want some discussion on this topic, I suggest you begin a new thread...

[johnny_quest]

I didn't know discussions here had an expiration date.

why flood the forum with repeated topics and have to read 10 threads to get the info.

I'm sure the majority of the people here utilize the search feature and aren't concerned with the date.

As far as I see it... he just informed me that this business that I never used, had bad service four years ago, and hasn't gotten any better today... a valuable reply that would have been less effective as a thread-starter.

[Budfred]

That is why I suggested that if he/she wants more discussion, to start another thread... It was a friendly suggestion, not a reprimand... Most topics like this one tend to have changed significantly in 4 years, so it is usually more helpful to the poster to start a new thread...

[Paul Komski]

Als what about using MS fax direct to your telephone?
Good idea - the native fax software that ships with WinXP has worked very well for me since I discovered its presence. Wish I'd known about this thread when it was originally posted since its only recently that I discovered the MS software and having tried all sorts of bad 3rd-Party software previously.