Faxing from home

[Kayzmum]

I retired effective 07/01/22 and am loving it! I've run into a little glitch though. If I needed to fax a personal document, I would do it from work. Now that I'm at home, I'm at a loss how to send faxes, as we don't have a landline to hook to our printer. Any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[OldShooter]

Small fax machines are practically free on CraigsList. If you have a VoIP connection that should work. That's what we do. If you have only cell phone, not so much. I know there are inexpensive internet fax services but have not used any of them. They allow you to fax scanned images from your computer.

 

[Lawrencewendall]

I use faxzero.com. up to 3 scanned pages free. Been using them for years.

 

[euro]

I use faxzero.com. up to 3 scanned pages free. Been using them for years.

This! There are a number of free fax services - just google.


Also, if you only have that one FAX, you can go to any office supply store or UPS or FedEx store and use their FAX. It'll cost a few bucks bucks but for a one-off its no big deal.

 

[Jerry1]

I use faxzero.com. up to 3 scanned pages free. Been using them for years.

Same here. Works well. Thankfully, I don’t have many faxes at all so something that’s free was a good option.

 

[pacergal]

I use our local UPS store, not free, but close by and simple.

 

[HenryD]

I've used the free tier of HelloFax.com and the local UPS Store. Both worked fine.

 

[Car-Guy]

I have a combo Fax/Scanner/Printer and a land line but don't like to use the fax. Whenever the need has come up (which is rare) I've always been able to scan the document to my computer and send it to requestor as an email attachment. Best reasons for doing this, is now I have a good record/copy of what I sent and when in my "sent email" folder..

 

[Major Tom]

I'm quite surprised that there are still some businesses left which still use fax.

 

[Kayzmum]

I'm quite surprised that there are still some businesses left which still use fax.

Agree. This is to send proof of POA to my mother's health insurance company and they don't take emails for this.

 

[steelyman]

Agree. This is to send proof of POA to my mother's health insurance company and they don't take emails for this.

I’ve come across this too with health care-related systems. My understanding (could be wrong) is that it’s HIPAA-related.

 

[euro]

Agree. This is to send proof of POA to my mother's health insurance company and they don't take emails for this.

I'm assuming that they would accept US mail? Maybe that's the simplest solution. Though not the fastest, obviously...

 

[disneysteve]

I’ve come across this too with health care-related systems. My understanding (could be wrong) is that it’s HIPAA-related.

Email and texting are not secure forms of communication so the medical and legal fields still heavily depend on faxing.

 

[easysurfer]

I use our local UPS store, not free, but close by and simple.

+1

Post office is an option too. Never tried with them but looks like an option.

 

[Major Tom]

Email and texting are not secure forms of communication so the medical and legal fields still heavily depend on faxing.

I was wondering if it was something like this. It's good to have confirmation.

 

[gauss]

I use faxzero.com. up to 3 scanned pages free. Been using them for years.

+1

And if you need to send the occasional fax that is longer, they do have a reasonably priced paid option.

You will need a separate solution to receive faxes, however.

-gauss

p.s. You will need to have the content in a digital form (ie pdf, bmp doc etc.) before using the service. I have a flatbed scanner at home that I use for small things and the library has modern "copiers" that will also scan documents for larger jobs.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Also, if you only have that one FAX, you can go to any office supply store or UPS or FedEx store and use their FAX. It'll cost a few bucks bucks but for a one-off its no big deal.

Some public libraries also offer this service.

 

[Kayzmum]

Thanks everyone. I've decided to go somewhere and pay to have it faxed. It's more pages than the free services online and the online ones, so far, want me to pay with PayPal, which I don't use.

 

[Aerides]

Email and texting are not secure forms of communication so the medical and legal fields still heavily depend on faxing.

And yet most of these online services digitize the fax, and thus reducing the security vs. the traditional way of sending a fax. Sure, the last-mile delivery to the recipient is rendered back to a fax, but everything before it is only as secure as email.

Ah well.

I used to manage fax utilities for my global mega corp. It was probably around 2010 and some SVPs were trying to sound cool saying why are we still faxing, everything should be text! Then they asked me. Well...even then we were receiving over 1M pages of incoming faxes per month. Oh...they said... guess we're never going to stop using fax...

So many businesses have fax integrated into non-profitable workflows, leaving little incentive to upgrade to other delivery systems.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm quite surprised that there are still some businesses left which still use fax.

Agreed.

Most places have some type of direct secure online upload of documents. Much better!

 

[Montecfo]

I'm quite surprised that there are still some businesses left which still use fax.

Very common in medical field for security reasons. Also legal.

 

[braumeister]

We are currently buried under an avalanche of medical paperwork (long story) but almost all of it is done online through the MyChart system. Very easy to use and eliminates much of the hassle. I suspect the systems currently relying on faxes will all gradually shift to this mode.

 

[OldShooter]

Email and texting are not secure forms of communication so the medical and legal fields still heavily depend on faxing.

Yes, and to simplify things they simply prohibit transmission of any documents or client information by email. Even dumb stuff must be sent securely.

Similar thing with my Schwab guy. When I send him an email, his answer does not include a copy of my email. Why? Because they are concerned about sending confidential client information by email even though I might have done it. Sometimes his emails are a little hard to follow when I don't have my own questions there to refer to.

 

[Running_Man]

I'm quite surprised that there are still some businesses left which still use fax.

A fax unlike an email, gives the sender confirmation that it was correctly received with no transmission error. They also are not subject to spam filters, nor is google able to read the document and send it to their database for storage.

Email is the highest level of business scams that occur, it averages a cost of $1,500 per employee on prevention and ransoms paid.

https://threatpost.com/phishing-costs-quadrupled/168716/

 

[COcheesehead]

In my experience, anything needing security has always been done through a Docusign type program. If it does not require security, I take a photo of the document and email it. I can’t tell you the last time I needed to send a fax.