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Fax
Any reason to keep a fax machine?
With what little my office numbers are being used (cell phones are the go-to anymore) it’s time to get rid of one number, can’t see keeping that fax number.
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22 Replies
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A pet peeve with me is the continued presence of fax numbers on business cards. I have not sent or received a fax in 15 years, probably more. The finance department at a former employer insisted that they still needed the fax for certain kinds of documents (with signature, I guess). I countered that even without arguing that, the number didn’t need to be cluttering up all of the company marketing material. Current company has a fax number, but no machine anywhere. There are ways to do it virtually using the internet.
Ditch it.
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What is this “fax machine” thing you speak of?
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In the extremely rare cases when I need to send a fax, I use this: https://www.gotfreefax.com/
For receiving, well, I just don’t have that. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked for my fax number.
Your friendly, virtual neighborhood Webmaster -
It’s the thing that replaced the “telex” in many offices.
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I have received about 10 faxes on the fax machine near my desk in the past few years. All junk faxes. I unplugged it a few months back and trying to get the line disconnected.
—Dan MacIsaac, PLS -
Fax machines don’t work where my office is located….
The 21st Century
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It is a part of the multi functioning complex Brother printer that is connected to my phone line.
The Y2K bug took out my winfax system along with a local water system destroying most every landline in this part of rural America.
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Ours hadn’t worked in several months, maybe more than a year. Put it on the shelf next to you VCR.
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About two times a week I get a deal for a $99 caribbean trip through the fax. Awful hard to get rid of that. ????
Really the fax itself isn’t an issue, having a phone line for it is more of an issue, it’s one of 4 and since everyone is getting calls on the cells, it’s very rare that three land lines are being used, and we never roll over to the 4th line anymore.
The security system is tied to the phone lines also, need to know if getting rid of the fax number will effect that. Otherwise, it’s gone this month.
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A pet peeve with me is the continued presence of fax numbers on business cards. I have not sent or received a fax in 15 years, probably more. The finance department at a former employer insisted that they still needed the fax for certain kinds of documents (with signature, I guess). I countered that even without arguing that, the number didn’t need to be cluttering up all of the company marketing material. Current company has a fax number, but no machine anywhere. There are ways to do it virtually using the internet.
Ditch it.
Good point, Norm.
I just check my card, and yes, the fax number is still on it. I’ll get it remove for the next printing. Then again, there’s smart phone apps where you can exchange info directly instead of exchanging cards…
Regarding fax machine, I got rid of mine years ago and only receive virtual faxes – about 1 per year.
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Crimeny! Today, dealing with both Oregon and Washington Secretary of State offices… They BOTH want forms faxed to them!!!
Sheesh!
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I had sequential phone numbers for the office, and I didn’t want to give one of them up when we dropped our fax line. So I first ported the number over to a temporary cell phone (T-Mobile) and then ported the number again to Google Voice. (They don’t accept ports from landlines). Then I bought an Obihai OBI200 device from Amazon (only $50 right now) and set up that phone number on the device. It still works for phone and fax just fine. I have faxes going to a Brother printer/scanner/fax, and I can see them on my computer without having to waste paper or ink. All I ever get are those $99 cruise deals also… But I still have that phone number reserved in case it’s needed in the future – and it doesn’t cost anything at all after the initial porting costs. I did the same thing for all of our old office numbers when we moved our office to a new area code, since we have so many plans out there with those old phone numbers. I figured if we get one piece of work because of that (which we have, several times) then it was all worth it. When someone calls the old numbers, they get sent to our new numbers.
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How to set up a free fax machine in a new office? Can you please help me to do that?
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There’s a couple of local old timer law firms and one County dept. that still uses fax in my area.
There’s several freebie online fax services that allow one or two sheets for free.
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We have an older building inspector here that only uses fax, no email. In fact I don’t think he knows how to turn on a computer. Just heard he may finally be retiring. I can’t wait.
Mike -
The VA prefers faxes because they are more secure.
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Hey, I still have some movies that I can’t find DVD’s of, so that device still has its use to me.
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I cannot remember when I last received a FAX, 10 years or more. I think it was 6 years ago I dropped the FAX phone line. My internet was over that line and I dropped the number when I switched the internet to cable TV. I had one firm insist on receiving a FAX so I put a pdf on a flash drive and went to Staples. I have printer copiers that can be hooked up as faxes but never saw the need.
In it’s lifetime I had more junk faxes than actual business, and that was few. Because I left it on all the time I lost 2 FAX machines to lightning. The third machine never finished it’s first paper roll.
Paul in PA
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Have never possessed a FAX machine. Worked through a nearby bank and the county Register of Deeds Office to send a few faxes over the years when someone demanded things be handled in such a manner. Even received a few, but very few, using the same two offices. As I recall I would give them a dollar per page that they then put in a jar/can to use for miscellaneous purchases and never showed up in official accounting records as income.
I do remember one place where I was employed (notice I did not say worked) where the secretary to the Plant Manager had a TELEX device in her office. That was the only such device although there were 1400 employees. No one was to use it without her supervision, except a couple of the Directors. One day one of the Directors went to use it and found a document already present. He read it as he moved it out of the way. All Hell broke loose when he revealed the contents of that document to others. That led to a lockdown such that ONLY the Plant Manager or his secretary was to use the TELEX.
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Not sure if I posted this on another thread. A local attorney really wanted my fax number. He wanted it so much he was willing to buy it (I didn’t charge him for it). I couldn’t understand why so he explained it to me:
Apparently a fax communication has a higher legal standing than email. If you fax to someone it’s protected like mail so if someone picks up or intercepts the fax they can be charged with breaking federal law and be in huge trouble. There is not the same protection for email, so attorneys still use fax communications for that reason. He wanted a second number for his office to allow him to set up a second fax machine,,,,,,,go figure.
But it’s a consideration for anyone here that still has a fax machine, it made me pause giving it up, but I finally decided the only business fax communications I’ve done lately were for sketchy clients. Now I know why they wanted to use the fax.
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