Jan
7
2009
Cheap Virtual Fax Machine
Author: Steve Martin
I love saving money. I’m sure most of you do too. There’s something about finding that product or service that you have been looking for at a bargain price. It fills you with a sense of satisfaction. Now, as long as that product or service ends up lasting as long as, or working as good as it’s higher priced alternative, you end up keeping that sense of satisfaction. Otherwise, you probably should have forked over the higher price for the better quality. There are some things you probably shouldn’t skimp on. Fax service is not something you should have to pay a lot for.
There is a very inexpensive way to be able to receive faxes for nothing, or very close to nothing. I have used these services successfully for years and have saved all kinds of money. And, in this ecomony, saving money is what we are all trying to do.
For starters, many people just want to be able to receive an occassional fax but don’t want to pay for an additional phone line every month and don’t really want or need to own an actual fax machine. For those of you that fit this bill, I would recommend K7. The K7 service is totally FREE. You are provided with a random phone number in the Washington state or Oregon area. This phone number is linked to your e-mail address. Whenever someone sends a fax to your assigned phone number, it is converted to a digital file and e-mailed to you as an attachment. You decide if you want to print it or not (saves paper too). Of course wth this free service there is a catch. After a time of inactivity (you don’t receive any faxes), your account is closed and the number can be assigned to someone else. Back when I first used this service, that length of time was 30 days but it looks like they may have upped that to 90 days. But, since you really only need the service occassionally, the next time you need to receive a fax, just sign up again and get a new fax number. Remember, it isn’t costing you ANYTHING.
K7 Summary – FREE, Out of state number, account closed for lack of use, no fax sending options.
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The next step up is to have a more permanent number so that you don’t have to hassle with getting a new number every time you need to receive a fax. This option will actually cost you but it also adds some additional features that really make it worth it (and it is still pretty darn cheap). This service is actually offered by the same company that gives us K7. The service is called Faxaway. It starts out much the same way, you get a phone number in Washington state or Oregon and whenever you get a fax, it gets converted to a digital file and e-mailed to you as an attachment. The first difference is that you actually have an account with Faxaway that you add money too. I believe that you start out adding about $12 to your account by credit card. There is a $1 per month fee to keep your account open. So, that initial $12 could last you an entire year and you don’t have to worry about losing your fax number. When your account drops to zero, they will automatically charge your credit card an additional $10. I currenty use this option instead of K7 so that I can print my fax number on my business cards without having to worry about losing that printed number and thus having to redo business cards every time I lose my fax number. The next BIG difference is the ability to send faxes from your e-mail account (no phone line needed). Once you have an Faxaway account, your e-mail address is authorized to send faxes via the Faxaway service. You simply send an e-mail to the fax number followed by @faxaway.com. So, if I wanted to send myself a fax, I would attach a file to an e-mail and e-mail it to 12068886048@faxaway.com. Once I hit send, my attachment would come through as an actual fax on the receiver’s (me) end. Each sent fax draws from your pot of money in your Faxaway account and costs roughly $0.10 per page.
Faxaway Summary – Roughly $12/year, Out of Sate number, won’t lose number, able to send faxes as well as receive.
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If you don’t like the out of state phone number idea, you can add an 800 number which forwards to your assigned Faxaway number for about $2/month (plus minutes used). They also offer local numbers in certain areas for about $5/month (plus minutes used). This service is from Kall8. I don’t use this service since I receive faxes so infrequently that an out of state number doesn’t really matter. If you are in need of an 800 number, this is a very inexpensive way to get one. It is very flexible and allows you to change the number it is pointed to whenever you want and as often as you want. So, you could use it for fax OR voice service.
There are other services out there that offer virtual fax options but the price is so much higher. The one that is known by most people is efax. The efax service starts at about $17/month. It works much the same way as Faxaway but limits the amount of incoming pages you can receive before charging you more. There is no limit on the incoming pages of both K7 and Faxaway.
