Review: eFax
Product Information
Service Provided by: eFax.com
Web: http://www.efax.com
Price: free
If you are reading this article, the odds are pretty good that you own a modem. And, unless you like growing facial hair while your Web pages download, your modem probably has built-in fax capabilities. Hence the name “fax modem.” I am currently on my third such device and, as of a month ago, I could count the number of times I used the fax functionality provided by my modem on one hand.
Sending faxes wasn’t the problem—receiving them was. Since I had only a single phone line, I would have to pick up the phone, dash to the computer whenever I heard the telltale fax tones, tell the fax modem to pick up, and pray that I had acted fast enough. The moral of the story: while a fax modem may be great for sending faxes, unless you have a dedicated line, they are a royal pain for receiving faxes. Besides, if you are going to shell out the cash for an extra line, you may as well spring for a full fledged fax machine so you can put your Mac to more productive use.
A solution to the single phone line/fax modem dilemma comes in the form of fax to e-mail services. With these services, your faxes are sent to some location where they are converted to images, attached to an e-mail message, and then rushed off to your inbox. One company providing such a service is eFax.com. On the surface, this seems like a great idea. For a grand total of $0.00, you get your own incoming fax number, unlimited faxes, and digital copies of all faxes which can be archived or thrown out, depending on importance. If you keep your hard drive properly backed up, you may never lose a fax again. This certainly seems more durable than a single hard copy that you would get from a fax machine. A coffee spill here or a misfile there and your important message is gone forever. With a digital copy, however, you can just call the file up on your monitor, and even print it out. One side note about that incoming fax number mentioned earlier: the chances are good that your fax number will not be in the same area code as you. This means that a friend down the street may be able to call you for free, but if that friend faxes you something, there will probably be long distance charges. If the people who fax you live in a different area, though, this is a moot point.
Signing up for the eFax service is a breeze. You fill out a short form on the eFax.com Web page and wait for your informational e-mail. This e-mail contains your personal fax number, your PIN number for accessing your account information, and other information about the eFax service. At this point, you are all set.
Where eFax runs into trouble is its support (or lack thereof) of the Macintosh platform. For a service like eFax to truly be free, there should be a no-cost way to actually see what people send you. Fax files are stored as TIFF-F files. Unlike plain vanilla TIFF files, TIFF-F files are broken down into multiple pages. Under Windows, eFax users get the handy Microviewer application, which is designed to display TIFF-F files. Macintosh users are not so lucky. There is no version of Microviewer for the Mac. PictureViewer, included with QuickTime 3.0 and above, cannot display TIFF-F files. Neither can AppleWorks, included with the iMac. So much for free. I know of four currently shipping programs that will properly display TIFF-F files: OmniPage 8, WorkingPapers Pro and LE, and GraphicConverter (reviewed in ATPM 5.02). Of these three, GraphicConverter is the least expensive, at $35.00 in the United States. GraphicConverter has a wonderful reputation, which is well earned, but it is definitely overkill for somebody solely interested in viewing and printing faxes. Such users should take a look at Tiff-Sight (see below).
While not specifically a problem with eFax, privacy is an issue with fax to e-mail services. When you convert a fax to an e-mail attachment, it becomes vulnerable to the same issues as regular e-mail. At this very least, your ISP (or employer) could easily take a peek at your incoming faxes. Windows users can elect to have their faxes encrypted, then decrypt them with the Microviewer application. Mac users do not have that option.
Incoming!
One concern I had about the eFax service was the speed at which faxes could be received, converted, and e-mailed. Some testing on my part proved that this concern was unfounded. I found the process to be exceptionally fast. As I write this, I am in Miami, Florida. My fax number is somewhere near Boston, Massachusetts, in the 508 area code. The ATPM mail server is...well, nobody really knows where the ATPM mail server is. It’s one of life’s great mysteries. [I am told it’s somewhere in Maryland, but I’ll believe it when I see it. —MT] As a test, I sent three faxes to myself: a 4-page text document, a 2.5" x 3.5" picture with cover page, and a 4-page text document with a full page picture on page 5. By the time the third fax was being sent, faxes one and two were sitting in my incoming message mailbox.
As for file sizes, the 4-page text document came in at 196K, the 2.5 inch by 3.5 inch picture with cover page came in at 108K, and the 5-page fax was 844K. None of these files are prohibitively large, so downloading them was not a major problem.
Thus far, I have only had one problem with a fax I received. I was sent a 5-page fax from a plain paper fax machine. Pages 1 and 2 came out fine, but pages 3 through 5 were crammed onto a single page. This page was unreadable. This issue did not appear with any of the three test faxes. The test faxes, however, were sent from a fax modem. I suspect that the fax software did a better job of clearly indicating page breaks than the plain paper fax did.
The quality of the incoming faxes was as good as could be expected from faxes. Viewing faxes in GraphicConverter is difficult, however, since GraphicConverter will only display the files in black and white. Viewing the files in grayscale significantly increases the readability of text files. Grayscale also makes pictures more recognizable.
For viewing faxes in grayscale format, I used a program called Tiff-Sight. Currently in public beta testing, Tiff-Sight looks to be shaping up as an alternative to GraphicConverter if your needs are limited to viewing faxes. Designed specifically for viewing TIFF-F files (it can handle TIFF files as well), it takes steps like anti-aliasing text to make faxes easier on the eye. It is also smaller, both in terms of hard drive size and RAM footprint, than GraphicConverter. Tiff-Sight is available from http://www.blueglobe.com/~cliffmcc/tiffsight.html and carries a shareware fee of $10.
Conclusion
eFax is definitely a good idea. For Mac users, though, eFax falls into the category of “there must be a better way to do this.” On the one hand, I must give eFax credit for pointing out that there are ways for Mac users to take advantage of their service. On the other hand. Mac users miss out on the best features of the service—namely the encryption and the free part. Until Macintosh users can access the same features as Windows users, it would be difficult to rate the eFax service as anything better than Good.
Copyright ©1999 Eric Blair eblair@atpm.com. Reviewing in ATPM
is open to anyone. If you’re interested, write to us at reviews@atpm.com.
Reader Comments (43)
I don't mind upgrading, but accusing a potential client of a breach of contract isn't cool. I'll shop elsewhere. Below is what their text said in the letter to me.
Note: I signed up in 1998 and that agreement had unlimited service for free.
Honestly, I'm going to side with eFax on this one.
First off, their terms of service when you signed on most likely gave them permission to change those terms at any time -- that clause is certainly included in the current customer agreement.
Second, the number of faxes you received seems a bit high for non-commercial use -- and commercial usage is prohibited on the free accounts.
Third, as far as termination of service letters go, I don't find the tone of the eFax letter that threatening. They alerted you to a problem with your account and gave you the opportunity to fix it. According to their terms of service, they could have terminated your account without warning.
Their customer service is very bad. I was kept on the phone waiting for the next operator for more than 1 hour. I had to give up after while.
My problem is some of my faxes were never delivered. I even sent some faxes to myself from a land fax machine but never received them through eFax. This has happened on many occasions and I could not get any help from their customer service reps.
Now I am thinking of canceling the service and going with one of their competitors. Any opinion?
The $15/year includes voicemail and a non-local number for receiving faxes (no extension). The MaxEmail web site is fast and straightforward, and allows you to change settings, download or forward recent faxes and voicemails, and send faxes.
I'm sure there are other good services out there but MaxEmail seems to still be flying a little below the radar, so I thought I'd throw in a good word.
As for the advertising, is it certain than the ads are counting against the number of allowable transmissions? Additionally, I thought there were laws that prohibited fax advertising of any kind because it forces the recipient to "pay" for the ad with paper and a term of unavailability of the phone line.
Just my two cents worth--and you're probably due some change.
I'll take a look at MaxEmail.
I'm seeing the pros and cons of both programs. MaxEmail allows you to receive faxes in PDF form which most people can then open if you want to e-mail the fax to them. But it is much easier to fax using eFax since you don't have to use the e-mail or web system. You can just send it right to the fax software, and their software allows you to annotate a fax where MaxEmail does not have any such software. So, I'm undecided for now!
I'm disappointed but not terribly shocked that eFax has gone the way of many other online services: started out offering something cool for free and then slowly whittled away the appeal of the free version to try to drive people towards the paid version. Their failure to net high-paying corporate clients results in higher and higher fees for us. At $12.95 a month, you'd have to be sending a LOT of faxes from one part of the globe to another to make it worth your while. So long, eFax!
If you've got something, please send it to ross at jetlag dot com. (What we'll do to avoid email address harvesting. ;-) )
Thanks much.
Ross
It used to be good, but the party's over... They're trying to squeeze as much profit out of their customers before they fold...
I want to try this free recieving efax service before upgrading to both sending and recieving efax service.
Please guide me through.
Thanking you,
ravi
Long story short, over the course of the next week there were numerous e-mails and phone calls. I was told everything from 'there is no free trial' 'where on the site did you see the free trial' and via e-mail 'please send us your account information with a, b and c once more' when the e-mail thread already had this information in two different places.
In the end they refused any refund, not even a partial one. I was polite throughout the process and I promptly jumped through all of their silly hoops. I have to admit I am upset at this waste of time provoked by their unscrupulous business practices and rotten customer service. I am disputing the charge and will keep you posted as to what happens there.
Aside from this despicable way of doing business, their product has some serious issues. I think I might have some insight into others' comments re: lost faxes. The day after I downloaded the software I received an 11 page page from a law firm that [a] was not intended for me, and [b] appeared to be directed to a number different that the one it arrived at.
Bottom line - don't use eFax unless you want a shoddy product, poor service and you get a kick out of supporting unethical businesses.
I noticed on my credit card bill that I'd been charged 7 pounds 50.
I've just messaged customer service and they said that although I cancelled my account, I had TWO accounts. Why would I open 2 accounts!? If this was an honest mistake, wouldn't they have emailed me when the second number was "registered"? At least to tell me my fax number.
I was told "no refund is applicable" and I've been given a customer service phone number.
We'll see.
Please help me. Thank you.
The other problem is that sometimes a simple fax will take forever to be sent resulting in a high charge since they charge by the minute.
The reliability of the service is low and you don't often know if your fax will go through.
Also Efax sends spam to you, I firmly believe this because I always get some spam faxes after I sent a fax from Efax, this probably signals to them that the service is being used and I usually get a few junk faxes right after I fax something. I remember that Efax was fined a while back for doing this.
Furthermore they do not store your faxes online like they used to, so if you are traveling you can't resend your faxes like you used to be able to.
Bottom line this is a great opportunity for another company to come along and offer a better product for a decent price. Remember that Efax came along when everything on the internet was given away for Free. So they had to start charging after the dot.com bust.
But it would have been better if the created a decent product with decent support.
RapidFAX works just fine on the Mac OS X. You can choose between Tiff (not Tiff-f) and PDF as your receiving format, so you have some flexibility there. And the program Preview lets you view the faxes so easily.
I recommend Macs and RapidFAX for pc to fax, fax to pc, internet fax, etc needs.
===
Thank you for contacting eFax Customer Support.
Your account has been suspended due to our inability to send sanctioned 3rd party advertisements to the contact e-mail address provided for your account.
eFax uses 3rd party advertisements to support eFax Free accounts. If we are unable to send these advertisements to your contact e-mail address, we can no longer provide you with free service.
One of three things occurred to stop advertisements from being successfully delivered to your e-mail address.
1. One or more of our advertisements were reported as an unsolicited message (spam).
2. Your e-mail provider bounced 20 or more messages from eFax.
3. A link at the bottom of one of the eFax advertisements was clicked requesting that we cease sending you advertisements and requesting the termination of your Free service. The link stated If you wish to opt out of third party advertising, you may upgrade to an eFax Plus account. Or you may unsubscribe and close your eFax Free account.
If you would like to retain your current number: ********* you will need to upgrade the account. To upgrade online please go to http://www.efax.com and log into your account. When you are logged in you will be sent to the Profile page. You should see a link just above the Change Pin button that says Upgrade My Account.
You may also go to the link that says Upgrade which is located on the menu bar at the top of the page. If you would like to upgrade over the telephone, please contact our Sales Team, Monday through Friday from 8:00am to 5:00pm Pacific Time, at 1-323-817-3217 or 1-800-958-2983 to assist you with the upgrade and reactivation of your account.
If you take no action on the account suspension, it will be closed. You may sign up for a new eFax Free number once the cancellation is complete. If the suspension was due to spam rejection or bounced e-mails, we recommend using a different e-mail address for the new account.
Sincerely,
eFax Customer Support
I have 2 eFax numbers, and was content paying the 12.95, but it is now increasing to 16.95. I can now only recive 130 pages per month and send 30 free pages per month.
Price increase and limited service. Not good at all.
than 20 pages per month.
At $16.95/month, a dedicated fax line starts to looks attractive.
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30 Jan 2002
Waging The War Against
Fax Spam
You check your email and notice you have a fax. But, instead of something you want to read, it's a cell-phone offer. Or a fabulous vacation offer. Or an unsecured credit card offer.
Whatever the offer, you've received an unsolicited junk fax. According to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, unsolicited junk faxes are illegal and eFax is working hard to stop them. When you receive an unsolicited fax, it's important that you notify us at abuse@mail.efax.com. Attach the offending fax to your email.
At times, eFax faxes select special offers to free customers. However, these offers come from third-party vendors that have agreed to sponsor eFax's free service. These faxes are clearly marked.
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Now we know where all that spam really always came from. And not to mention all the other EMAIL spam that also openly originated from one of the efax servers, although a different one then the one that sends you the faxes. So it was rather easy to set up a filter rule to get rid of all the email spam from them.
As of now I'm still keeping my free account, and as long as fax spam keeps within a manageable level. But if I get tired of them, I will just simply delete the email forwarder and that will be the end of it (you didn't give them your real main email address, did you?).
Oh, and BTW, that free fax viewing software, it used to be only 187KB (I still have the original Microviewer installer, and only use that version on any system), Now it's a 3MB bloated application, it basically does the same as the original Microviewer, ok maybe it has a couple of additional useless features to me, BUT always wants to connect to the internet every time you open a fax. Hehe, wonder why...
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