Economical receive fax service - Android

I rarely need a fax machine these days. Unfortunately, some industries, banking, for ex, want to make your life difficult and insist on sending and receiving only via fax (allowing them to stay even more elusive from any meaningful customer service - ah but that would be a whole new thread).

I sometimes I just borrow a fax at work and wait for a document but it is nice to have it in electronic form.

I think there are some apps that will fax from any device for free but I need to receive.

I donā€™t really need a dedicated number but I would like to, maybe once or twice per year, be able to receive a few pages of fax. Unfortunately, services like Efax are quite pricey for these needs. There are others that charge less, based on the amount of usage, but either way, you end up paying $7 to $15 per month for the luxury of receiving a few pages per year.

Sure seems like there could be an app for android that would allow someone to ā€˜faxā€™ call your phone. When the phone is manually answered, the app could automatically sense the fax protocol and then handshake and receive the fax. But I canā€™t find such app.

Iā€™d still be willing to pay a few bucks per month but canā€™t justify paying $100 per year for perhaps 10 incoming pages per year. I can always find a traditional fax machine for outgoing scanning and sending but I had to burden my associates at work to wait for a fax for me and in addition, not have it in electronic form.

Any suggestions?

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Are you OK with having faxes come to your email account? There are several of those services, including http://googlefaxonline.com. This way the faxes would be delivered in email via PDF attachment, be available on your (any) device assuming you have an email client set up, be available/searchable in you Gmail account for the rest of eternity

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I use hellofax personally. itā€™s 9.95/mo but one gets a 30 day free trial but if thatā€™s a bit much the check out https://alternativeto.net/software/hellofax/

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sadly bit ring central and efax sell ones contact details to spammers and less creditable ā€œmarketersā€ but good articles non the less

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I think this is a great idea!
I, too, need to send faxes, but even more rarely than you. Maybe 10 in the last 5 years; probably 6 of those in the first 2 years of those 5. And long distance faxes! Good heavens! The only ways Iā€™ve found is the ā€œfree trialā€ or ā€œcalling cardā€ (for long distance). Back when ā€œusing the Internetā€ meant having a computer attached to the Internet, it was harder, because you had no number to which to send a fax. Especially once DSL and such became the standard. But now that ā€œsmart phonesā€ have become, effectively, everyday carry devices, wherein you already have a phone number assigned, it seems like a no-brainer to be able to send/receive faxes using that numberā€¦
There SHOULD BE an app for that!
Just noticed you want to receive, moreso than send. Still, there should be a pay-per-fax kind of service for that, it seems to me. Even @ $1.00/fax, as few as I send/receive, Iā€™d probably go that route because it would cost me less than eFax most monthsā€¦

Think about a UPS Store or Mailbox store. I think some thing like $1 per page. Old school and not $9.95 a month.

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Thanks everyone for the input. Iā€™ve checked just about every option. The various sites and ads I encounter tend to be of the following categories:

  • legit services but $10+ per month
  • possibly legit but annoying website with a bait and switch plan advertising $2 per mo but you canā€™t actually get that - always turns out to be $10/mo
  • sites bought by efax that feed into efax
  • total spamish sites that try and feed you into some sort of call management center or other nonsense services you donā€™t want

Bottom line is that

  • I donā€™t think there is really a low usage economical option
  • Although itā€™s theoretically possible that your phone could receive faxes on you voice line with the proper software, that does not presently exist at all

BTW, that google link you reference requires that you have a service like efax. Itā€™s really a referrer ad for eFax et al. All they are saying is that if you get Efax and others, you can have the faxes sent to your email. And Efax and others have has that for a while. But thank you.

Cheers,
DJ

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I think Steve may have hit the nail on the head here
https://www.theupsstore.com/store-services/faxing

My big question is ā€œhow much?ā€. Answer: it depends. This article (from 2010) says usually $1.00 to $2.00 per page to receive. A bit high, in my opinion, but not absurdly so, dependingā€¦

Not a huge fan for banking info, complete with sensitive PII, but, then, not a fan of xmitting that to ANY fax, since it seems like nobody knows what a secure fax isā€¦

Has anyone tried ā€œmyfaxā€ ? http://myfax.com/free/
Referred to in this article
https://www.howtogeek.com/218505/how-to-fax-a-document-from-your-smartphone/

I suspect it falls under point #2 above, butā€¦

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Same applies for officemax or office depoit. Theyā€™re usually $0.25 a page but depends on the store. But thereā€™s also oneā€™s local Library as well, theyā€™re free!!

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I had my hopes up. Tried to work through a trial sign up with myfax. Falls into the bait and switch MO. By the time you get to selection of a number turns out the have no numbers available in any area code for reduced rate ): And I didnā€™t go further.

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that sucks!
Thank you for trying, and posting back your results.

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