Fax vs Email (credit card, payments, insurance, claim)
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As an IT person, even my first job out of college back in 2010 had fax to email software. The only places I know that use faxes regularly are medical providers.
I haven't used a fax machine since before 2017. That said, sometimes I wish I had one available when sending documents/forms requiring a signature. The silly stuff that passes as a ”signature” these days in E-mailed documents doesn't seem very secure to me. For just about everything else, it seems silly to use fax machines especially since most documents are electronic to begin with.
If done correctly (encrypted email or Docusign), it's no less secure. Perhaps even more if you're sending the fax to an actual fax pool where your document is just sitting there for anyone to see.
As to what one will accept as a signature - that's more of a process issue vs. a technology issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by king john IV
some lawyers and legal things still REQUIRE faxes.
no other way is acceptable for remote signage.
I think that speaks more to the capability of the lawyer. Essentially, the law firm haven't updated their technology/process.
Be it a fax or a scanned document via email.... the recipient is still holding a copy of the original.
some lawyers and legal things still REQUIRE faxes.
no other way is acceptable for remote signage.
This is 100% false. Documents can be legally "e-signed" today, I've done it 1,000 times through work. You can even notarize documents electronically.
Also, if you're faxing a signed original, how in the world would anyone be able to prove if it was ink to paper vs. an e-signature? You're sending them a hard copy piece of paper regardless.
The only advantage I can think of for faxing over e-mail is in certain cases where it would save a bit of time. Say you have a five-page physical document you need to send. In order to e-mail it, you first need to scan each individual page and save it to your hard drive, then upload each file to your e-mail. To fax it, you just run the pages through the fax machine in two seconds.
We have a fax machine which in typical year we use maybe about 20-25 times. For communicating, it's outdated, unreliable and time-consuming to answer. There are some uses for faxes, but day-to-day communicating isn't one of them.
Email can be triaged a couple of times a day. I don't look at it the moment one comes in, but check it three times a day.
Although I prefer email over faxes, I know that faxes are still usied by some doctors' offices as well as some banks outside the USA as they are considered more secure for transactions.
The only advantage I can think of for faxing over e-mail is in certain cases where it would save a bit of time. Say you have a five-page physical document you need to send. In order to e-mail it, you first need to scan each individual page and save it to your hard drive, then upload each file to your e-mail. To fax it, you just run the pages through the fax machine in two seconds.
That's a niche use case and many if not most scanners I've seen allow you to send directly to an email.
As others have mentioned, most fax numbers are actually VOIP phone numbers that convert the fax to an email and send it to the company email address. It is pointless to look for their fax number and send a fax when it is going to send it to the email address you saw at the same time in their contact information.
I had my business fax number disconnected 19 years ago. I had customers who almost refused to transition to email for a few years and would almost insist on faxing things to me and I would just tell them to figure out how to email it or put it in the physical mail and mail it to me. Everyone finally made the transition. The only time I have had to fax anything in the past 10 years has been something with a government entity every now and then. Some of them are still stuck in the 80's and won't let it go. They get an email but it is one sent from my email address through a fax conversion which sends the fax to them. It is crazy that anyone still even tries to use a fax these days.
At work we have a digital fax. I rarely fax anything myself, but my org is a non profit and sometimes we need forms or documents from the people we serve. Sometimes they are older and don’t have a computer or cell phone, and instead of taking the time to mail (and risk it getting lost!), we have a fax number they can use to send it. When a fax is received, my boss gets it via email and forwards to me (or to whomever on the team it’s for).
So I can see the advantage of still having a fax but it depends on the org/company, the client/population base, etc. There may be weeks or months go by before I get a fax but it’s nice to provide that option to the people we work with!
Does it matter if someone prefers one over the other? Is anything compromised using one way over the other, or is this more of a personal preference/efficiency issue? This is an...interesting question given the demographic. But perhaps I'm wrong about the demographic...
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