eFax is Raising Their Rates - Again - But There Are Low-Cost and Free Alternatives to eFax! - 23,890 Views, 18 Comments
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eFax today announced that they are raising their already gouging rates from $12.95 a month to $16.95 a month, unless you want to “lock in” the $12.95 a month rate by paying it annually (i.e. pay the $12.95 x 12 up front to the tune of more than $150.00 a year). I call it “gouging” because eFax originally started out with this model: you could either pay to get a fax number that was local to you, or get a free fax number which could have an area code in any part of the U.S. except local to you. At that time it cost a mere $4.95 to have the local number, which was part of a service called “eFaxPlus”. So eFax Plus was only $4.95 a month, and that was as recently as the year 2000. However, once they got you hooked (and having distributed your fax number far and wide) they boosted their fees to $12.95 a month - more than double what you’d signed up for - and you were stuck, unless you were willing to lose the fax number you’d given out to everyone. Still, it was month-to-month so you could make a decision each month as to whether it was worth it. But now they are doing it again, saying either pay that $12.95 a month up front for a full year (a total of $155.40 a year), or pay the exhorbitant rate of $16.95 a month. And, if this prompts you to decide to cancel the service, let me tell you up front that there is no easy way to cancel your account (but I’m going to tell you how). Here is the relevant portion of the email that I myself received today: “The monthly subscription fee for all eFax Plus numbers on your account will be changing. You will also receive an enhanced level of eFax service. Receive up to 130 fax pages and send up to 30 fax pages free each month. Oh, and did you catch that they have given their customers exactly 10 days notice? How generous. Now, I understand that businesses have to make money - a profit, even. But getting your customers hooked and then raising the rates so dramatically is something which is usually reserved for the likes of crack dealers and heroin pushers. And I think that eFax is way out of line here demanding an up front payment for a full year, and charging you an extra 30% if you are unwilling to be pushed into the annual fee. Especially when you consider this: you can still get the exact same service from other providers for half the cost - in fact, from some you can even still get it for free. Examples of places you can get Internet fax services for less or free include send2fax.com (send and receive for $7.95 a month, and as little as $1.95 a month if you prepay), and FaxZero.com (send for free), and K7.net where you can receive faxes and voicemail for free, if you don’t mind a 206 (Washington state) fax number. In fact, an organization with which I am involved has used K7.net for the past year, and we have been very pleased with the service. K7 we would gladly pay. They do it right, and they are honest about it. In closing, eFax’s email of today said: “We’re glad to have you as a customer, and look forward to continuing to serve your business needs.” Ironic, really, as the first thing I did after receiving this was cancel my eFax account. Then I opened a K7.net account.
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Starting on your next billing date, the monthly fee for each of your eFax number(s) will be $16.95.
Store faxes up to one year with your eFax Message Center.
Get 24/7 live phone support.
To lock in the old $12.95 rate for the next year, switch to annual billing by clicking here.
Please respond by October 01, 2006.”
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Math time:
$17-$13 = 4
$4 * 12 = $48
I can get new business cards printed with my new non-efax number for not a lot more than $48.
$17-$8 = 9
$9 * 12 = easily enough to justify switching to another vendor.
And that’s even if I weren’t still pissed about when they raised the price to $13/month
Comment by Craig Hughes — 9/21/2006 @ 11:07 am
I thought it was outrageous when they went to $12.99/mth
I haven’t got the “we’re raising prices again” email yet, but I won’t pay $17/mth
They just pushed passed the “I want to keep my fax number that I’ve given out” barrier
Comment by Anonymous Coward — 9/21/2006 @ 11:28 am
Do people really need a fax anymore? there are so many other forms of communication you can use.
Comment by Digital Brian — 9/21/2006 @ 2:53 pm
Well, they did it again. This time they billed our card for the higher annual fee without checking first. We cancelled immediately and were refunded.
Comment by jennifer — 3/21/2007 @ 9:58 am
Thanks for taking the time to post that info. I decided to finally cancel my eFax account once and for all when, not only did they increase the monthly rate to $16.95, but then insist on billing my account for incremental $10 amounts too. Way too expensive when, yes, there are other ways to send your files (via email) as well as using the free services you told us about. Thanks again. eFax can kiss it.
Comment by Sandee — 4/6/2007 @ 10:11 am
Thanks! I just logged in to efax and saw that their service is now $16.95? what freaking rip off. Between vonage and efax, companies like that give the Internet a bad rap. thanks for the faxzero.com tip, that worked great for the little I fax!
Comment by Brent — 6/7/2007 @ 12:10 pm
Thank you so much for this article. I will be looking into these alternatives for the company I work for.
I cannot beleive that a company could adopt such a lousy policy! I don’t particularly like freemiums (Offering something half-decent for free and charging for the full service), but efax makes companies with freemiums seem like angels!
Comment by toritaiyo — 6/20/2007 @ 11:30 am
Efax: the e stands for evil
:)
Comment by jay — 6/20/2007 @ 12:07 pm
Greatly appreciate the info! In shopping for a new fax & copier, I was told about efax and am glad to come across this info. Along with Gibu’s fax on “How NOT to serve your customers”, I sure will be looking for better alternatives. Oddly, several people have commented on it being a lot easier to sign up than to sign OFF, but I sure haven’t seen anything impressive in the way of a sales pitch! In trying to decide whether efaxing would meet my needs, I’ve seen nothing that answers my questions, at all!
Not to mention the fact that every sales pitch there is, is unattractive! That makes me nervous … shouldn’t an online service know about colors, fonts, etc?
Comment by Barbara — 7/19/2007 @ 4:43 pm
I hate to toot my own horn but if you are looking for an affordable Internet Fax Service, this is the company I work for. 1000 pages for $12.95, just 3 cents per page thereafter per month. :-)
Comment by Lynn — 9/11/2007 @ 2:24 pm
well, i recently signed up with 101Fax’s monthly plans and i was really surprised to discover how low their rates were!!!! i can even send fax internationally and fax broadcast. i surely recommend it! definitely worth it. !
Comment by Vannie — 11/18/2007 @ 7:57 pm
Forget efax — It takies an “Act of Congress” to cancel their service. After 10 months of emails & phone calls, I still can’t get the billing cancelled. And forget credits — efax’s billing department is absolutely atrocious.
Comment by Hugo — 1/8/2008 @ 8:59 am
Earlier we opened account with eFax but rates are so high for Indian clients and service is so pathetic…We find 2 year old Indian company http://www.faxmyway.com just $ 6 per month support gie resolution in just 30 mins…
Comment by Raj — 8/15/2008 @ 4:01 am
Forget Efax, I use an integrated electronic signature and fax solution called Sertifi that enables me to send, get electronically or hand signed, store and file my documents electronically. Finally, no more paper!
Comment by George Pappas — 8/19/2008 @ 9:32 am
HOW are you comparing these cheese bucket free fax services to efax? eFax provides the ability to send hundreds of thousands of emails. and your “free fax” services limit you to little or none daily, or just receive faxes.
$15 is well worth sending out 100,000 faxes daily. compared to the cost of delivery at .39 each = $39,000.00. That’s a savings of $38,984.00, and about 40 hours labor daily at another $400.
Comment by RayTPA — 8/23/2008 @ 8:25 am
Efax does charge alot more than other providers. I don’t fax often maybe about once or twice a month so that doesn’t work for me to pay $16.00. I found a website called http://www.PayPerFax.com where I can send on a per page basis and I like the option of not making a commitment.
Comment by Hunter — 9/14/2008 @ 6:58 am
I use Trust Fax and it is the best service I’ve found!!!
Comment by Aaron — 4/22/2009 @ 10:54 am
Try Fax2Me.com No monthy fee, then per minute fee. Not everyone needs to send or receive that many faxes anymore.
Comment by Jake — 5/7/2009 @ 9:30 pm