Every once in a while we are reminded of the early 1990′s. I mean to say we are reminded that there are some luddites out there who still require the use of a fax machine. Why a simple scan of a document and eventual email isn’t enough I don’t know, but anyhow, such a need arose recently and I had a scout around at the available options.
Online Fax Services
Of course the old school fax service, primed and ready to rip you off is still knocking about in this day and age in the form of eFax. But I hardly wanted to be roped into a month-to-month commitment at some ridiculous fee that didn’t even see me get an unlimited number of faxes. What are they doing over there in the eFax warehouse? Employing monkeys? This is the digital age!
Anyhow, in my search for a more viable, cheaper and more sustainable option, I came across PamFax. PamFax is an online service akin to eFax, bar for the fact it allows for on-demand faxing. It styles itself on the Skype model, and I would even go as far as to say that the website itself draws on the “Skype” sensibilities of design. PamFax itself is an offshoot of a German software company but they provide a global service, and although I haven’t used the service in other languages, have the impression it is multi-lingual with German, English and Japanese at the very least.
Using The PamFax Service
Getting signed up for an account is pretty much a no-brainer and can even be achieved with any number of social network logins, from Facebook to Twitter and onto OpenID. With that bought the basic credit for the countries in Zone 1 (which included the country I wished to send the fax to, and then downloaded the software whilst I waited for the PayPal transaction to go through and hit my newly created PamFax account.
The software itself, and I speak from the perspective of using the OSX desktop application version of PamFax, is nice. It runs as a simple to use wizard that guides you through the process of building your fax, from the recipient details, to uploading the PDF files, to selecting the format and information for a cover page, before finalising with a confirmation screen. One thing I definitely liked about the software was that the design tied in seamlessly with that of the website.
Houston We Have A Problem
Literally from end-to-end, if I had been going at full steam, I could have registered, bought credit, installed the software, generated my fax, and click “send” and been done in 5 minutes or less. The speed of getting up and running is second to none I would think, though having clicked send I am still waiting some 40 minutes later for the little bugger to clear my outbox, which pretty much negates any of the benefit of getting up and running so swiftly.
Funnily enough I decided to highlight the process every step of the way via my Twitter account, including the @pamfax username every time I did so, thus we shall see what happens, though I have the feeling they use the account for nothing more than the ceremonial bleet about new service offerings, software upgrades and bug fixes. In the mean time I have followed up my outbox woes with a support ticket, so we shall see how long that takes to get answered.
After another 40 minutes, so some 80 minutes of waiting in total, a confirmation email was received and the notification record showed up in the dashboard that the fax has been successfully transmitted to the intended recipient. There is no update on the support ticket so I can only presume that the file and the faxing thereof followed its natural path, though I am yet to check with the recipient that all was received and all is well with said document.
Overall – A Good Service
In spite of these woes I still like the service. PamFax is readily available and easy to use for anyone who cares to do so. They have obviously spent a lot of time and effort in developing their strategy and making the fax service as easy to use. Their main website is informative and guides you through finding out everything you need to know before signing up and the account back-end and dashboard that they provide once you do sign up is simple and effective, covering all bases from faxes, to payments to user management for companies.
I am yet to use the Pamela Fax Plug-in for Skype, but based on this initial experience of the service through the website and via the desktop plug-in I have no doubt that the application is just as useful and effective. Definitely worth looking at if you want to add fax functionality to Skype or provide a simple single communications interface to your computer or VOIP and faxing. Other useful services provided by PamFax include a facebook application for accessing yoru information directly in the social networking site, a salesforce plug-in and a Windows desktop gadget. Their desktop software is also available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and is, as you saw, super simple to set up.
Web-head & art collector, living in East London and huffing on the fumes of the planet since '78. Here are my thoughts.
Darryl Jun 16, 2010
My fax has been sitting in queue for an hour… and its for a job offer. I would think unless you plan on sending crayon drawings or stuff that you don’t care if it gets there timely or not, I wouldn’t use PamFax.
Vincent Roman Jun 17, 2010
I have found the performance and speed of faxing to be variable. The last fax I sent went in a few minutes, but as you know from this review the first took quite a while. Why on earth you would use a fax anyhow is beyond me, but every once in a while.
Clearly if you are in a time crunch, PamFax isn’t the service for you, but its certainly a lot cheaper than using eFax, that’s for sure.
Christoph Jul 6, 2010
When you first tested PamFax, we were struggling with the update to the complete new 3.0 backend. This is now running as expected and faxes are sent very quickly (if the recipient fax machine picks up).
I can see that all your last faxes since then were sent within minutes.
@Darryl: I was unable to find your account in the PamFax history. If you want to help us to clear this up, tell us your PamFax username at support@pamfax.biz referring to this post and we will take a look. There must be some reason why your fax was delayed.
jh Sep 29, 2010
How much does it cost to use this?
Vincent Roman Sep 29, 2010
The minimum credit is about 7.50 USD as per the details on the Pam Fax Rates page:
http://www.pamfax.com/rates/
Richard Borg Nov 17, 2010
For a small business, that needs to send 1 to 2 faxes a month, the pricing of this service cannot be beat. We have no monthly contracts and pay $1 or $2 to send out a fax. Bargain. Who wants a monthly fee when you rarely send out faxes?
Alan Cranney Dec 27, 2010
Does Pamfax still cost me even though I have an unlimted SkypeOut account? I was under the impression it was included with my Skype subscription for SkypeOut. Thanks
Vincent Roman Dec 27, 2010
Alan – I wouldn’t know specifically. Maybe Christoph can enlighten us, but given they are 2 different companies, I would be highly surprised if you were going to get faxes for FREE.
jim mcginnis Feb 25, 2011
I purchased a pamfax number and a few months later after all printing and imaging for my business used it I learned the number was a phone to another business I filled out a support request but have yet to get a response. I paid for the number for a year of service and just a month into it it goes to somebody elses answering system at another business. Thousands of dollars in print material down the drain. Awaiting the response from PAMFAX still
Christoph Mar 2, 2011
@Alan: PamFax is not affiliated with Skype. So there is no chance to get paid for sending faxes via Skype. This is why you have to purchase PamFax Credit to send faxes, even as Skype Pro customer (see http://www.pamfax.biz/KB10)
@Jim: As already said by the support staff, we are working with our number provider in the US to clarify what happened to your fax-in number. You should get an answer shortly from our support staff.
Apologies for this. This only happened to 2 or 3 numbers ever in PamFax. International numbers are not that easy to handle with all the companies involved…
Vincent Roman Mar 3, 2011
Christoph = Thanks for the update and clarification.
Masoud Apr 24, 2011
Pamfax is a rip off. They did not reply to my emails about my problems, and then took the credit away without me being able to use the service even once. I don’t know why this freaking app is still on Skype’s website. I guess they are getting a share of theft!?
Patrick Campbell Sep 20, 2011
I don’t need to send faxes often though this month I have had to send four. Its easy to setup and use. The first time you use PamFax it will take a couple of minutes to get some credit. After that it takes about 5 minutes by the time you scan the documents and go through the faxing process. I had one failed fax due to an incorrect number I typed in. The others have gone through seamlessly. It took an hour to send 1 fax but usually they seem to go through in 20 minutes or less. At 13cents a page compared to $3 at the post office I don’t mind the small delay. I chose to get an email saying the fax has been sent but skype alerts and sms are available too. All in all, for $10 you can send faxes. I am pretty impressed with this. If you need only send the occasional fax this is way easy.
Suzuki Nov 20, 2011
They have worst customer service:
Jim Jan 6, 2012
I’ve bought credit with the promise of being able to send faxes via skype, but I was never able to do so… even more, their customer service was the worst part. Even though the service NEVER worked (tried it with 5 different fax numbers), they somehow tried to tell me that the problem was not related to their service, but rather of the technology used by the fax numbers that I was trying to call… LOL
I don’t recommend PamFax at all
Vincent Roman Jan 6, 2012
Jim – I certainly don’t specifically endorse their service, but never had problems using it at all. My only gripe is the stupidity of expiring credits. Anyhow, sorry to hear your experience sucked. That being said, my review is OLD, so it’s more than plausible that their service went down the crapper.
BT Jan 19, 2012
I use Pamfax, and it usually gets the fax to the receiver within an hour or so. The advertised rate of $0.12 per page has never been used while my rates vary from $0.14 up to $0.59 per page, for no apparent reason. It is a pretty cheap way to send non urgent stuff, but the mystery rates are a bit frustrating.