I did find this from a fax site in the UK relatively recent:
ETA: something about signatures that a fax transmits but email they can be faked.
How ‘relatively‘ recent?
All that’s required to turn an emailed document into a hard copy is a printer, so I’m not sure what’s so hard here.
I have both relinquished ownership, via signed document, this very way. And also signed a medical consent, both in the last two months!
Dude, I don’t know what to tell you. I work for a national lab company. There is still some medical paperwork that has to be hardcopy, by physical mail, hand delivery, or fax, and printing out an email or PDF doesn’t count. OP posted yesterday, and the firm they’re dealing with is insisting on that the paperwork be physically mailed or faxed.
I get it that it seems like it shouldn’t be this way, that a lot of legal paperwork is routinely done with e-signatures these days, that insisting on a fax seems bizarre if you’re not in one of the fields where it’s still routine, but it’s just the way it is.
Regardless, the firm the OP is dealing with is, for whatever reason, insisting on physical mail or fax and won’t accept an email or e-doc.
I have a friend who was told that he had to fax in some paperwork–email would not do, only fax.
He said “I’m sorry. I can’t fax from where I live.”
“Oh, where is that?” they asked.
“2020.”
They still made him send the fax, although they laughed.
I’ve also used efax.com for years in this kind of situation, and never had a problem. I’ve even used it on my phone, standing in the doctor’s office, to the fax machine on the desk right in front of me. It was the only way they would accept it.
Thanks to @Colibri for putting my thread in the correct home.
efax.com sends me immediately to efax.ch and only lets me use French, German or Italian, which I do not find convenient. I was not able to convince it I wanted some other language.
I went with Fax.Plus and found it very painless. Thanks to all for the recommendations.
Overnighting the paperwork would be 90 CHF, which is pretty close to 90 USD. That’s a big nope for me, if there’s a cheaper alternative.
My fault for not getting it done earlier.
I am glad it worked out for you, and that you did not have to hire a courier to hand-deliver it.
I was never a big faxer, unlike my colleague who never learned how to type, but, it you think about it, if you need a hard copy then with a traditional fax machine that step is already done for you.
An exercise pertinent to this thread, which I never attempted, is to successfully fax without a fax machine using just your own computer and VOIP (possibly skipping the V).
I don’t think it’s possible. The way fax works; it’s on a handshake protocol. The two machines have to be actually in connection with one another in order for it to work. With digital technology the two machines are never in the “same place” at the “same time”.
That’s what I did and suggested, pretty much. Our landline is VOIP through our internet service. I used a printer/scanner/fax multifunction plugged into the phone port of the modem to fax in my ballot last November.
It works, but it’s a little clunky.
As I no longer needed the ability to fax, I canceled my account. I received 3-4 emails that the fax number was still available and I could sign back up.
Today I got an email that my account has been changed to Free. Not too shabby.