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The shocking thing about this is that there must still be enough Faxes being sent to actually justify this new product. Where are they still used at 'scale'?
by bizzleDawg 10y ago
The shocking thing about this is that there must still be enough Faxes being sent to actually justify this new product.
Where are they still used at 'scale'?
- kevinburke 10y agoJapan, for one, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-fax-machine-is-anything-but-a-relic.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-fa...
- kelnos 10y agoAnd Germany. Also fax is apparently the only way to reserve a table for Oktoberfest in Munich. Or so says a German colleague.
- patrickread 10y agoHealth care and dental care providers tend to still like faxes. It's still a thing, unfortunately.
- ovi256 10y agoLawyers like faxes because it leaves a legally acknowledged written record on both sides, and they're instantaneous. So they send a lot of them. For some reason the fax is legally sounder than email.
- officelineback 10y agoI think a faxed signature counts as a "wet" signature. Also it's easier to sign then feed into a fax machine than: - sign - scan (usually sent as a weird filename to your corporate email) - save the attachment, rename the file, create a new email, attach the file, send
- Artemis2 10y agoThat's why we have DocuSign!
- Roboprog 10y ago"Wet signature" being a term with some legal standing. DocuSign, not so much, other than for preliminary real estate actions.
- Artemis2 10y agoCould you elaborate on the "not so much"? A lot of companies (including law firms and Fortune 100 corps) have had me sign documents with DocuSign/HelloSign with no reservation. What would be the potential legal differences compared to an actual signature?
- Roboprog 10y agoI'm working on the California death certificate automation system. DocuSign is not legally accepted for a doctor to sign off on cause of death for a decedent. Laws for your use case will be different. That's mine.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- supertrope 10y ago47 states (New York, Washington and Illinois the outliers) have passed an Uniform Electronic Transaction Act that confers electronic signatures with equal weight. A federal law has existed since 2000. Unfortunately a self-fulfilling prophecy of people not accepting the validity of electronic agreements because no one else does has kept usage low. Even faxed contracts are often followed up with Fedex delivered versions. The only electronic agreement I've done is FAFSA's PIN blessed submission. The recent high profile payment card breaches and politician email doxxing have further decreased public confidence in all things computerized.
- digi_owl 10y ago> For some reason the fax is legally sounder than email. I suspect that faxes have been around for so long, and tested in court so many times, that by this time they are as good as holding the original if a lawsuit were to happen.
- callumjones 10y agoA lot of hotels still receive booking confirmations via fax, if they aren't receiving it via email.
- beejiu 10y agoTwo years ago I had to work on integrating a SaaS product with fax. The client was a large financial organization who had a contract with a counterparty. Under this contract, they had to give notice to each other of a certain action and the contract stipulated the message was sent by fax. It was easier to implement fax than get lawyers involved in redrafting the contract.
- ryanworl 10y agoWhile this is changing rapidly to tablets, many Grubhub/Seamless restaurants receive delivery orders through fax.
- danvoell 10y agomanufacturing orders, sadly
- patio11 10y agoA lot of the Uber-for-food-delivery startups use them for ordering at restaurants because there is no text-based API to restaurants and the UX of receiving an automated phone call is poor. They're pervasive in finance, insurance, employee benefits, etc. They're also a good one-to-many API multiplexer. So many businesses can take a fax and have a human operate on it that many software companies can use them to add actuators to their software without having to bizdev the company into adding an actual API integration.
- ryanworl 10y agoTo explain the typical workflow here, the restaurant receives a fax from the marketplace with a phone number to call to acknowledge the delivery. There is a short numeric code on the fax print out that the restaurant types into the IVR system. This is how these marketplaces can confirm someone is there to actually receive the order and provide that feedback to the customer that their order has been received. I think (but am not sure) that they can provide time estimates through the IVR system as well.
- bpicolo 10y agoDepends on the company, but this is the gist of it. There are frequently options outside of fax, as well. It's one of several.
- digi_owl 10y agoMy understanding is that holding a fax copy of a contract with a signature is as good in court as holding the contract itself. But holding a PDF of same is not.
- beamatronic 10y agoElectronic signing is a thing however. Faxes are successful because they are the technology "lowest common denominator" for business
- 10y ago
- tyingq 10y agoStill used when placing order with a number of manufacturers, unfortunately. They are viewed as "safe" for credit card information, as opposed to emails. Unknown as to why these manufacturers don't provide an online payment system. I work with several that want faxes, and they aren't small companies. I also saw this with companies that provide drug testing, background checks, etc. Same thing...viewed as a secure channel.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> They are viewed as "safe" for credit card information, as opposed to emails. The odds of someone obtaining credit card information from a plaintext email is a lot higher than someone decoding a VOIP SIP/T38 stream over the public internet, and reading the secrets out of that. And if its through a traditional carrier (not an Internet provider), its digital, but almost always over their internal network. It is more secure through obscurity alone than plain text email.
- tyingq 10y agoYes. I'm not skeptical that fax is safer than email. I'm skeptical that it's safe. I see all sorts of things I shouldn't see when searching the pile of papers on the fax machine at a large company for my fax.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> I see all sorts of things I shouldn't see when searching the pile of papers on the fax machine at a large company for my fax. That's not an issue of the security of fax as a transmission method, it's a problem with your company's security at the fax endpoint.
- tyingq 10y agoDoes it matter? The point is that fax isn't inherently a great idea for confidential info. There's also the issue that many fax endpoints that are fax to email gateways. Or fax to non https website gateways. Edit: Nobody is arguing for using email instead of fax. The argument is to use something better. Like paypal or stripe instead of full cc info + cvv2 on a piece of paper.
- Griffinsauce 10y agoBetween hospitals, for instance when patient data is requested.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- artursapek 10y agoI've had to use fax to verify my identity in NYC when setting up a Con Edison account (electricity). I had no way of sending a fax physically so resorted to using some shit online service that tricked me and kept charging me every month after sending the original single page I needed. Horrible experience.
- rokhayakebe 10y agoI've worked at a company, targeting medical practices, where fax was/is by a very effective method of marketing.
- rileyteige 10y agoVery widely used in health care and insurance industries.
- tommorris 10y agoAt one point, I heard Apple used to require you to fax a certified copy of legal documents relating to your company in order to open an App Store developer account. Also, fax is still used for a lot of financial and legal stuff generally, especially in countries with less developed Internet infrastructure.
- NikolaeVarius 10y agoBooking.com uses it alot. They have a MASSIVE fax system for servicing European hotels because many of them (generally smaller ones) aren't connected in any meaningful way. So when Booking.com makes a reservation they fax confirmation details to the Hotel. The hotel can also make modifications by faxing details back
- cbhl 10y agoAnything that is legally mandated to not go over the "American Internet" (for example, Canadian health care records). A lot of routine tasks in Japan also require a fax machine.
- Roboprog 10y agoDoctor sign-off on cause of death, as well as other medical related stuff. Online processes are not yet legal in California.
- JoblessWonder 10y agoFaxes seem to be in use at places where there is an established system/bureaucracy. We use them regularly in aviation because our suppliers/customers/service providers require them for some reason. Medical offices use them to adhere to HIPAA requirements. The government and large corporations use them because it was how the system was developed at some point and they haven't gotten around to changing it yet. (UPS, for example, can't resend us certain invoices via e-mail, only fax. I have no clue why.)
- JoblessWonder 10y agoFaxes seem to be in use at places where there is an established system/bureaucracy. We use them regularly in aviation because our suppliers/customers/service providers require them for some reason. Medical offices use them to adhere to HIPAA requirements. The government and large corporations use them because it was how the system was developed at some point and they haven't gotten around to changing it yet. (UPS, for example, can't resend us certain invoices via e-mail, only fax. I have no clue why.)