Hi Jack,
Yes, I've used
ALL the major online faxing services; both free and paid as I've had to install them both for myself and for customers. Bad news here for you bro'; the free services will have a series of limitations such as cumulative fax page limits (max of 10 pages sent/received per account lifetime; watermarks from the free Faxing service company name on every page you send; etc.). Checking my records show I last used one of these services in 2012, which was
MyFax, and I remember it costing
$6.95/month or so and it worked quite well. Of course you must have an All-in-one printer containing a scanner which lets you scan documents into .jpg or .pdf images which can then be transmitted through a Fax server at their end to any company or any individual owning a Fax machine. This can all be managed through a web-portal or website that you go to once you give them a Credit Card, and you login with a an e-mail address and secure password you create and verify through your E-mail provider. You have an E-mail type navigation interface which shows the documents you want to Fax as well as documents faxed to your Fax number (which you get when you sign up for an account for them; also you can do some customization of the Fax number if you wish, but that costs extra per month!). In other words if you have an extermination business and you want a Fax number that translates to 1-800-BUGSRUS lets say which translates to 1-800-284-7787, you might be able to get that if it's available or possibly with a 1-888 prefix.
Anyway, since you are only using a couple of times a year, you are probably not using this feature but I wanted to tell you it's available with most of the bigger well known Faxing services.
I had to use this when I first moved into the house I'm at and had only a DSL Internet connection and no land-line here. It worked marvelously, and the User Interface like I said was quite easy to learn and use. For
$83 a year; it was definitely more convenient than having to drive into town (a 6 mile drive for me; about 15 min.) and go to a Mailboxes type place or UPS store and pay several dollars to send or receive a 5 page Fax or so. Gas and time add up of course. So, if you only do 1 or 2 Faxes a year, it would probably be cheaper to just get off your couch and drive in to send or receive a Fax at that kind of facility which lots and lots of people do, as they don't have a land-line any more with the advent of people getting rid of them completely and switching to all Cell. phones as I did last January 2016. Another cool thing I'd like to mention since you are a Tekky guy, I was able to receive Faxes on my Cell. phone (not send them) which was really nice if you were waiting for an important document but weren't at home near your computer. You could get it through your E-mail account that you registered when you signed up for the MyFax service right on your Cell. phone and open and read it with a free PDF file viewer! This was very cool when you are awaiting something like a Tax document or a Car loan approval (which I used); and with the Car Loan situation you get instant notification that you were approved on your phone.
This is nice since if you are out away from your home running errands, you can get a Fax (lots of banks don't E-mail you that kind of information only Fax to you) right on your phone and read the contents and take appropriate actions. I sure you can see the value of being able to do that.
Of course different people might have had other experiences since 5 years ago, and someone else here may have found a Free service they like; but I'm not aware of any that measure up to the ease of use and reliability that the paid Faxing services provide.
Hope that proves useful to you.
Best,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>