To Fax or Not Fax, that is the question

Why even go through the "testing" of the service availability.. get it, the fax, that is. And use it

 

The United States customs office does. Since the late '90's all my import documents were forwarded to my broker as pdf files and sent to customs as pdf files. Saved a ton of money on Fedex charges to get documents from Asia, could get preclearance going while shipments were still "on the water", etc. By the early 2000's I never handled another fax or paper document, not for customer billing or anything.

Getting back into trucking I'm surprised that anyone is still requiring paper documents. Either the brokers in question are complete rubes or they are simply trying to delay payment to truckers. Get with the program, every major government agency and customer accepts pdf documents.

 

You need to be willing to use all options. If I happen to be at the home base and it's something that's already printed, then I'm faxing. If it's on the road, then scan and fax or email. You can't MAKE a broker change their procedures to suit you and what you want. You need to play their game if you want to work with them.

 

But it is appropriate to force a carrier.....

 

What's so difficult about having multiple options of email, fax, etc? It's not that complicated.

 

Reduce fixed overhead.

 

Fax is fine. Not a big deal.Pretty simple process really. Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that you won't be using it. LOL. As far as mailing in the BOL. That's just how it is. At least if you want to haul produce. faxes are not an original BOL and neither is email. So if you don't like it keep running for cheap ### brokers. When ya want to come and play with the big boys and get real rates then you WILL mail in your bills and not whine about it.

 

Who'd a thunk I'd get all this response about a fax...but it's all good. I'll just get an e-fax account and go from there...but if it means getting paid more, I'll be happy to mail something in, too...whatever it takes.

 

fax87.com. Cheapestr fax there is. get a 1000 pages a month or something crazy like that. EFax costs to much. I think they were 15 bucks a month for 600 pages.

 

$8 a month for my 21st century electronic fax machine really isn't doing anything to my overhead. LOL.