At some stage during July, my internet fax and voicemail provider mBox sold out to eFax.
I’ve searched my inbox and can’t see any record of correspondence advising me of this. I had been an mBox customer since February 2004.
I received a fax from mBox on July 8. The next one on July 23 came from eFax.
Apart from the lack of notice, I was not given login details for eFax and had to request these using a “lost password” option.
As far as I can tell, eFax doesn’t provide a voicemail service, but they appear to have retained it in my case, albeit with an American accent and no option for me to personalise the message.
The monthly price with eFax is also dearer than it was with mBox. I’m yet to discover if they will honor the former pricing.
I don’t really have a problem with the service being transferred to another provider. Some communication would have been nice though.
There is nothing on the web to explain what happened. It must have been pretty sudden because mBox is still running Google ads.
Frankly, I no longer need a fax number, and if voicemail isn’t part of the package I will probably drop the account when it comes up for renewal.
Twitter: delmerw
says:
We have a fax server at work running on an old PC that allows people to fax from their desktop. I don’t think anybody in the company remembers we have it. No one has asked about it in a year or more.
Hi Michael – don’t wait for renewal – I had two mBox numbers MessageIn numbers I was using as Voice/Fax and which were renewed on a quarterly basis. Today I have been charged by eFax for an annual subscription on two lines (which for me is redundant now that they have removed much of the functionality of mBox) – and which costs almost double what I was paying to mBox. Like you, there was no communication of the change in pricing – and I must admit I didn’t go to look at their pricing. So my experience would suggest 1) they are not honouring the pricing deal you have with mBox and 2) unlike mBox there was no prompt that I was coming up for renewal – they just charged me and sent me an invoice of what I had paid.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
Good advice, thanks. I couldn’t find a cancellation option in the admin panel. The FAQ at eFax says to ring them, presumably in America! I’ve sent them an email and will see what happens.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
I tried to cancel by sending an email. eFax replied by giving me a web link (http://www.efax.com/cancel) which didn’t work.
I then called the United States number and cancelled over the phone.
I’m still nonplussed that an Australian company ceased providing me a service without telling me and sold my account to an overseas company, which didn’t offer the same level of service.
I’ve experienced a loss in quality since the take over. Yesterday I was told by a US based support person that eFax prides themselves that 70% of transmissions in Australia work the first time. She admitted that the US based carrier arrangement was flakey when making fax transmissions between Australian numbers.
I’ve asked for my subscription money back and am looking for a new provider.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
I’m trying Utbox. Only sent one fax so far, but that was fine.