The following email is being sent out by ISP ClaraNet to their subscribers:

Clara.net welcomes you to the future of faxing with our new eFax service.

eFax enables you to receive faxes direct to your desktop, saving you time and money and improving convenience.

How does it work?

When someone sends a fax to your eFax number, the service receives the fax and converts it to an image. This image is sent directly to your email inbox, where it can be easily viewed, printed, or archived.

What will it cost me?

The service is free, with no setup fee or monthly charges. There is no cost to you to receive faxes, and the sender is charged at national rate.

My reply is self-explanatory:

You should be aware that more and more people are boycotting 0870 premium rate revenue generating telephone numbers.  OFCOM's report about the use of these numbers is coming out next month.

It is a pity that ClaraNet have decided to be part of the 0870 scam.  Presumably these efax calls would generate around 4p/min (or more) revenue for ClaraNet from the 7.51 p/min charge that the caller has to pay.  The service may be a convenience to the called party but the caller has to pay for it.  Companies keen to obtain new business would be foolish to impose a levy on prospective clients just for contacting them.

Suggest you look at the www.saynoto0870.com website.

Your efax scheme may also backfire because there are ways of finding out the geographic numbers underlying  0870 numbers (which are just an overlay) and this information is being published on the above website for more and more 0870 numbers.

This correspondence has been posted on the www.saynoto0870.com website

There are lots of companies offering exactly the same service, and some will even pay some of the 0870 rebate back to the called party.

My advice, is if you want a fax number, to operate a business, then get a proper fax machine, and use a geographic number.

I have been in a situation twice in the last year, where I contacted 2 companies for information, and they offered to send it in the post, or fax it.  If I had one of those numbers, then I would have accepted a fax, and retrieved it via e-mail.  Instead I phoned up my Dad, and got him to receive it from work.

Therefore ClaraNet and other companies are providing a useful service, albeit on an 0870 number.  However, if I did use such a service, it would only be a few times a year, and it would almost certainly be businesses (most of whom use 0870 anyway!!) who would fax me.

Since it's those kinds of businesses that fuel the 0870 scam, and make big profits from it, then surely they won't mind faxing their customers on an 0870 number as well.