Proof that your fax was delivered

How and when you receive them

Receipts can be added at the time of sending or, provided the fax hasn’t failed, from its tracking page. You pay by card via Stripe. To begin with, your card is merely authorized for €2.99, which includes 20% VAT because the service operates from France. If the document runs to two pages or more, this comes on top of the €3.99 sending fee, while a one-page fax is still free.

The request receipt is emailed to you once you confirm through the link in your confirmation email. It describes the situation at that moment: the request is recorded and validated, and the fax is waiting to be sent. Nothing has been transmitted yet, and the footer of the document says so.

The transmission receipt exists only once the fax is delivered. It comes attached to an email and is also available for download on the tracking page. That is when your card is actually charged. If the line is busy, nobody answers or the far end doesn’t respond like a fax machine, the authorization is released and we email you.

What the transmission receipt records

In a fax call, the two machines first settle on a speed and resolution, after which the receiving machine acknowledges each page it gets. Once that exchange ends normally, our system logs it with the status “delivered to the fax machine”, which the receipt repeats alongside the date and time.

So the document establishes three facts: a sender with a name requested a fax, the call to the stated fax number was completed, and all of it took place at a given date and time. If a deadline is at stake, the time is often the detail that counts.

One status deserves attention: transmitted, no reply from the machine. Pages were sent, yet the receiving end never returned its closing confirmation. A receipt is issued anyway because the transmission did happen, and it states that status as it stands. Check the Status line before you file the document.

What it cannot establish

The receipt tells you nothing about what follows once the line closes: who took the pages, whether there was paper in the tray, whether the recipient's system redirected the fax to a mailbox. It also can’t show that the number is the right person’s, only that it is the number exactly as you typed it.

It doesn’t contain your document either. The uploaded file is erased once the fax is sent, so unless you kept the original, the receipt proves a fax with a given subject was sent, but not what it contained. The subject, which appears on the cover sheet and on both receipts, is what links the records.

Using the receipts if the fax is disputed

Whether you’re replying to a supplier, a landlord or a government agency, submit a coherent set instead of one page: the document you sent, the transmission receipt, the request receipt, and anything showing the number was correct, for instance a letterhead, a contract, or a capture of the official web page from that day.

Never edit the receipts, and store the original files along with the emails that delivered them, because an email’s arrival time supports the timestamp. Quote the receipt’s reference number in your letter or filing so each record can be tied back to the one transmission.

How much weight such evidence carries depends on the jurisdiction and the circumstances. A transmission report may be accepted as evidence in some cases and set aside in others, and a receipt gives no legal guarantee. This is general information, not legal advice: if a lot is at stake, consult an attorney.

Fax receipt or certified mail?

USPS Certified Mail with a return receipt demonstrates that an envelope reached a given address and was signed for by somebody. A fax receipt, by contrast, documents a technical exchange between two machines that is over almost instantly. The two prove different things, and neither can stand in for the other whenever a law, contract or official instruction calls for a particular method of notice.

If the rules call for certified mail or delivery in person, use that. Fax remains useful when speed matters, to send a document ahead of a posted original, or when the recipient asks for fax in writing.