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How do I cancel my eFax account?

By pHatidic in pHatidic's Diary
Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 08:12:27 PM EST
Tags: User Diary (all tags)

Why would anyone open an eFax account? Perhaps you were tricked by Japhar81's diaries posted here and here. Or perhaps the temptation proved too much and you finally gave in to the free pvp scheme, even though you were almost certain that it was a scam. I finally gave in to this scheme, so let me share my experiences to save you a few steps in the scavenger hunt.

After reading Japhar81's diary, as linked above, I decided that I had nothing to lose if I signed up for the eFax offer. At best I'd get a free Mac Mini and at worst I would just cancel it hassle free after a day and incur no charges at all, right? Wrong! While I was eventually able to cancel my eFax account, it took over an hour and turned out to be quite stressful. However, let me give you a step by step walkthrough to creating and closing an eFax account within 24 hours in case you ever have reason to.
First, I made my account on pvps4free.com as requested by Japhar81. Next I chose the eFax offer, which was claimed to be free. To his credit, pvps4free did give me credit for completing the offer within 24 hours. Now it was time to figure out how to close the account.
The first step in the scavenger hunt was to go to eFax.com. Clicking on the "Contact Us" link revealed that their toll-free number is 1(800)958-2983. After calling this number and working my way through the phone tree, I was directed to call another non toll-free number: 1(323)-817-3205. After going through the phone tree on this number, I was directed to go to the URL efax.com/cancel. On that page I found the following:
Question: How do I cancel my eFax account?
Answer: If you are considering cancelling your eFax account because you are having a problem using the service, keep in mind that the solutions to many common problems can be found in this "Help" section.
If our online help is insufficient or you wish to cancel your eFax account for another reason, please click the "Live Chat" button below and a Customer Service representative will assist you. Please note that your account should not be considered cancelled until so confirmed by Customer Service.
If you are an eFax Plus user, and you are cancelling your account near the end of your billing month, please be aware that you may still be charged for the next month. If this occurs, simply contact us and we will issue a refund

Of course the only problem was that this service doesn't work under Firefox. However, fortunately I have Safari on my computer so I was able to enter the chat after switching browsers. My conversation with the sales rep went something like this:
Please wait for a site operator to respond.You are currently number 2 of 2 in the queue. Thank you for your patience.
Shit, I'm thinking. I could be waiting half an hour here. But to my pleasant surprise the customer service rep, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent, joined the channel within a minute. I should note here that on the phone where they referred me to this chatroom, they said that, "your conversation with eFax may be recorded for customer quality assurance." I decided to take them up on their generous offer and log our conversation.
You are now chatting with 'Rep1'
Rep1: Hello, pHatidic. Welcome to j2 Global Communication Online Support. I am Gary, your online live Support Representative. How may I assist you?
pHatidic: I would like to cancel my efax account
Rep1: I am sorry to hear that you wish to cancel. Could you please provide me your eFax number and the PIN for verification?
pHatidic: XXX-XXX-XXXX and the PIN is XXXX
Rep1: Thank you for the information. Please give me a moment while I quickly check your account. In the meanwhile, may I ask why you are canceling your fax account?ggrant
pHatidic: I'll be honest I was just helping someone get a free iPod or whatever... I actually did have an efax account a while ago in the early days of efax and it was pretty cool.
What the hell is j2 Global Communication, I thought I signed up for eFax? In any event I decided to be a straight shooter because I'm assuming the guy will be able to figure it out anyway if he isn't completely useless.
Rep1: pHatidic, I have checked your account in our records and have found that you have signed up for the eFax service, wherein the first 30 days there is no monthly fee charged($12.95), plus the one time activation fee of $12.95 has also been waived off.
Rep1: You have also been provided a gift usage balance of $5.00 with which you can send upto 50 pages of fax for free.
Rep1: During this period as you do not have to pay any monthly fee. Receiving faxes as it is free of any charge. You need to contact us once at the end of this period to let us know whether you wish to continue or not. There is certainly no obligation to stay back with the service if you do not wish to.
pHatidic: right, I would wish to cancel the account now though
Rep1: You can contact us back at the end of your trial period.
pHatidic: no that's really ok, I would rather cancel now
Uh oh, looks like I am up shit creek without a paddle. God damn't why didn't I pay attention when they told us what to do when a company was fucking you in school. Well not literally in school, that sort of thing only happens in church. But I digress. So anyway, I decided to drop the 5 B's: Business, Blogging, Bureau, Better, and Blogging.
pHatidic: or else this transcript is going on my blog and i'm calling the better business bureau
Rep1: Alright, I respect your decision and will cancel your account right away.
Rep1: We are sorry that you have decided to leave eFax, but if your faxing needs do change in the future, we would be more than
Rep1: happy to have you back. Thank you for being with us and for using our service.
Rep1: Have a fabulous and prosperous New Year.
Rep1: Thank you for contacting j2 Global's online support, I hope you found our session helpful. Good bye and have a nice day!
pHatidic: thanks, you too
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
pHatidic: Wait do I still get my free $5.00 gift?
So, as you can see, canceling your eFax account is actually quite easy if once you know how to get to the end of the scavenger hunt without having to follow all the stupid clues. Now you know what is involved in getting your free PVP. So, what have we learned here?:

eFax is an unethical company. Firstly, they encourage you to sign up for their service and then cancel, presumably so that they can tell their investors that they have had more sales than they really did.
They then screw the customer by trying to make it impossible to cancel your subscription.
You should sign up for eFax and then cancel (using my referral link of course) just to spite them and show them the true power of the "B" word.
I am still a corporate whore anyway.

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How do I cancel my eFax account? | 12 comments (12 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

LOL YHBT (1.00 / 3) (#1)
by Maggot Overlord on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 08:23:33 PM EST

HAHAH ROR (1.00 / 6) (#2)
by Tex Bigballs on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 08:33:02 PM EST

WHY

EFF

EYE

and if... (none / 0) (#3)
by mdweezer on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 08:34:30 PM EST

...a Mini shows up at your door in the next few days i'm sure you won't mind a bit.

Now it just needs to show up...

Yeah by pHatidic, 01/24/2005 08:41:43 PM EST (none / 0)

haha by mdweezer, 01/24/2005 08:44:26 PM EST (none / 0)

hah by thekubrix, 01/24/2005 11:58:58 PM EST (none / 0)

He wrote me by mdweezer, 01/25/2005 12:10:12 AM EST (none / 0)

haha (none / 0) (#6)
by thekubrix on Mon Jan 24, 2005 at 11:56:54 PM EST

awww,....too bad I didn't save my logs (I did the same with thing to get the mac mini), and the operator on the live chat was weird too. I kept making sure that the account was "canceled" but he kept trying to give me the "option" of keeping the account until the end of the month.....lame. But the account is gone now...

But I sure do enjoy my brand new mac mini!!!

Thanks for this diary (none / 0) (#9)
by Torka on Tue Jan 25, 2005 at 04:48:07 AM EST

I followed the way your log went and got it cancelled...and also had to make the same threats you made to get them to actually do it and not ignore my request. Cunts.

Just to let you know (none / 0) (#10)
by proles on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 03:19:19 PM EST

Specific threats aren't required, I think they follow a script that tells them to push the service twice before they give in. Rather than drop all those "B words", I just said that I've read the terms and that while I know I'm not being charged during the trial period it seems that it's my right to cancel before the trial period ends. The guy responded exactly the way he did with you, that he "respected my decision and would cancel my account right away."

And yes, I am a corporate whore (and how!).
If there is hope, it lies in the proles.

Update: yeah, it's definitely just a # of repeats by proles, 01/28/2005 03:36:10 PM EST (none / 0)

Hey, thanks! (none / 0) (#12)
by neverscore on Thu Aug 17, 2006 at 12:15:01 PM EST

After not finding ANY information on EFax's website on account cancellation, i knew what i was about to get into.

So i decided to arm myself with research from the Internet. Sure enough, found overwhelming criticism about the cancellation process at eFax.

This article, in particular, was very useful. I literally copied and pasted some of your responses into the chat session, like this one:

{Me} cancel my account today or else this transcript is going on my blog and i'm calling the better business bureau

..And it worked!

Full transcript follows:
--------------------------
Welcome to chat.
The session has been accepted.

{Dan B.} Hello, Me. Welcome to j2 Global online support. I am Dan, your online Live Support Representative. How may I assist you today?
{Me} hello dan. I would like to cancel my efax account please.
{Dan B.} I am sorry to hear that you wish to cancel. Could you please provide me with your Fax number and PIN for verification purpose?
{Me} yes.
{Me} 1****
{Me} pin 4***
{Dan B.} Thank you for providing your information. Please give me a moment while I go through your records. In the meantime, please type the number corresponding to your reason for cancellation:

Moving to another provider
Bought a Fax machine
Business or role changed
Short term project completed
Financial reasons
Problems with Faxing or Billing
Dissatisfied with Quality of service
Too Costly

{Me} 8
{Dan B.} I can understand that currently you are finding it expensive to pay the monthly fees.It is always good to have a alternative faxing service to have as you may not know when the need for faxing arise.
In the current scenario, as a special consideration, as gesture of goodwill.Your eFax account will be credited with $25.90 so that you may utilize our services without being billed our monthly fee for the next two billing cycles.
{Dan B.} Hence, you will be able to use our service to its fullest capabilities and re-evaluate it for your faxing needs. During this credit period, you will not be charged any monthly fees.
{Dan B.} You will not be billed any monthly fee for next 2 months.
{Dan B.} If however, you still feel that you do not have any use for our services by the end of the two months credit period, then you can always contact us back anytime.

{Me} thank you for the gesture, but i prefer that you cancel my account today and provide me with the confirmation number.

{Dan B.} I completely understand your wish to discontinue, since you have already paid for the month, I suggest you to retain this number at least till the end of two months credit offer as you will not be charged any monthly fee for the two months.
{Dan B.} During this two months credit period, you can keep this service active and if you use it once in these two months we will be more than happy that we were able to serve you. Trust me there are no hidden traits and you will not be charged any monthly fees for this account during this period. As a good will gesture I would also provide you with an additional gift usage balance of $10.00 with which you can send up to 100 pages of faxes per page per minute within US and Canada for free along with the monthly credit.
{Dan B.} We would be glad if you give us a chance to serve you once in this 2 month period.
{Dan B.} After the completion of 2 months credit period, if you feel that the fax number does not serve your purpose, you can get back to us immediately without any further obligation to stay back. We are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Please feel free to contact us at any time.

{Me} cancel my account today or else this transcript is going on my blog and i'm calling the better business bureau

{Dan B.} All right we respect your decision, I will cancel the account for you now.
{Dan B.} Me, we would appreciate if you could spare a minute in filling the survey form as it would give us your valuable feedback which would help us to improve our services. Here is the link where you can fill the Survey.
http://www.endusersurvey.com/default.asp?project_code=j2cxlc&code=7256

{Me} i will do so after you provide a confirmation number for the canceled account.

{Dan B.} The confirmation number is 1687865.
{Dan B.} We will be sending refund request of $9.70 to our billing department and will be credited to your account within next 30 days.

{Me} Thank you.

{Dan B.} Thank you for contacting j2 Global Online Support, I hope you found our session helpful.
Good-bye and take care!
The user has ended the session.

How do I cancel my eFax account? | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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