OFFICE MAX Out of Control Faxing Service Fees! Braintree, Massachusetts

You people are shills for Office Max!  You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

To respond to a couple of the ridiculous points made:

To make the argument that one should have checked the price before hand is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.  Of course you check the price of everything else before you buy it.  It's clearly labeled on the shelf as well as on the item itself.  Many of these stores go out of their way NOT to post the cost of sending a fax.  It's misleading a borderline criminal.

You economically challenged sycophants keep claiming that price gouging is necessary to 'cover costs' making it sound like stores like Office Max are just breaking even.  Ridiculous!  The cost of toner, paper, phone lines, and the machine itself amortized over 10 years turns out to be about 10 cents per page if the machine is getting moderate daily use!  These a-holes are charging up to 1.40 per page.  14 FREAKING TIMES THAT!

My advice to OfficeMax (and Office Depot and Staples):  Faxing is not a cornerstone of your business.  I would venture a guess that it accounts for far less than one tenth of one percent of your business.  Why risk the (very) ill will that you place upon yourself when you charge $25.00 to send a 15 page fax?  Charge 20 cents per page.  That's a 200% profit!  And you're not really cutting into your bottom line.  I for one, am going to heed the OPs advice and boycott OfficeMax.  I'll get my office supplies online until they get their act straight.

I send faxes at Office Max often and am also a little concerned about the high price. However, I KNOW how much it costs and choose to use the service they provide.  At my store there is a sign on the box of blank cover sheets that clearly states the charges per page:  $1.25 local, $1.75 long distance and 99 cents to receive a fax.  If I am sending more than 4 pages the very nice lady sending the fax usually tells me about how much it will cost before sending so that I don't freak out with stickershock. 

I guess that's been a problem before.  I quit having a landline in my office 3 years ago as it was costing $80/mo.  The carbon film for my fax machine was about $40/roll and I was constantly getting 'junk' faxes that wasted the film.  e-Fax costs $17/month for the priviledge of sending faxes from your computer (it's free to receive them) and to do that you have to scan all the pages into a digital file.  It's a lot of trouble.  It's a waste of money if you don't use it often.  Sending faxes at Office Max saves me a ton of money!!  Really.

If you have the option of emailing the document they can scan your pages for $.25 each and email them for you for an additional charge, I think it's $1 or so.  That would have only been about $4.

My two cents: ASK how much something will cost before you get to the point of having to pay for it.  ask about alternatives.  You always have the option of walking away.

It's not a rip-off if you are an informed consumer.

I have been working at OfficeMax for about two months now, and would like to inform you that although many items in the store are ridiculously priced, I would like to say that our faxing service is completely reasonable.

Please. Consider this.

Scenario A:

You drive to OfficeMax, spending no more than a couple bucks in gas at most and precious time.
You arrive at OfficeMax, and choose to either
-ask an associate about faxing rates, or,
-head over to the fax machine, send your fax, wait 5-10 minutes for your confirmation page, walk to the register, and spend your ~$16 or so for your once-a-month faxing job.
You drive home, spending a couple more bucks and some more time driving home.

Scenario B: 

You drive to OfficeMax, spending no more than a couple bucks in gas at most and precious time.
You arrive at OfficeMax and choose to ask an associate about faxing rates, and find them ludicrous.
You pay ~$150 for a fax machine, set up a phone line for your fax machine at home at ~$50 a month, or maybe even buy a printer, paper and ink at varying prices to print the document that requires faxing.

You decided to choose neither of these scenarios. You walked in to OfficeMax and expected to walk out paying $.50 to send nine pages worth in a long distance fax. You failed to ask a friendly associate what our rates are, and decided to disrespect your cashier because you are ignorant of what the word "overhead" means. 

You are absolutely ridiculous.

Try going to another store like Office Depot and tell us how much they will ask you to spend if you wanted to send a 9-page long distance document.

I'm sorry but you were NOT ripped off.  Our fax machines are not USED, i guarantee you the one at my store is a 175 dollar model, because the last one broke, we pulled a new one off the shelf.  $1.75  is the standard long distance faxing fee.  that cost has been in place for three years, and it is in place to cover bills and supplies.  THey should have informed you before you sent it, and i apologize, but in the end, you should have asked.

When you go into a store do you normally buy an item without reading the price tag first?  Do you stand in line behind 12 others at Wal-Mart for 35 minutes, then have a Hissy Fit once you get up to the register?  Common sense would be to find out the price first of what you're buying.

If you ask the employee, they will tell you the price.  You have the option of purchasing the fax service or not purchasing it.  If you're sending more than one page and can't do the math in your head, they have calculators and will probably tell you the total cost beforehand.

At our local Office Max store the cost is .75 to receive a fax, $1.25 for local and $1.75 for long distance.  That's PER PAGE and they don't charge you for the cover sheet.  Also, if you're using their fax service, most employees will help you immediately rather than making you wait your turn behind someone else who's buying 15 minutes of copies. 

Large companies with more than one phone line must have astronomical monthly phone bills.  I own a small business and currently pay AT&T about $135.00 each month for the 'luxury' of my 1 landline.  I pay a lot more for a business line than I would for a residential line.  Still I am one person using the phone and with the economy as it is I can tell you that's fewer than 10 phone calls each day and maybe only 1 or 2 faxes each week.

The cost of the fax machine isn't the issue, nor the ink/toner/paper/ The cost is in the telephone service, employee pay, electricity, insurance, computers/Point of Sale cash registers, etc.  Operating a store of that size is costly.  It's called overhead.
Would you rather spend less than $17 or do this at home for $50/mo.?
That's a no-brainer.

My best friend works at Office Max and I can tell you that many people opt to send and receive faxes there because it's WAY less expensive than the cost of a fax machine AND the monthly telephone bills you'd get.
Faxing at Office Max is a great alternative for people who choose to only have a cell phone.  The other companies who offer fax service charge about the same price.
Also, the employees do not have the ability to negotiate prices with you.  If it has a price tag or bar code to scan, the price is in the corporate computer system.  They can't charge you less than the cost; can't change the cost in the register.  Someone would get fired for ringing you up for only 4 of your 9 pages just to save you money and make you happy.  No employee of any store, in their right mind, would risk that.

You were NOT RIPPED OFF - just an unaware consumer.  Check the prices first, them make your own good decisions BEFORE you buy something.