JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum eMail question needs urgent answer

Hi this is a weird one but very important to me as it is regarding a contract I need. I need some tech info re emails. Can an email with a typo in the recipients address still be received? For example will an email sent to for example johndoe@largeco.org still find its way to the largeco.org if the johndo part is wrongly spelled.

I had to send some important legal documents to a large organisation by a certain deadline. My lawyer sent them on my behalf by email. I would point out that it was not in the best interests of the organisation to receive them by the deadline but will not go into the reasons why. Now the organisation claim they did not receive them when I contacted them regarding the matter. However after a search they got back to me claiming the email was eventually found but was wrongly addressed. They say that the domain name was correct but not the recipients and so it found its way into their system but was not allocated to the correct person dealing with me. After all this toing and froing the deadline has been missed. This all happened over the festive period when many business were on holiday so there was no way of me or my lawyer contacting them till after the deadline. Is it theoretically possible that a wrongly addressed email could still be received by the org say in some sort of orphan file system for incorrectly addressed emails. The name of the person who was supposed to get this email had a very unusual name with a weird spelling looking unpronounceable so it is unlikely that it would go to someone in the organisation with a similar name. Do large organisations have a default box where orphaned emails go? I thought that any email address containing a typo would be bounced back.
I will of course be contacting my lawyer to fid out exactly what address the email was sent to and why he did not ask for a confirmation that they had received the docs.....but I want to know if the organisation are trying to pull the wool first. Either my legal rep has made a bad mistake or the large org is telling me lies. I need to know which is more likely.

No. A misspelled address will not receive an email.

Thanks Meg but I have just found out from Google that some large domains have a catchall mailbox which accepts and stores orphan emails sent to non existent or redundant addresses at that domain. So it looks like it is possible.......Now it seems like my lawyer screwed up. Even I would have double checked an email for typos before sending it and asking for a confirmation of receipt is fundamental. So the question is.......what action can I take for compensation against a lawyer who's mistake cost me?

Get another lawyer and sue your lawyer?

I don't know.

It may be a stlly question.. but was the company or the individual needing to receive the documents... They have admitted their company have received the documents before the cut off date... It may be a mute point however I'd explore what the deadline notice says.... ie must be received by persons name by due date... or must be received by due date....

It may be very worthwhile to look into. Most mail systems will bounce wrongly addressed mail, automatically notifying the sender of the failed receipt... this company (may) have a mail system that catches eveything (if not they are lying)... so there for have received the mail you sent by the due date.... they need to...may by court action be forced to accept the mail was received... wether or not it was addressed correctly. It arrived and is registered in their system.

Cheers

I have no actual answer for you Jim, but I know when I send out a query blast to production companies(around 500 or so) I get at least 100 returned as failure to deliver, and I always assume that those are for e-mail addresses that are no longer valid. But some companies may indeed have a catch all box if the @... part is right.

Have you tried sending another email with the name spelled slightly wrong to see if it bounces back?

Hoping for the best!

Midnite

Thanks for the reply guys. Without going into the exact nature of why I needed to send the docs..... they had to be there by a certain deadline otherwise events took over I lost out and someone else benefitted. I can not sue the org nor have any redress with them as it was up to me to ensure the docs were sent and received by them before deadline. I put it in the hands of my lawyer as it is a legal requirement in cases like this to insure that nothing can go wrong and everything is done legally, safely and efficiently.......boy did I get that part wrong. My little faith in lawyers has now completely disappeared. I will contact my lawyer and find out exactly what address the email was sent to and ask how they made schoolboy errors....got the address wrong and why confirmation of delivery was not asked for. One thing for sure the email did not bounce back as the company did get it albeit too late. They verified some of the contents. Sadly in this country certain transactions and dealings have to by law be done through a lawyer.....an easy way for them to make money and a further cog in the wheel that can screw up.

Luckily all e-mails have a time signature. If they do have a batch file system then the email sent will have a time recieved date. Your lawyer will also have a timestamp on the message as to when it was sent.

The easiest solution would be to have your lawyer ask the company to send him a copy of the message source code. That will show the message and time it was received into their system.

I had an issue with Bell-South a few years ago and as soon as I went techy on them they all of a sudden found files they said they didn't have or couldn't find. Do big companies lie??? Hell yes.

In the past if I sent an E-Mail that was not received by the recipient it would come back to my inbox. I believe that is still the case.

Ray thanks for answering. That is the case with most wrongly addressed emails they get bounced back.....however some large companies have a system to prevent bouncebacks and wrongly addressed emails where the domain is correct stil get received and are put in a catch all mailbox. This was the case in this instant.
Thanks Sue but me proving they did receive the email is a moot point and cannot change events that happened after the deadline passed. It is a bit like say, bidding for something, and the bid is not received prior to auction so the item gets sold....not much can be done afterwards. It is NOT up to the auctioneer to prove he did not get the bid it is up to the bidder to make sure it is received and acted upon.
As for lawyers...they suck...and are grossly overpaid for sucking.

The email makes it to the domain in question where that domain determines if the addressee exists within that domain. So yes, the email made it to largeco.org on time, but didn't get delivered as needed.

If an e-mail could not be delivered it will be returned to you. If, however, a company has its own domain, chances are any e-mail addressed to “insert name here @ blablabla.com” will fall into the cache box. I have e-mail set up at hostbaby.com for my website Bad Betsy and my neighborhood. I just sent an e-mail to “bigjimmerriless@brookshireweb.net. Obviously you don’t live in my neighborhood, but the e-mail did get delivered into the cache box. I would bet most of those boxes get routinely cleaned without reading any of the content.

Here’s your e-mail!: Return-Path: <Iggytaylor@aol.com>
X-Original-[size:17pt]To: bigjimmerrillees@brookshireweb.com
Delivered-To: brookshire@brookshireweb.com
Received: from d2.hostbaby.com (d2.hostbaby.com [10.1.1.102])
by d1.hostbaby.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D4BB17001A
for <bigjimmerrillees@brookshireweb.com>;
[/size]

Thanks guys.........Just wait till I see my lawyer !!!!!!!
I hope he has a good lawyer to defend him.

Big Jim, That lawyer may need a good prizefighter, not another lawyer, to defend him.

Dan you are so wrong....I learned a lesson from watching Clint Eastwood in "every which way but loose". When cornered by the Hells Angels gang they, after receiving so much grief from him, said now you are going to be really sorry and he said I suppose you are going to beat me up...... Hell no said a biker we are going to sue your ass.

Update

The email was indeed sent to the correct address. My lawyer has shown me a copy. So now I can prove that the org did indeed lie....for whatever reason. My lawyer will be suing their ass. Not confident he will get anywhere though.

Well... not a big surprise Jim... pleading ignorance or that something wasn't received is always the final scam of loser. I am going through something similar as we speak.

And yes, nearly ALL corporations have a catch all box where all emails to their domains go. Now they may never read them or even check them, unless of course it is in THEIR best interest to do so. Also, people can claim they never got something even when it is properly addressed and sent on time and in some cases, they can be right. AOL loses emails all the time. I know because often people copy multiple people and I never see it but the others get it and forward to me. A certified letter should be used still today for anything truly time sensitive and important. It's the only sure way to prove receipt.

Brian

A certified letter with return receipt requested gives the sender a signed receipt showing the letter was received.

You can also purchase delivery confirmation, which gives you a printout of a digital scan showing when the letter was delivered to the addressee.

The signed receipt is better evidence that it was received. Delivery confirmation only shows it was delivered.

You can get delivery confirmation with email as well. There are several ways to go about it.
You can send a receipt request but that relies on the receiver to acknowledge it and their system may not recognize the request.
Another, probably better way, is to send it with a delivery status notification which is a request to the recipient's email server to send you a notification about the delivery of an email you've just sent.That's set up in your email account settings, not when you send the email.Your email is probably already set up to always make the request but only when an email is bounced. That aspect can be changed to alert you with correct deliveries, delays & etc.

Thunderbird has, in the Options menu, check boxes for Return Receipt and Delivery Status Notification which would override the default account settings.

Then, you can insert a include a tiny transparent image (tracking bug or web beacon) in your email body. When your email contact reads the email message, his/her email program will attempt to download the nested image. The confirmation can then be checked as long as you have access to the particular email server. That would mean you'd have to use your own website email system such as joe@joeblow.com. For online email such as outlook, inbox & etc you'd likely have to use a third party tracking program.

Of course, every important email should be CC'd or BCC'd back to yourself. For something as important as what Jim had sent out I would have CC'd myself and anyone else involved so the receiver would know and that would, in most cases, move them to open and read the email.

Thanks all....New developments....The organisation also claim they never received the hard copy my lawyer sent them as backup....what a surprise......even stranger it was sent recorded delivery and the Royal Mail have a signature for it....from the exact person in the org to whom it was sent and it was date stamped well before the deadline.
Give my lawyer her due she threatened them with legal action and they replied immediately promising an out of court settlement for all losses, full fees and out of pocket expenses etc. They also as a goodwill gesture offered to honour the contract despie claiming it had been giving to someone else.
I hope that next year when I exchange contracts again the same thing happens......LOL
For info it is a EU contract performing with a chain of Hotels in Spain and Portugal......it was negotiated by my agent who used a very good fixed exchange rate built in.....he is a whiz with contracts. It also contains all sorts of things like minimum amount of bookings per year and accommodation, board, hospitality, etc they do not want to honour as they can NOW get acts cheaper and with less conditions on new contracts.....I have four more years to go......it can only be cancelled by mutual consent. Shame the lengths that some people will go to to welch on a deal. I have no problem with the Hotels and the entertainment staff I meet.... they are great......it is the decision making folk at the top who annoy me. That seems to be the same with everything in this business.

Go get them Jim,get every cent you can out of them.Maybe the next time they will think twice before trying to screw the little guy.(well in your case, the big guy.LOL)