Findng out how to find the actual date and time a email was sent.

B

b147082

I am in a legal dispute with a con man who is stating that he sent me an
email changing the terms of our contract. He turned in an email to the
arbitrator (altered) that said he sent it to me in Jan 20 2007 changing our
contract terms. This never happened I would never have accepted it. The
arbitrator ruled that he must prove he sent it and I received it. Three
months later he comes in with a read receipt saying I opened it 15 hours
later. Both of these were printed out and no one has seen the actual emails
he is stating he has. I have requested a subpoena to look at his computer to
see these. His ISP is Comcast and he uses outlook. He stated in his reply
that Comcast sent him a read receipt showing I opened this email.

How can I prove these were never sent or the read receipt was sent????
 
G

Galen

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message.

In
I am in a legal dispute with a con man who is stating that he sent me an
email changing the terms of our contract. He turned in an email to the
arbitrator (altered) that said he sent it to me in Jan 20 2007 changing
our
contract terms. This never happened I would never have accepted it. The
arbitrator ruled that he must prove he sent it and I received it. Three
months later he comes in with a read receipt saying I opened it 15 hours
later. Both of these were printed out and no one has seen the actual
emails
he is stating he has. I have requested a subpoena to look at his computer
to
see these. His ISP is Comcast and he uses outlook. He stated in his reply
that Comcast sent him a read receipt showing I opened this email.

How can I prove these were never sent or the read receipt was sent????

You really can't.

However....

The burden of proof lies with them in this case so you probably don't have
anything to worry about. The onus, I am not a lawyer but I did play one in a
play back in high school, is on them to provide accurate
evidence/information if this is any civilized country that you live in. I
should hope that a printed email that they provided personally does not even
constitute evidence. You will need the records from Comcast which any
logical arbitrator will insist on.

If you are in the right then perhaps this is a situation where perjury is
illegal which would most likely help your case out a great deal.

--
Galen

My Geek Site: http://kgiii.info
Web Hosting: http://whathostingshould.be

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It
biases the judgment." - Sherlock Holmes
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

Comcast doesn't do the read receipts - his mail client would have. Comcast
would not provide this to him - they don't keep data like that, except what
the user keeps in the inbox.

Demand he provide the original emails, not printouts.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
(e-mail address removed)

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
(e-mail address removed)

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.
 
G

Galen

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message.

In
Comcast doesn't do the read receipts - his mail client would have. Comcast
would not provide this to him - they don't keep data like that, except
what
the user keeps in the inbox.

Demand he provide the original emails, not printouts.

Hi Diane. I have an additional question or eight billion. I worked for a
company (back when we still used stone tablets for text messages) that was
sued way too often. I do not know if you know or, if you do if you'll be
willing to comment given that this is someone's legal case, but as I recall
that all had to come out (with the original emails and/or ISP logs but this
is Comcast so who knows) during the discovery phase? Additionally, the
Comcast ISP might not have retained that information but how about the
original poster's ISP? Could they still have logs? Comcast is pretty low on
the totem pole right now (has been for a while) so I'd be more likely to
expect them to have kept logs for the NSA as opposed to keeping them for a
consumer but, well...

Anyhow... As you're the Outlook MVP it would seem more likely that you'd
have seen this far more often than I would have so I figured I'd ask.

--
Galen

My Geek Site: http://kgiii.info
Web Hosting: http://whathostingshould.be

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It
biases the judgment." - Sherlock Holmes
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

Unless b147082's email acct is through a corp that has legal requirements
for message archiving, he'll only have the copies he saved in his inbox.
Even if they are required to archive messages, they won't have a message he
says he didn't get. :) Retention policies with ISP's vary, but few keep
smtp logs more than a month. Corps may have a longer policy on logs.

If the con man is like many people here who prefer to archive to the
printer, its going to be a 'he said, she said' deal as there will not be a
message or message header to help prove the case. (The read receipt will
have a header, the sent message obviously will not.)

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
(e-mail address removed)

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
(e-mail address removed)

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.
 
G

Galen

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message.

In
Unless b147082's email acct is through a corp that has legal requirements
for message archiving, he'll only have the copies he saved in his inbox.
Even if they are required to archive messages, they won't have a message
he
says he didn't get. :) Retention policies with ISP's vary, but few keep
smtp logs more than a month. Corps may have a longer policy on logs.

If the con man is like many people here who prefer to archive to the
printer, its going to be a 'he said, she said' deal as there will not be a
message or message header to help prove the case. (The read receipt will
have a header, the sent message obviously will not.)

Thank you. :) We, a hosting company, retain the logs for 90 days. More
accurately we purge anything over 90 days old every ninty days unless a
client asks for something different.

I'd like to *hope* that emails kept in plain paper form without the header
information are not considered ever considered evidence as I could type one
up (even with the header information) in a matter of a few minutes that'd
look accurate.

Thanks again.

--
Galen

My Geek Site: http://kgiii.info
Web Hosting: http://whathostingshould.be

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It
biases the judgment." - Sherlock Holmes
 

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