Am I being spun a line ?

Lee_Francis

I am having issues with a service provider.
The background . . .
I have set outlook to always send me a read receipt.
Most of the time when I email them I get a read receipt that says (deleted personal details)
"Your message

To: xxxxx.co.uk
Cc:
Subject: Re: [Norton AntiSpam] Your enquiry to xxxxx ref xxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 06:31:15 -0000

was deleted without being read on Wed, 1 Nov 2006 08:02:41 -0000"

and when in my opinion they have actually opened one of my emails, I get a read receipt (deleted personal details)

"Your message

To: xxxxx.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Norton AntiSpam] Your enquiry to xxxxx ref xxxxxx
Sent: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 07:31:15 +0100

was read on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 07:31:41 +0100"

So, after chasing them on the phone, getting nowhere and then moving up the chain, I got an email reply quote, snip . . .

"....When the emails are received they are transferred directly into AutoCef (this is a type of standard electronic customer enquiry form) and deleted from the email server. If a customer has requested a read receipt this will show as being ‘deleted without being read’.

further waffle. . .
"Obviously your issues were not resolved, which is why you had emailed in again, so I can only apologise for this. We’re revamping the whole website with proper xxxxxxx xxx branding later this year, and this will include a much more robust email customer interface. Seriously, we want to get our Customer Service up to scratch and we admit that we haven’t given the best service at all, so please bear with us whilst we improve things. Use me as a direct contact in the future, and I’ll try and manage your expectations."

My question:

Are my emails deleted without being read or not ?
In my opinion deleted without being read means exactly that.

Can you experts out there give me your advice and opinion ?

Many thanks

Lee

JonnyThunder

Lee, if your email is being processed by ANY (even partially) automated service - it may not return your read receipt. What they are saying is entirely possible.

Lee_Francis

Thanks for your reply.

I always get a read receipt - it's either of the two I quoted.
What I want to know is whether the one that says deleted unread is actually deleted unread ?

Thanks JonnyThunder

JonnyThunder

No, i'd say that the receipt doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. If it's being handled by an automated (or partially automated) service then the return receipt is going to depend on how they have designed their end of the system. And if it were me writing the software, I probably wouldn't be too concerned about replying to receipt queries.

So what they are saying is possible. But it's hard to say with 100% conviction whether its true or not.

If you're not getting through to them fast enough, do what I do. Send an email once a day until you do get a response. That usually works! :rotfl:

Lee_Francis

Thanks again JonnyThunder

I've done everything with this pile of old **** utility company and want to take them to the regulator.
I have been assured by them that they NEVER delete emails unread.
The quote in my original post is from a director.

I just wanted to be as sure as I can, that technically I am right in thinking that when a read receipt says deleted unread, it's exactly what it says on the tin.

Many thanks
( if I can be sure that I have a case, will post th outcome on the utilities board. )

pistonbroke

Also worthwhile to note, is that some, if not most Company Email systems stop the receipts as they create a lot of traffic....

Omertron

With MS Outlook, if the email is in the preview pane it will not automatically be marked as read and therefore trigger the read receipt. So it is possible for the user to read the email, copy the details to another system and then delete the email as being processed. This will return to you a read receipt saying that it was deleted without being read, when in fact it has been read. I suspect other email systems may do the same.

If the user opens the email or navigates off the email, outlooks default behaviour is to mark it as read and send you the "this email was read..." message.

Hope that helps :-)

Moneymaker

What happens if the recipient is not using MS Outlook? Presumably you won't get a "read" receipt because email reader isn't capable of providing one. Only Outlook can do that. My email reader (Apple Mail) certainly won't send any sort of receipt whatsoever.

ManAtHome

I have Outlook set up to prompt me for read receipts - clicking the "No" button doesn't send one...

And as PistonBroke (lol - old ones are best ones) said, company systems are often set up to refuse read receipts.

kev1n3

I have Outlook set up to prompt me for read receipts - clicking the "No" button doesn't send one...

i've been looking for that feature for about 3 weeks..

what tab is it under in outlook?

thanks.

kev

ManAtHome

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