Proving a government department has lied...
Discussion
To keep things brief a government department says they sent me a very important email on the 1st July, when infact they sent it on the 12th, the resultant issues by the delay have caused huge/expensive problems for me.
My MP took up the case requested the said department investigate and all they've done is come back to him saying "the email was sent on the 1st" - no screenshots, print outs or anything, whereas on my side we have all screenshots etc. It's not even like it's snail mail. What can my next step be, Freedom of Information Act?
My MP took up the case requested the said department investigate and all they've done is come back to him saying "the email was sent on the 1st" - no screenshots, print outs or anything, whereas on my side we have all screenshots etc. It's not even like it's snail mail. What can my next step be, Freedom of Information Act?
Ask your ISP (or whoever owns the email smtp server for the address is question) for maillogs from the 1st directed to your email address. This should show if there was an attempt to the email address in question from specific email servers. Also ask for logs on the 12th.
It's possible they fudged your email address on the 1st, didn't notice then corrected it when someone finally saw the server response saying email address not recognised. The logs will show this.
ETA. It's also possible you silently dropped it at your end for many reasons. Suggest a: don't rely on email unless you follow it up with confirmation, and b: be sure you have your facts straight before wading in.
It's possible they fudged your email address on the 1st, didn't notice then corrected it when someone finally saw the server response saying email address not recognised. The logs will show this.
ETA. It's also possible you silently dropped it at your end for many reasons. Suggest a: don't rely on email unless you follow it up with confirmation, and b: be sure you have your facts straight before wading in.
Edited by contractor on Friday 17th October 08:52
Breadvan72 said:
I suggest that you invest in a bottle of green ink.
Should I order a tin hat at the same time? Amazon will probably do combined shipping.contractor said:
Ask your ISP (or whoever owns the email smtp server for the address is question) for maillogs from the 1st directed to your email address. This should show if there was an attempt to the email address in question from specific email servers. Also ask for logs on the 12th.
It's possible they fudged your email address on the 1st, didn't notice then corrected it when someone finally saw the server response saying email address not recognised. The logs will show this.
Thanks for this. It was sent to a Yahoo account so not sure how accessible they are, but I'll certainly look into it.It's possible they fudged your email address on the 1st, didn't notice then corrected it when someone finally saw the server response saying email address not recognised. The logs will show this.
Petrus1983 said:
Thanks for this. It was sent to a Yahoo account so not sure how accessible they are, but I'll certainly look into it.
You can get similar from the Govt. dept, but you'll need a Subject Access Request rather than FOI. You'll need smtp send logs for your email address for the dates in question.http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public/personal_informat...
Petrus1983 said:
Thanks Marshella - I've just Googled 'how to interpret a Yahoo header' and some interesting things have come up - I'll see if it can help. I have another meeting with the MP next week so will hopefully have more information by then.
If you want a professional opinion on the headers, feel free to send me a copy. I'm killing time waiting for some missing bits of a case file to arrive so would welcome something useful to do.
mind boggling what an email can reveal!
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