When sending an email through eEvidence, it becomes our responsibility to deliver it to the intended recipient. If we cannot fulfill this task, whether this is because the recipient’s address is wrong or the destination email server simply rejects the email or is not available, you will receive an email from us informing you that the email has not been delivered and that the eEvid certificate has not been obtained.

However, errors may occur at multiple places in mail delivery. A sender may sometimes receive a bounce message from the sender’s mail server, and other times from a recipient’s mail server. Bounce-back messages from the recipient’s mail server are required when a mail server accepted a message that was undeliverable; when a server accepts a message for delivery, it is also accepting the responsibility to deliver a Delivery Status Notification (DSN) in the event the delivery fails.

In addition, a sender may also receive bounce messages from the recipient’s mail server for other reasons: for instance, the recipient may have set up an “Out of office” auto reply message, or the recipient’s server may just be confirming email delivery to the recipient’s mailbox or to another mail server.

There’s actually no reliable way to automatically determine the nature of a DSN. This means no computer software can be 100% sure whether a DSN is about a delivery failure message or an out of office message.

The way eEvidence works, we are the ones to receive the DSN messages in the first place. Until now, upon receiving a DSN we assumed it was related to a delivery error and, accordingly, we would send you an email informing you that the eEvid certificate had been cancelled. However, we applied the same procedure to non-error related DSN, which is obviously wrong: an “Out of office” DSN message shouldn’t cancel the eEvid Cert.

The solution

We have improved the way we deal with DSN messages. When we receive a DSN message, we now save a copy of the message and we forward it to you. In addition, we update the eEvid Cert status in our database, indicating there’s a DSN message associated to it. If you ever need us to confirm the eEvid, we will then review the DSN first to make sure it wasn’t error related; if it was, the eEvid will then be invalid.

By forwarding the DSN message to you, you now have the opportunity to take further action. If the DSN message is non-error related, you will probably disregard it; on the contrary, if your email has encountered delivery problems, it will then be up to you to try again, to contact the recipient for a confirmation or to take whatever action you consider necessary.

If you are interested in starting to to communicate with greater guarantees and you are a professional, particular and/or small company, do not hesitate to consult the different rates available and register. If on the other hand, you are a company with high volumes of shipments and needs tailored to your project, please contact us.

Support Team