How to prove no email was sent from a certain email address

Paid through paypal for a service where the payee sends an email to me. No email was ever received. When I raised the paypal dispute, the payee claimed they had sent the email to me.

I know who their ISP is from an older email from them. Can the ISP confirm or deny that an email was sent from them to my email in the period given?

 

If their mail server was used for mail to be sent, they probably could confirm it. Though I don't know how you will persuade them that they actually do this without warrant.

 

You can ask your ISP for confirmation if the e-mail was received by them. Also note that most ISP's scan incoming e-mail for malware. If same is found, the e-mail is deleted and not forwarded to you. How they handle this activity has always been a mystery to me; especially if a notification by the ISP is sent to you that the e-mail was deleted.

 

Email is unreliable. Any system that assumes otherwise is broken.

 

As a kind of basic check, you've checked spam folders, yes? Does your ISP have any filtering going on?

You only have a contractual relationship with your ISP, and short of a court order, your correspondent's ISP/mail provider would be negligent in their duties if they revealed anything to you.

 

Indeed, just outlook for example, I have tried to use it twice but stopped, because it kept loosing emails.

 

I always check the spam folders in the webmail version of yahoo periodically, which is where my email account is.

if it had been sent indeed, wouldn't smtp have reported failure propagating the notification over several servers back to the sender?

 

Is the $300 stolen enough to start a police investigation? If not, how much does it take for police to intervene in future disputes?

 

Police won't be interested.
You and the other party made an agreement where you give him money, he gives you goods.
He says he gave you the goods you say he didn't.
Your word against his until you get a written confirmation from your email provider that no email from him was received.
Once you got that you go see a lawyer and get him to threaten a lawsuit unless he gives you what you paid for.

Edit: I just read your post again, you used PayPal, write an email to them explaining. They can intervene and take your money back from his PayPal account if they want to. You probably still need that letter from your email provider confirming no email was received to show it to PayPal but don't wait, make the initial complaint to PayPal now.

 

My email provider is yahoo. Am I not better off demanding from the payee a letter from their isp that an email was sent? Is there is a law in the US like there is in England that forces isp's to keep logs of email addresses?

 

You can demand anything you want but you'll soon find out how far that gets you.

 

I mean ask and if they deny then use that as proof that there is no email and paypal gives me my money back. But they can say "isp does not keep logs", so better ask isp first, if they comply with laws about data retention. But do such laws exist federally or in Illinois?

 

You're missing the point entirely.
The ISP probably does keep logs about its customers activity but they also have legal obligations and contracts with those customers. Who each customer sends or doesn't send emails to is personal and private information and the ISP is not going to give that information to every random individual who wants to know about the activity of one of its customers. If they did, that customer could probably sue them. The ISP will refuse to give you any such information without a court order.

 

Totally agree with you @RockLobster Nothing is going to happen without a court order.

 

You did not understand, the ISP's customer is not a random individual and it will be the customer's request that evidence is given to paypal to protect the customer.

Except the customer is a corporate psychopath with no quelms about stealing from people when no further business is expected from a victim because of the nature of the service so they will refuse to provide this evidence through their ISP to defend themselves because there is no evidence. Paypal then morally has to give me my money back and do what they do with crooks. If they do not, I will not use them again and use disposable prepaid cards instead.

 

Any ideas how to find out the applicable law about data retention before emailing the ISP? I would not ask anything from them, just how long records are kept. As if I was a potential customer.

 

Oopsa. I do not have the ISP's details. The emails are sent from a dedicated server hosting 4 sites of the same owner. Traceroute shows the last server before the crook's is this:

... .ip.secureserver.net,

which belongs to GoDaddy. Do I email GoDaddy? What data retention laws apply to GoDaddy in this role? GoDaddy is also the domain registrar.

 

No legitimate business is going to give out information of any kind about one of its customers without a court order.
If they did, that customer could sue them for doing so.
That's just how it is.

 

The customer would ask them to release the information and then sue them for releasing it. You know it makes sense.

 

You are making no sense. Read what you said in your first posts again when you said someone who was supposed to send you an email did not do so and you wanted THEIR isp to tell YOU whether they sent it or not.
If the isp did that, THEIR customer could sue THEM for telling you information about their account activity.

 

I read "Can the ISP confirm or deny that an email was sent from them to my email in the period given?". It does not say who to confirm to (not me). It does not say who would ask them to confirm (not me). It is about the technical ability of the ISP to confirm, ie whether the logs exist.

 

It depends on data retention rules. However, @RockLobster is right. Even if the ISP has kept the logs and they are able to retrieve such information, they are not going to release them without a valid court order.

If your inquiry is solely centered on whether the logs exist, that I cannot answer. You are probably better off trying to resolve the issue via PayPal.

 

Why does everyone here feel compelled to chime in with that ill-mannered lobster no matter how bad his reading comprehension and manners are.

Tony, which law do you think bans you from asking for your own logs to be given to someone?

EDIT: where that someone is paypal.

 

I don't think you understand. It's the other person's logs you need, not your logs

 

The other person is to ask for their logs to be sent to paypal. What's the matter with you guys.