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Cupid Stunt wrote:

> I have a question for all of you "brains" out there.
>
> I sent an e-mail before midnight to a government agency, and they are saying
> now that I'm not eligible for my unemployment benefits because I filled the
> appeal 2 MINUTES late!
>
> My clocks at home said I sent it 5 minutes before midnight, but the "time
> stamp" on my e-mail indicates that it was 2 minutes late.
>
> How does the time/date feature work? Does it "stamp" the time from my
> computer, my internet provider, or the end recipient?
>
> Does anyone know of any link to this information that I can print for my
> appeal? I found a link and when I tried to print, it was 112 pages long.
> Anything a little more simple for an attorney? I still need to make my
> point, but 112 pages is *way* too long.
>
> Thanks for any help!

The Date header shows the date on your computer. Unless you are using a
time synchronization utility to keep your computer up to date with a 2nd or
3rd tier atomic clock service (both the software and services are free), the
time on computer could be wrong plus "your clocks at home" could be way off.

The Date header is created when you compose your e-mail. It could be
several minutes, hours, or days after you start composing your e-mail before
you actually get around to sending it. The recipient isn't interested in
when you began composing your e-mail but only when you actually sent it
(actually when they get it). If you compose an e-mail but don't send it but
instead leave it in your Drafts folder for days, that you sent it days later
will show the Date field as days earlier for when you created the e-mail.

Once your e-mail client transmits your e-mail to your sending mail server,
you no longer have any control over it. As to when the mail server actually
sends your e-mail is their choice, not yours. It can be many minutes later
later when the mail server sends on your e-mail. I've seen e-mail services
that batch up e-mails for an hour before sending them out all at once. Who
knows what routing goes on at the recipient's end. Plus it is unlikely that
some gov't joker was anxiously awaiting the arrival of your e-mail at
midnight. They wouldn't see your e-mail until they came in on the morning
and many hours after you sent your e-mail. They would be qualifying the
delivery of notices (e-mails or letters) on the business day they received
them, not while they were out and couldn't take any action on those
one-sided communications.

You need to look at the Received header. Each mail host that is involved in
the delivery of your e-mail will prepend a Received header which usually
contains a datestamp (those added for internal routing might not show a
datestamp but the boundary mail servers at a domain will have them). The
recipient is the only one that can see those, so make yourself a recipient
if you want to check the datestamps put into the Received headers in the
received e-mail. Of course, when Bcc'ing yourself an e-mail, you'll only
see the Received headers from your own sending and receiving mail hosts, not
the receiving mail host for the actual recipient. Also, when Bcc'ing
yourself a copy, send it to an e-mail service at a different domain to avoid
internal routing from and to your account which might not have the Received
headers.

There is no guaranteed delivery to e-mail. There is no guarantee as to the
time of delivery. There is no guarantee of immediacy with e-mail. That's
not how the e-mail protocols were designed. They were designed to be an
electronic equivalent of you sending postal mail. Both incur delays and
both involve one-sided communications to which the recipient may or may not
react or even receive.

If you wanted the gov't department to record your notice on a particular
business day (obviously during on-hours and NOT after-hours when no one is
there to answer), phone in during that business day. Make sure the purpose
is clear and that you get the name and possible an employee or ID number to
whomever you speak. Also have them send you an e-mail or postal mail
confirming your conversation. Gov't employees shift around or leave so
later trying to convince another worker that a previous worker gave you
permission without any paper trail usually fails and you lose.