Missing Emails

I recently applied for a job. I submitted my application by email. The prospective employer claims they've never received my application. I don't believe them but as regards this thread that's besides the point. I use a webmail service. In the past I've received messages from the service to say that emails couldn't be delivered. I've received no such message regarding this job application. I've several questions.

1) I have no doubt some emails go "missing" but how common do you think that is and how more common do people claim it as an excuse?

2) Is it possible to trace an email and discover if it was delivered?

 

It is possible to trace emails but only if you have configured an option(s) when the email left to have each "hop" along the way reply to say it has received it. There is no other way that I know of of tracing emails after the fact unless you have access to the logs of each "hop" along the route.

Emails that "disappear" account for about 16% of emails in the US and 11% in the EU. There are more on top of this that are not delivered but in these extra cases a notification of failure is sent.

 

Thank you for the information. I thought that they wouldn't be traceable. If they were easy to trace then people would probably be less likely to use it as an excuse. Obviously, some emails don't make it to their destination.

Out of interest, where did you get the statistics from?

 

I had a quick google for "emails never arrive percentage" and the first link was this article:

http://www.helium.com/items/2151675-why-some-emails-never-arrive

Which was written last year based on a 2009 report.

 

Or it got stuck in their spam firewall. Happens time to time with us with are barracuda spam firewall appliance.