It’s nice to know that the email you sent has been received and that it has, subsequently, been opened – especially if you suspect the recipient is telling you porkies and that they never received it. To receive this information you simply set your email account up to request a return receipt and, providing return receipts haven’t been disabled on the recipient’s email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) or mail server, you will be notified when the message arrives and when it has been opened.

There is, however, a downside to allowing your email client, or server, to send return receipts. Way back in time everyone used catchall email addresses to ensure they received emails that contained incorrectly spelt email addresses. But spammers took advantage of this and the practise is now all but dead – read our article on why you shouldn’t use catchall email addresses for more details.

With the spammers deprived of being able to spam businesses by relying on the catchall email address being in place they started phishing for valid email addresses, relying on the return receipt instead. What they do now is still send emails to possible recipients (david@test.com, jane@test.com, gloria@test.com) at a domain in their hundreds, but they also request a return receipt. They then wait for the notification to be sent back to them that the email has been delivered and that’s it, they know the email address is valid and they can start sending spam ad infinitum.

So, by allowing your email client, or server, to return receipts to the senders you’re making it easy for spammers to obtain valid email addresses and rain down on you all the filfth and pointless rubbish they can muster.

dynanti web design clients simply need to contact us and we’ll set up forwarding email accounts for them free of charge.