Sending an e-mail to the "Sent" folder (Bcc to yourself). Email correspondence as evidence Please send a copy of the letter to yourself by email

Often, due to work or personal matters, we are faced with the fact that we are asked to send a document by email. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how and can do this. It is for such people that we will describe the entire sending process in detail.

First of all, it should be noted that not all files are convenient to send via email. Typically, this depends on the size of the file in megabytes. Send only small files no larger than 20 MB. Large files can also be sent, but it will take much longer, and the recipient will receive not the file itself, but a link to download it from the mail agent servers. The number of files you can send is not limited, but the more files you have, the longer they will take to download. That is why it is advisable to make an archive of files using WinRar (archiver). In this case, only one archive file with all the necessary data will be created for sending.

How to send a document by email? Regardless of your email service (Yandex, Mail, Rambler, etc.), sending documentation via email goes like this:

1. To begin, click on the "Write a letter" button. You can also use the "Reply" button if you want to continue correspondence on the same topic. To do this, in the “Inbox” folder, you look for a letter from the person you want, open it and select the “Reply” function.
2. If you are writing a new letter (using "Write a letter") you need to specify the addressee. In the very top line, which is called "To", you need to enter the e-mail of the interlocutor by type " [email protected]".
3. Go to the bottom line called “Email Subject”. For convenience, indicate a brief wording, for example, “Documents for verification” or something like that, so that your recipient can immediately understand the content of your message.
4. Just below you will see a large free field where you can write the text of the letter. In this case, business ethics prescribes to greet the recipient and inform that the documents are in the attached files.
5. Well, now the most important thing. Find the "Attach File" button. It can be either above the dialog box (in which we wrote the greeting), or below it. Clicking this will open your computer's File Explorer. Select the required files and click "Ok". To make sure that all files have downloaded, pay attention to the download bar for each of them. When it disappears and information about the size of the file appears (in kb or mb), this will mean that you have attached all the necessary files and the letter can be sent.
6. The files are attached and the letter is generated. Now you can send it to the recipient by clicking on the "Send" button.

Today, courts often accept electronic correspondence as written evidence. However, to do this, it must have legal force. Meanwhile, clear and uniform rules and methods for determining the legitimacy of virtual correspondence have not yet been developed, which leads to a large number of problems.

Let's look at several ways to give emails legal force.

Long gone are the days when the only means of communication were letters written on paper. The development of economic relations between economic entities is no longer conceivable without the use of information technology. This is especially true when counterparties are located in different cities or even countries.

Communication via electronic communication helps reduce material costs, and also allows you to quickly develop a common position on specific issues.

However, such progress should not be viewed only on the positive side. Various disputes often arise between subjects of economic relations; to resolve them, they turn to the courts. The court makes a decision based on an assessment of the evidence provided by the parties.

At the same time, the relevance, admissibility, reliability of each evidence separately, as well as the sufficiency and interconnection of the evidence in their totality are analyzed. This rule is enshrined both in the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (clause 2 of Article 71) and in the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation (clause 3 of Article 67). In the process of determining the admissibility and reliability of the evidence provided, the court often asks questions, the solution of which significantly affects the outcome of the case.

The use of electronic document management in relations between business entities is regulated by the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In particular, in paragraph 2 of Art. 434 states: an agreement in writing can be concluded by exchanging documents via electronic communication, which makes it possible to reliably establish that the document comes from a party to the agreement.

In accordance with paragraph 1 of Art. 71 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation and paragraph 1 of Art. 75 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, written evidence is business correspondence containing information about circumstances relevant to the consideration and resolution of the case, made in the form of a digital record and received via electronic communication.

To use electronic documents in legal proceedings, two conditions must be met. Firstly, as already indicated, they must have legal force. Secondly, the document must be readable, that is, it must contain information that is generally understandable and accessible to perception.

This requirement follows from the general rules of legal proceedings, which presuppose the immediacy of judges’ perception of information from sources of evidence.

Often, the court refuses to admit as evidence to the case materials electronic correspondence that does not meet the above conditions, and subsequently makes a decision that does not satisfy the legal requirements of the interested party.

Let's consider the main ways to legitimize electronic correspondence before and after the start of proceedings.

Working with a notary

If the proceedings have not yet begun, then to give electronic correspondence legal force, you need to involve a notary. In paragraph 1 of Art. 102 of the Fundamentals of Legislation on Notaries (Fundamentals) states that, at the request of interested parties, a notary provides evidence necessary in court or an administrative body if there are reasons to believe that the provision of evidence will subsequently become impossible or difficult. And in paragraph 1 of Art. 103 of the Fundamentals stipulates that in order to secure evidence, the notary inspects written and material evidence.

According to paragraph 2 of Art. 102 Fundamentally, a notary does not provide evidence in a case that, at the time interested parties contact him, is being processed by a court or administrative body. Otherwise, the courts recognize notarized electronic correspondence as unacceptable evidence (Resolution of the Ninth AAS dated March 11, 2010 No. 09AP-656/2010-GK).

It is worth recalling that, based on Part 4 of Art. 103 Fundamentals, provision of evidence without notifying one of the parties and interested parties is carried out only in urgent cases.

In order to inspect evidence, a protocol is drawn up, which, in addition to a detailed description of the notary’s actions, must also contain information about the date and place of the inspection, the notary conducting the inspection, the interested parties participating in it, and also list the circumstances discovered during the inspection. The emails themselves are printed and filed with a protocol, which is signed by the persons participating in the inspection, by a notary and sealed with his seal. By virtue of the Determination of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation dated April 23, 2010 No. VAS-4481/10, the notarial protocol for the inspection of an electronic mailbox is recognized as appropriate evidence.

Currently, not all notaries provide services for certification of emails, and their cost is quite high. For example: one of the notaries in Moscow charges 2 thousand rubles for one page of the descriptive part of the protocol.

A person interested in providing evidence applies to a notary with a corresponding application. It should indicate:

• evidence to be secured;
• the circumstances that are supported by this evidence;
• the grounds for which evidence is required;
• at the time of contacting a notary, the case is not being processed by a court of general jurisdiction, an arbitration court or an administrative body.

Notaries inspect the contents of an electronic mailbox either remotely, that is, they use remote access to a mail server (it can be the server of a provider providing an electronic communication service under a contract; a mail server of a domain name registrar or a free Internet mail server), or directly from the computer of the interested person , on which an email program is installed (Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Messenger, etc.).

During a remote inspection, in addition to the application, the notary may need permission from the domain name registrar or Internet provider. It all depends on who exactly supports the operation of mailboxes or an electronic mail server under the contract.

Certification from the provider

Resolutions of the Ninth AAS dated 04/06/2009 No. 09AP-3703/2009-AK, dated 04/27/2009 No. 09AP-5209/2009, FAS MO dated 05/13/2010 No. KG-A41/4138-10 stipulate that the courts also recognize the admissibility of electronic correspondence , if it is certified by the Internet service provider or domain name registrar who are responsible for managing the mail server.

The provider or domain name registrar certifies electronic correspondence at the request of an interested party only if it manages the mail server and such right is specified in the service agreement.

However, the volume of electronic correspondence can be quite large, which in turn can complicate the process of providing paper documents. In this regard, the court sometimes allows the provision of electronic correspondence on electronic media. Thus, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region, making a Decision dated August 1, 2008 in case No. A41-2326/08, referred to the admissibility of electronic correspondence provided to the court on four CDs.

But when considering the case in the appellate instance, the Tenth AAC, by its Resolution dated 10/09/2008 in case No. A41-2326/08, recognized the reference to electronic correspondence as unfounded and canceled the decision of the court of first instance, indicating that the interested party did not submit any documents provided for by the concluded parties agreement.

Thus, emails relating to the subject of the dispute must be submitted to the court in writing, and all other documents can be submitted on electronic media.

Confirming the contents of letters by referring to them in subsequent paper correspondence will help prove the facts stated in virtual correspondence. The use of other written evidence is reflected in the Resolution of the Ninth AAS dated December 20, 2010 No. 09AP-27221/2010-GK. Meanwhile, the court, when considering the case and assessing the evidence provided by the parties, has the right not to consider paper correspondence with links to electronic correspondence admissible.

He only takes it into account and makes a decision based on a comprehensive analysis of all the evidence presented.

Get help from an expert

If the proceedings have already begun, then to give electronic correspondence legal force it is necessary to exercise the right to attract an expert. In paragraph 1 of Art. 82 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation stipulates that in order to clarify issues that arise during the consideration of a case that require special knowledge, the arbitration court appoints an examination at the request of a person participating in the case, or with the consent of the persons participating in it.

If the appointment of an examination is prescribed by law or a contract, or is required to verify an application for falsification of the evidence presented, or if an additional or repeated examination is necessary, the arbitration court may appoint an examination on its own initiative. The appointment of an examination for the purpose of verifying the evidence presented is also provided for in Art. 79 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation.

In a petition to appoint a forensic examination, it is necessary to indicate the organization and specific experts who will carry it out, as well as the range of issues for which the interested party decided to apply to the court to order an examination. In addition, information about the cost and timing of such an examination should be provided and the full amount to pay for it should be deposited with the court. The involved expert must meet the requirements established for him in Art. 13 of the Federal Law “On State Forensic Expert Activities in the Russian Federation”.

Attachment to the case materials as evidence of an expert's opinion on the authenticity of electronic correspondence is confirmed by judicial practice (Decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court dated 08/21/2009 in case No. A40-13210/09-110-153; Resolution of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Moscow Region dated 01/20/2010 No. KG-A40 /14271-09).

Based on the contract

In paragraph 3 of Art. 75 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation notes that documents received via electronic communication are recognized as written evidence if this is specified in the agreement between the parties. Accordingly, it is necessary to indicate that the parties recognize the equal legal force of correspondence and documents received via fax, the Internet and other electronic means of communication as the originals. In this case, the agreement must specify the email address from which electronic correspondence will be sent, and information about the authorized person authorized to conduct it.

The contract must stipulate that the designated email address is used by the parties not only for work correspondence, but also for transferring the results of work, which is confirmed by the position of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Moscow Region in Resolution No. KG-A40/12090-08 dated January 12, 2009. The Decree of the Ninth AAS dated December 24, 2010 No. 09AP-31261/2010-GK emphasizes that the contract must stipulate the possibility of using e-mail to approve technical specifications and make claims regarding the quality of services provided and work performed.

In addition, the parties may stipulate in the agreement that notifications and messages sent by email are recognized by them, but must be additionally confirmed within a certain period by courier or registered mail (Resolution of the Thirteenth AAC dated April 25, 2008 No. A56-42419/2007).

To summarize, we can say that today there is a practice of courts using electronic correspondence as written evidence. However, taking into account the requirements of procedural legislation regarding the admissibility and reliability of evidence, virtual correspondence is taken into account by the court only if it has legal force.

In this regard, a large number of problems arise, since a unified methodology for determining the legitimacy of electronic correspondence has not yet been formed. The right of an interested party to contact a notary in order to secure evidence is enshrined, but there is no regulatory act of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation regulating the procedure for the provision of such services by notaries. As a result, there is no single approach to determining their value and forming a clear mechanism for implementing this right.

There are several ways to give electronic correspondence legal force in order to present it as evidence in court: securing electronic correspondence from a notary, certification from an Internet provider, by reference to emails in further paper correspondence, as well as confirmation of their authenticity by forensic examination.

A competent approach to the timely provision of electronic correspondence as written evidence will allow business entities to fully restore their violated rights when resolving disputes.

Over the past decades, business correspondence via email has gained immense popularity and has become one of the main methods of business communication. Today it is difficult to find a person who would not use e-mail in the practice of interpersonal communications. Despite this, many today are asking the question: so that all the rules are followed? How can you use a competent letter to form a good impression of the sender among the recipient?

This article describes the rules for business correspondence by email, and the practical tips presented in the article will help you learn proper business communication when composing emails.

Many people start their working day by checking their mailbox for new messages. But, unfortunately, despite the prevalence of this method of exchanging information, many do not know how to correctly use the language of business correspondence, mistaking emails for an informal way of communication.

Thanks to the speed of delivery, it simplifies the exchange of important official documents, forms, applications, but even here people make mistakes when sending letters. It very often happens that when composing an email when exchanging any files, recipients for some reason do not write accompanying essays and do not enter topics, which can complicate the work of recipients. The purpose of this article is to answer the question: how to send a letter by e-mail and comply with all the rules of business written communication via e-mail?

When composing emails, all fields provided must be filled in

The rules of business correspondence by e-mail oblige the sender of the letter to fill out all the fields provided in the e-mail, such as the address and name of the recipient and sender of the letter. A subject must be described that briefly describes the essence of the letter being sent. Very often, the fate of the sent letter and the speed of resolution of the problem stated in it depend on the correctly described topic. A business email should begin with a greeting - this simple show of respect for the recipient is very important when corresponding. After the greeting, there should be a text that is called the “body of the letter”, and at the end a signature should be left, for example, “With respect, Petr Ivanovich Brisov.”

Greetings in business correspondence

This point is worth further focusing on, since a gesture of respect is very important in any aspect of business communications. The optimal greeting phrase is “Good afternoon” or “Hello.” Conducting business correspondence via email limits the sender from using the phrases “Good evening” or “Good morning”, since the recipient may read the letter much later than receiving it. It is also not correct to use colloquial expressions used in greetings.

After a greeting word or phrase, you should address the recipient by name and patronymic, and if the name is unknown to the sender, this moment can be skipped. Then you can move on to stating the purpose of the letter.

Attached files in business emails

If the main purpose of the letter is not only a written narrative and presentation of the essence of the issue, but also sending a file, then it is better to attach the sent object first. It often happens that many senders, due to inattention, having stated the essence of the issue in the body of the letter, forget to attach the necessary attachment. Such negligence can negatively affect the business reputation of the sender of a business letter.

The email address should be recognizable and concise

The rules of business correspondence by e-mail require the sender to have a recognizable electronic name, which must contain truthful information about the name of the sender. Official letters and appeals look very unconcise and stupid when the email address contains informal expressions or words, for example, the email address “limon_petya”. This looks very undignified for an adult. To conduct business correspondence, it is better to create a separate email and observe business email etiquette.

Using the quick Reply (Response) function to respond to previously received emails

The Reply or Response function (in its abbreviated version it looks like Re:) helps the user to quickly respond to previously sent messages from the sender. This function also has the universal ability to read previous correspondence with an interlocutor on a given topic. But the rules of business correspondence by e-mail oblige the sender to rename the subject of the business letter if the essence of the discussion is changed during the correspondence.

Before sending a business letter, you should proofread for spelling errors and punctuation.

E-mail simplifies the exchange of information, but during business correspondence you should not neglect the rules of the Russian language, since a carelessly made mistake can affect the authority of the sender. Before sending a letter, you should review the text several times and carefully check it for spelling and punctuation errors. Many email clients have a spell check feature, so you should pay attention to the words underlined in red. If you have doubts about the correct spelling, you should seek help on the Internet or check the spelling using a spelling dictionary.

The addressee field should be filled in last.

To avoid sending unfinished or unedited letters, the address of the recipient of a business letter should be entered at the very last moment before sending. This rule is also included in the basics of business email correspondence. It happens that when filling out the addressee field, email may offer a list of previously used recipients; here you should also focus your attention so as not to mistakenly send a composed business letter to a third-party addressee.

Structuring a business letter

The rules for structuring text apply not only to paper media, but also to the rules of business correspondence via e-mail. It is not always convenient for the recipient to read large volumes of text of letters on the monitor screen. To simplify this point, you should break the text into logically formed small paragraphs and avoid complicated sentences when writing the text of business letters. The optimal length of one sentence in a business letter should be no more than fifteen words.

The essence of a business letter should be stated in essence

In addition to the specified topic of the business letter, the recipient should also be interested in the clearly formulated first and second sentences of the main text. The sender’s task is to state at the beginning of the letter the essence of the problem or issue for which he is addressing the recipient. The first sentence should indicate the purpose for which the business letter is being sent. Sample: “We inform you that the terms of the obligation under contract No. 45 of 01/02/2017 “On the supply of bulk materials” are coming to an end. To renew the contract, you must submit a second package of documents.” Thanks to the designated purpose, the recipient has the opportunity to understand the main idea of ​​​​the business letter. If the text of the letter is too large, then it is better to use the function of attaching an object as an attachment in the form of a text document, but at the same time, in the text field, you should leave the accompanying essay that highlights the business letter. Sample: “We are sending you an electronic copy of the letter from the company Mak-Stroy LLC for your review.” We ask you to inform us of your decision on the issue of extending contract No. 45 of 01/02/2017 “On the supply of bulk materials” until the deadline specified in the letter.”

Every business email should have a response.

There are negative examples of business correspondence when the recipient ignores the business letter for some reason. Sometimes there may indeed be cases when an answer cannot be given due to certain situations, for example, the resolution of the problem may take several days or the recipient is in thought and cannot immediately answer the question posed. In this case, a brief comment on this matter should be given, for example, “Hello, Pyotr Ivanovich. I received your letter, but today I find it difficult to respond, since I must consult with senior management. I will report your problem to the CEO of our company and give an official response by the end of the week. Sincerely, Sales Department Manager Belov Ivan Gennadievich.”

It is worth remembering that if a response was not given within three working days, then the fact that the recipient of a business letter remains silent can be assessed as ignoring and refusing to communicate with the sender.

When writing response letters, you should answer all the questions asked.

If the letter sent to the recipient is of an interrogative nature, then when composing the letter you should give answers to the questions in the order that is present in the received text of the business letter. If questions have been asked, the sender hopes to receive specific answers to them. When composing a letter, you should not number your answers; you just need to state your thoughts in order. In order to answer all the questions posed, you first need to re-read the received business letter several times, and if there are too many questions, it is better to write them out separately to prevent them from being missed. If it is impossible to answer some of the questions posed, it is worth pointing out that at the moment for some reason the answer cannot be given.

Do not overuse abbreviations, emotional design and capital letters

There are negative examples of business correspondence when senders dilute it by using informal signs in the form of emoticons. Their use is popular when communicating on social networks, however, the rules of business correspondence do not welcome such manifestations of emotions, since the recipient may not know their true meaning and take them for an incomprehensible set of punctuation errors.

You should also avoid writing text in capital letters. On the Internet, a set of words written in capital letters is called “flashy phrases” and more often than not such phrases carry a negative connotation. The recipient, when reading an electronic business letter, may evaluate such a font negatively, which will have a detrimental effect on the perception of meaning. If in a business letter you need to emphasize the importance of any point, it is better to use introductory phrases, for example, “Please note that you need to provide a package of documents to renew the contract no later than 02/10/2017” or “Please note that the documents the contract extension must be submitted by 02/10/2017.”

Do not transmit sensitive information via email

When transmitting personal or confidential information, it is better to refuse electronic mailboxes, as there is a threat of information being intercepted by attackers for use for their own selfish purposes. Such information may include: telephone numbers, passwords for bank cards, personal bank accounts, etc. It is important to remember that the information is stored on the mail agent server and can be stolen if hacked.

The sender's signature must be at the end of the letter.

As mentioned earlier, every letter sent must contain a specific signature. Often, mailbox developers introduce a signature block function, in which you can enter your job title, name and contact phone number. Subsequently, this block will automatically appear at the end of each letter, which will make typing easier. It is important to write a signature correctly so that the recipient has the opportunity to correctly address the sender when replying to the letter. An example of a signature might look like this: “With respect, Nikolai Alexandrovich Petrov, +79810000000.”

Drawing conclusions, it can be noted that in order to understand how to conduct business correspondence by email, you do not need to master additional and complex basics. You just have to adhere to the basic rules of etiquette and observe the norms of the Russian language.

Addressing an email using Thunderbird is not a difficult task, but there are several ways it can be done, with some differences from other mail programs. The most obvious change noticed by people migrating from Microsoft products is that Thunderbird places only one recipient into each addressing box, creating multiple addressing boxes when there are multiple recipients. This does not in any way affect the way the mail appears to the recipient; it is just the result of a layout choice that was made early in the Thunderbird design process.

Address Fields

To: The primary recipient(s) of this email
CC:(Carbon Copy) The secondary recipient(s) of this email. Recipients will see the email addresses of those in the To: and CC: field
BCC:(Blind Carbon Copy) Addresses in this field will have mail sent to them, but recipients won't know who was in the BCC: field i.e. those in the BCC: field will receive the email but those in the To: and CC: fields won't know who was in the BCC: field

If there is no entry in the To: field but only in the BCC: then the mail will be sent to all the BCC recipient(s) and the mail will be displayed to recipients as being sent to "undisclosed recipients" or similar wording by the receiving email program.

Special Note for Google users

Google IMAP mail accounts will remove the names in the BCC list from your sent folder. As a result the sender – i.e. you – will have no record of to whom an email was BCCed. If you need a record of whom you BCCed in an email, you will have to manually record this yourself before sending the email. This is a feature only of Gmail.

Selecting the entries from your address book

Thunderbird does offer a Write option if you right-click a Contact in the list.

This is handy if you want to send just one mail, but rather useless if you have multiple people in mind to send the mail to. There is however a rarely used key combination supported by the operating system that allows you to select multiple entries in a list such as the one in the address book:

By holding down the CtrlCommand key you can select multiple entries, one per mouse click. Clicking on an entry in the list that is already selected will deselect that item.

In addition to this there is the ability to use the Shift key. Holding down the Shift key will select everything in the list between your mouse clicks.

Using a combination of Shift and CtrlCommand in the same action by changing the key held down at appropriate times you can make very efficient use of your time while fine tuning the selected list.

Selecting the entries from the Contact Pane

Whenever you click Write, Forward or Reply, Thunderbird opens a composition window. One of the features of the compose window is that it contains a Contacts Sidebar pane from which you can see all of the entries in your address book. This pane can be turned on and off using the key F9 , or from the View menu in the composition window.

You can select entries from this pane simply by double-clicking, or by using the buttons at the bottom of the pane

or by right-clicking on the entries you have selected with your mouse or the Ctrl and Shift keys and then selecting a destination from the menu.

After you selected the add option, the addresses will be added to the list of recipients at the top of the mail, one line per recipient.

You may also drag and drop single Contacts or multiple selections of Contacts from the sidebar into any of the addressing boxes. Unlike the other methods described here, this will insert multiple Contacts into a single addressing box, but note that the Contacts will be parsed into the one-line-per-recipient format if you type Enter into the addressing box.

Surprisingly, many people, when they need to send an email to several people at once, simply list the addresses in the "To" field, this is normal when this email is addressed to your colleagues or friends, but when sending letters to a group of clients, you are thus showing everyone addresses of other recipients, essentially revealing your address base.

All your clients need to do is forward this letter to your competitor and your contacts will immediately leak.

It’s strange, but many far from stupid people are surprised to learn that if you need to send a letter to many recipients so that they do not know about each other, then there is a “Bcc” field for this.

For example, for mail.ru it will look like this:

And so once again briefly:indicated the addresses in “to” - everyone can see to whom you sent the letters, indicated in “blind carbon copy” - everyone thinks that the letter is only for him.

And each recipient will receive a letter where in the “to” field there will be just his address . For other programs, if you can't find where to BCC, ask someone to show you. Another small point, you must specify one address in the “to” field; most programs or mail servers will not allow you to send a letter without this parameter.

And so, when it comes to sending out offers, news to a group of your clients - here the practice of using blind copy is clear, you must hide your address base. An interesting point about sending a letter to your colleagues, here it is recommended to act according to the situation, for example, sending a letter with a request to send suggestions (for example, to improve customer service) and if each colleague sees that other people have received the same letter, then most likely they will not respond - will rely on others, which means you need to use a hidden copy. If this order is carried out, then, for example, indicating your colleague’s boss will simply work wonders, and your order will be carried out.

A separate issue with suppliers. On the one hand, indicating all recipients in the copy should show the supplier that you have a choice and he should offer you good prices. On the other hand, the manager who received your letter, seeing that it was sent not only to him, will most likely treat your request “coolly”. Personally, in my opinion, I think that in the case of suppliers, you need to use a hidden copy, at least to protect trade secrets, but more likely for a good relationship with the supplier’s manager.

You can read a recent case of a specialist’s mistake, when all recipients saw other recipients: Smacks to everyone in this chat, there were really respectable people there - directors, but still many received spam in response.

Well, as always, discussion in the comments is welcome.