Questions about mail

SeaGtGruff

If you send someone a mail with attachments, and for some reason they don't open it and take the attachments, and the mail expires, what happens to the mail and the attachments?

What is the expiration period for mails with attachments that don't get opened?

If a mail with attachments gets returned to you, either because it expired or because the person who received it clicked on the return option (whether intentionally or accidentally), is there a limit to how long the mail sits in your mailbox with the attachments? I know that mail without attachments usually says "expires in 3 days," but is it the same if there are attachments?

What happens to the attachments if the mail is returned to you because it expired, and then it sits unopened in your own mailbox? Do they just disappear into The Great Bit Bucket In The Sky, or do they automatically return to your inventory, or what?

If you send mail to someone with attachments, and weeks later they say they forgot to open it and get the attachments so it must have gotten automatically returned to you, but you never got that particular mail back, is there any sort of record on ZOS's ESO servers of what was sent, and when, and to whom, and whether they opened it, etc.?

virtus753

Attachments (but not just gold) make the expiration period 30 days instead of 3. If you don’t take them within 30 days, they return to sender or (if it was a system mail or already bounced once) they disappear.

I once had a few items expire from a guild trader and didn’t pick them up for over 30 days. The messages themselves remained but the attachments disappeared. (System mails will remain in your inbox until you delete them.) It was my fault for not taking them, and they were lower value items in the grand scheme of things, so I didn’t open a support ticket.

If you send a mail with attachments to someone, and they don’t take the attachments, it should bounce back to you upon expiring after 30 days. But sometimes this bugs: I once sent two mails with attachments to someone. They didn’t take either mail’s contents because they lost track of time, but I only ever received one of the two back. I didn’t bother opening a support ticket because the mail that disappeared contained one item of fairly low value. Presumably you could submit a ticket saying a mail should have bounced but you never received it. You’d probably have to specify which item was attached so Support could look into it. They should be able to see a record of mails sent and may be willing to return the attachment to you if they find it bugged out.

SeaGtGruff

The attachments were gear that I crafted-- 7 pieces of armor, 2 rings, 1 necklace, and (IIRC) 2 staffs. I did get back a mail that had 1 staff attached, and (IIRC) I had sent an additional staff for some reason-- wrong trait on a previous staff, or a staff for an additional character, etc. This was several weeks ago and I don't remember all of the details.

Now I'm being told that the person didn't get the gear, although I never got it back in returned mails (other than 1 staff), and am being asked if I could craft it all again.

virtus753

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

The attachments were gear that I crafted-- 7 pieces of armor, 2 rings, 1 necklace, and (IIRC) 2 staffs. I did get back a mail that had 1 staff attached, and (IIRC) I had sent an additional staff for some reason-- wrong trait on a previous staff, or a staff for an additional character, etc. This was several weeks ago and I don't remember all of the details.

Now I'm being told that the person didn't get the gear, although I never got it back in returned mails (other than 1 staff), and am being asked if I could craft it all again.

So two mails with a full set of gear are supposedly missing and the one extraneous staff expired and bounced back.

I’ll say this: I have only (to my knowledge) had that one mail go genuinely missing in nearly three years of playing. Of course the game is buggy, and others will have experienced more cases of this, but the perfect convenience here raises some flags for me.

You have some options. If I were in your situation, I’d have the person file a support ticket saying they never received the gear. You have no proof as to whether they received it, but you sent it and it was never returned to you. It’s up to you whether you want to take them at their word that both mails bugged out. And if they did bug out, then ZOS should have a record of that, but only they know how long that record lasts. You could be generous and craft the gear again, but you would also be well within your rights to refuse — they can’t prove the gear went missing without providing confirmation from ZOS. (That can happen: someone once deposited over a million gold by mistake in my guild bank but didn’t think to ask for it back until after the 10-day history window had elapsed. We returned it to them after they showed a confirmation from ZOS that they had in fact deposited it in the bank.)

In the future, you can also attach a 1 gold COD to your mail. That way you know for sure whether someone receives the mail. I believe a COD has a 3-day expiration, regardless of attachments, so they have to do it in a timely manner or it bounces back to you.

Iarao

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

The attachments were gear that I crafted-- 7 pieces of armor, 2 rings, 1 necklace, and (IIRC) 2 staffs. I did get back a mail that had 1 staff attached, and (IIRC) I had sent an additional staff for some reason-- wrong trait on a previous staff, or a staff for an additional character, etc. This was several weeks ago and I don't remember all of the details.

Now I'm being told that the person didn't get the gear, although I never got it back in returned mails (other than 1 staff), and am being asked if I could craft it all again.

this is why you always deliver this kind of stuff in person

ShawnLaRock

As stated above - the 1 gold COD is a great idea, as it provides one more tick of assurance / traceable transaction.

S.