4

Is is permitted to schedule an email for the wee hours of the night, like 3AM, to give the impression that you were working late?

Is it significantly well known that there are services like Boomerang and Outlook that support delayed emails so that whoever is mislead should know better, or, is this tantamount to engaging in misleading practice and is forbidden due to Geneivas Daas?

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    More like sending it at 645am instead of 3am so people think you go to sleep and wake up at normal adult times.
    – Double AA ♦
    Feb 12, 2016 at 3:53
  • Are you billing based on this? Or is it just to boast? The fact that it is known may play a difference also.
    – Gershon Gold
    Feb 12, 2016 at 15:08
  • 2
    I get loads of email with a time stamp of early in the AM. Granted, most of these emails is from a machine, anyway, like Costco. Email timestamps pose many problems that obscure reality. Often, I've sent my office email address something at 10 P.M. and when I arrive at the office, the timestamp is 4 AM. Maybe the yahoo server delayed picking it up, maybe my office server delayed receiving it. Who knows why the stamp is different? Point is, I think considering so many glitches, why would an average recipient care that much either way to be fooled by it?
    – DanF
    Feb 12, 2016 at 19:34
  • @GershonGold as stated in the question, this is to give your correspondent who may be a boss or colleague the impression that you're working long hours and hard working and take your job very seriously. That might, together with other favorable job reviews, translate into promotions and bonuses...but the immediate question is one of גנבת דעת.
    – Yoni
    Feb 14, 2016 at 1:40
  • @Yoni I don't know the halachos of gneivas da'as so well - is there really a hetter of "you should have known better" for me to to do something with the intent of misleading?
    – Y     e     z
    Feb 14, 2016 at 3:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

The intent being to mislead, i should think it assur.

Improve this answer
2
  • 5
    Well as interesting as this is, we have no idea who you are that we should value your opinions at all. Please edit in a source for your claims if you want your answer to be valuable to the community.
    – Double AA ♦
    Feb 12, 2016 at 16:00
  • Shoel, this is not a proper answer for MY for the reasons stated above. See this post to help you understand how MY is different from other sites you might be used to, esp. point 4
    – mbloch
    Feb 13, 2016 at 19:44
1

From http://www.rabbimanning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Geneivat-Daat.pdf

And sulchal aruch harav 12-26

I understand that it is forbidden to do an action with the intention to deceive

But if the action you do is not with the intention to deceive and the person devices himself it is permitted (you do not need to worry what someone else is thinking) unless there is a hazaka and your acction is not like the hazoko

So if it is a positive thing to give the impression that you were working late then it seems to be forbidden

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .