[Alex3917]

> If the athlete turned up waving a _spoofed_ email and they let them in then that would be a more appropriate example.

Fair, I was just making the point about the validity of email agreements in general.

But let's say Harvard let others send email that appeared to come from their domain (by not having SPF enabled) and some kid withdrew all their other college applications because one of their friends was playing a prank on them or whatever, almost certainly the college would either let them in or else settle and pay damages. No way in hell they would want that going to trial even if they thought they could win.

[level3]

I think you’re greatly mistaken in your assumptions. Harvard would suffer much greater damage to their reputation if they honored a fake acceptance email. To my knowledge, no university has ever honored a fake (physical) acceptance letter either, and those have existed (as pranks or otherwise) for a while.

It’s highly unlikely that such a case would even get to trial without being dismissed. For example, see this Quora thread [1] about the case of the university itself sending out the actual acceptance letter. Columbia University also had an incident where a system error accidentally sent out acceptance emails, which they quickly retracted, and no lawsuit or settlement came out of that.

I think it would be incredibly difficult to prove damages in such a case, especially since a fake acceptance letter doesn’t prevent you from going to another college. Your example of the student withdrawing their other applications is also unlikely to be blamed on Harvard, particularly before the student has officially accepted (at which point Harvard would notice they didn’t accept the student).

[1] https://www.quora.com/Can-a-university-be-sued-if-it-first-s...

[odonnellryan]

The point here really is the company who sent the money out is the only company that can try to get that money back. If they have no reason to (OP doesn't follow up) then what's the point? They have no motivation to follow through with their bank or government..