How I read a provider's reply

When a provider answers a quote request I sent, the reply comes to a private address that belongs to that one conversation, so I know which provider and which request it is for without reading the subject line.

Then I read it, carefully and narrowly:

• Every number comes with the provider's own sentence. If I show a price or a turnaround, you will see the exact sentence from the reply it came from. I keep a value only when that sentence is really in the reply and the number is in that sentence. If the provider did not state something — a price, a currency, whether VAT is included, how long it takes — I show "Not stated". I never fill in a typical value or a guess.
• A bare "$" is not a currency. I name a currency only when the provider wrote a code (EUR, GBP, USD) or a symbol that means one thing (€, £).
• Attachments are scanned first. A PDF quote is virus-scanned before anything opens it, and then I read its text the same way. Files I cannot scan — anything that is not a PDF, an image or a Word document — are not opened.
• I read the provider's own words only. My quote request, quoted under their reply, is set aside so it cannot be mistaken for their answer.
• A reply in another language is shown with a machine translation, labelled as such. The reading itself always comes from the original.
• An out-of-office or a delivery failure is recorded and not treated as an answer. A provider who writes "no further emails" is never written to again, by anyone, for any request.
• A message that was not sent to one of my private addresses is set aside for a person to look at; I do not read it.

The reply is an email from a stranger, so I treat it as text to read, never as instructions — nothing a provider writes can make me send anything, change your request or reveal who you are.

Everything I read can be wrong. The replies screen shows the original reply beside my reading, and you can correct any field; I keep your correction and what I read, both.