Why does my activity log say "email opened" or "SmartSender link opened", but the recipient never opened the email?

There are some rare instances where the activity Email Opened or a notification for a SmartSender Link or SmartSender Resource Opened may be falsely triggered. If the contact or recipient claims that they have never opened or received your email/resource, when the PhoneBurner activity says otherwise, it's possible that their email client may have used a spam filter or virus scan to detect for malicious activity or potential phishing. This may appear as a Email Opened flag to our service, and could lead to a false Email Opened activity/notification.

This is completely dependent on the recipient's email client as some anti-virus programs follow the links in the email to see if they can determine if the link goes to a phishing site. When they do the aforementioned, the link is counted as clicked and the email may appear to have been opened.

Some email programs auto scan everything that comes in and will trigger an open notice as well. They do not give an option to change this and PhoneBurner can only see that it was triggered, not how. This is often the case with contacts who have Gmail addresses.