>>My thought is that if that letter is sent, the prospect will then be hopeless if it wasn't before. I worked HR for years, and there is no way to do this without jeapardizing the possibility of employment.
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>I disagree with you here. You can send something along the lines:
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>"I'm considering an offer to take and would like to know when I may expect some decision regarding this position."
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>I don't see anything wrong with that.

That's not what you proposed earlier. Just asking for a timeline is different than trying to determine whether a situation is hopeless. If you say you are considering another offer, you are putting yourself further out of the running though. Everyone knows this to be true, but no one says it unless they feel that they are the frontrunner and can take that risk.