Of the many – many – ways that users can report problems to me, my least favorite is the Offices and Departments update request form. This is for part of the website where we list the contact information for departments and it has a tendency to go out of date. So much so that we created a form departments to notify us of a correction.
In addition to the updates, we’ll frequently have a user attempt to complete the form to contact someone – instead of using the clearly labled Contact Us link.
I guess it works, though, since I get those too and try to figure out what they are really asking for.
A recent update asked about Financial Aid and Scholarships. And the requestor had put in the full email address and their name. It all “looked” legit – though no less dumb than any of these.
I pulled the name and email address out, composed my own message, and sent them an email with more information on the topic.
I figured that was done, but then I got a response – of sorts:
Thank you, for sharing your attention to these matters that have been ongoing – similar to the full house investigation- do your best to turn this issue around / on behalf’s of Evelyn Steen. Jameer Butts. Jarrid Butts and variations of our biometrics being masked by other names – others have cooperated- signed orphan for life from a sovereign nation –
A search on that turns up half-way blocked posts on Linkedin and Facebook. I’ve seen these before where some invents injustice or warps a real one to either scam people or just generally be a nusance on the internet.
Like we need another way to do that.
The form response was garbage and the email back was garbage too. Likely automated, though you’d think if they were going to automate it, they would at least take the time to be coherent.
I did my best, as I do with all of these, but it wears me down.