When Sending Important Emails to CRT Avoid Links To "Dodgy" URLs!!!

[alan_fincher]

Anybody who has followed posts here and elsewhere about the latest South East Visitor moorings consultation may be aware that I have been frustrated that emails sent to CRT on the subject had simply not been acknowledged or responded to.

Multiple attempts to follow up, and escalate all produced no replies, (and no email delivery failures or "out of office" messages either).

Finally on establishing contact by other routes, the intended CRT recipients all said they had not seen the mails involved, although people copied in with non canalrivertrust.org.uk addresses were seeing them fine. Something at CRT was clearly causing these mails not to be delivered.

Eventually I realised what might be the cause, as contained within the original mails was this URL.....

http://narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/8645-cart-consultation-cock-up

Although customer facing staff at CRT were unaware that basic filtering can weed out some incoming mails in a fairly invisible way, it seems that the presence of the bit highlighted in the above URL was enough to stop that and all subsequent emails quoting it from being delivered.

Clearly this is another reason never to visit "the Dark Side", as it seems that CRT have in place measures that protect themselves from some of the posts on there.

So be careful what you send to CRT in emails - if you report a boat has sunk because a sea cock has failed, the chances are the mail will not make it to the intended person!

[Barry]

That's a top bit of sussing out that is

[steve hayes]

Shows how shite CRT's spam filters are, mind you most IT systems are as useless at working properly and meaningfully searching out words in isolation and not in context. So an email telling our lords and masters (not) that there's a fault with a stop COCK and their service block is been flooded will get binned.

[Mrs Tawny Owl]

This is not unique to C & RT

 

I seem to remember some years ago a friend telling me a council up north had increased the level of their obscenity filter. After that emailing Scunthorpe Council seemed to be impossible.

 

It's very hard to come up with all the relevant rules when programming these sorts of filters.

 

Sue

[nigel carton]

Oi leave Scunthorpe out of this !!

[1st ade]

On a slightly darker note I hear tell that one council department got raided by armed police shortly after nine-eleven because of a web page containing a reference to " ... a wheelie bin laden with garden waste ..."

[Machpoint005]

Probably explains why there are so few sites about poultry breeding.

[Chalky]

We had the problem at work with the words Gaydon and Essex. Makes you wonder how they ever receive any messages with the word canal in it. Perhaps that explains a lot...

[mango]

On a slightly darker note I hear tell that one council department got raided by armed police shortly after nine-eleven because of a web page containing a reference to " ... a wheelie bin laden with garden waste ..."

I know that Osma make drain products but it would probably not be a good move to manufacture rubbish containers.

[DoesNotFloat]

CRT having their mail filter and eating it. At the same time they're silently dropping your messages for a single word taken out of context, they're loading their own stoppage notices with "misleading" tracking links which trigger scam filters everywhere (including those built into some of the top mailreaders).

 

Best Current Practise, don't silently drop mail, reject it during the smtp process so the sender gets an immediate rejection message and knows to try again by a different means. To be fair, CRT's IT guys are probably not dropping the mail, they're probably shuffling it off into a "spam" folder which never gets examined for false positives, which effectively amounts to the same thing.

 

Best Current Practise, don't use HTML to falsely represent the destination of a web link. Don't claim a link goes to https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices when it actually goes to somewhere completely different like http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/10513099/canalrivertrust.org.uk?p=eyJzIjoiVUdhc0hxR3VwZkdERHN5QW9ERkp5QjJhcEVvIiwidiI6MSwi. By doing tricks like this you make your messages appear functionally identical to the ones that try and fool you into revealing your bank account or paypal login details.

[Mike Todd]

Shows how shite CRT's spam filters are, mind you most IT systems are as useless at working properly and meaningfully searching out words in isolation and not in context. So an email telling our lords and masters (not) that there's a fault with a stop COCK and their service block is been flooded will get binned.

I doubt whether the filters are anything to do with CaRT

[Emerald Fox]

Oi leave Scunthorpe out of this !!

 

Perhaps changing the name to 'Scumthorpe' will help?

[captain birdseye]

I can remember when the football team I support had a player called Peacock and the filters kept reporting any posts on the forum with his name in the title!

[steve hayes]

I doubt whether the filters are anything to do with CaRT

The filters will be, Cart IT will be responsible foe setting up and running their email system, internal or outsourced.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

CRT having their mail filter and eating it. At the same time they're silently dropping your messages for a single word taken out of context, they're loading their own stoppage notices with "misleading" tracking links which trigger scam filters everywhere (including those built into some of the top mailreaders).

 

Best Current Practise, don't silently drop mail, reject it during the smtp process so the sender gets an immediate rejection message and knows to try again by a different means. To be fair, CRT's IT guys are probably not dropping the mail, they're probably shuffling it off into a "spam" folder which never gets examined for false positives, which effectively amounts to the same thing.

 

Best Current Practise, don't use HTML to falsely represent the destination of a web link. Don't claim a link goes to https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices when it actually goes to somewhere completely different like http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/10513099/canalrivertrust.org.uk?p=eyJzIjoiVUdhc0hxR3VwZkdERHN5QW9ERkp5QjJhcEVvIiwidiI6MSwi. By doing tricks like this you make your messages appear functionally identical to the ones that try and fool you into revealing your bank account or paypal login details.

You can't say fairer that that ...

[DoesNotFloat]

I did a bit of research, because I'm nosey and because I've nothing better to do at 5am.

 

canalrivertrust.org.uk mail exchanger = 10 canalandrivertrust-org-uk.mail.protection.outlook.com.

 

Explains the nonsensical spamfilter, CRT are using hotmail instead of getting a proper commercial mail service.

[Jim Riley]

Live in Scunthorpe? Tired of your mail being blocked? Move to Penistone!

[Ssscrudddy]

You could always use something like http://tinyurl.com/ just paste in the url on their website & it gives you a different url that links to it.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Ssscrudddy

[Athy]

Live in Scunthorpe? Tired of your mail being blocked? Move to Penistone!

Or Lightwater?

If you're dyslexic, Newark may fit the bill.

[David Schweizer]

I never rely upon email for important communications to corporate bodies, as my past experience suggests that they are very often ingnored. If it is important, write a lettter and post it, that way someone will have a piece of paper on their desk, and not something hidden in a long list of irrelevant electronic messages which will never get read.

[alan_fincher]

I never rely upon email for important communications to corporate bodies, as my past experience suggests that they are very often ingnored. If it is important, write a lettter and post it, that way someone will have a piece of paper on their desk, and not something hidden in a long list of irrelevant electronic messages which will never get read.

 

The problem with "snail mail" in the modern age is the extent to which people work at multiple locations, often "hot desking", without any fixed desk or office location of their own, or, in some cases, can work from home for days at a time without ever visiting a company office.

 

I think for many CRT managers, or non operational staff, you would be hard pressed to identify an address you could send postl mail to where they would be guaranteed to actually receive it.

 

My mistake here was not to pick up the phone sooner, but, in my defence, other non CRT people copied in on the mails also assumed that CRT must have seen them, and were simply not replying.

 

CRT customer service standards state that at least a preliminary response to any email should be sent within 2 working days - it is hard for them to meet that standard if they have a not fit for purpose filter on incoming mails that stops them ever seeing them!

[David Mack]

Anybody who has followed posts here and elsewhere about the latest South East Visitor moorings consultation may be aware that I have been frustrated that emails sent to CRT on the subject had simply not been acknowledged or responded to.

 

Multiple attempts to follow up, and escalate all produced no replies, (and no email delivery failures or "out of office" messages either).

 

Finally on establishing contact by other routes, the intended CRT recipients all said they had not seen the mails involved, although people copied in with non canalrivertrust.org.uk addresses were seeing them fine. Something at CRT was clearly causing these mails not to be delivered.

 

Eventually I realised what might be the cause, as contained within the original mails was this URL.....

 

http://narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/8645-cart-consultation-cock-up

 

Although customer facing staff at CRT were unaware that basic filtering can weed out some incoming mails in a fairly invisible way, it seems that the presence of the bit highlighted in the above URL was enough to stop that and all subsequent emails quoting it from being delivered.

 

Clearly this is another reason never to visit "the Dark Side", as it seems that CRT have in place measures that protect themselves from some of the posts on there.

 

So be careful what you send to CRT in emails - if you report a boat has sunk because a sea cock has failed, the chances are the mail will not make it to the intended person!

 

So how does the owner of this boat get on with his communications with CRT?