Metro set up autoresponder for all email from GGW

Yesterday, I sent my congratulatory inauguration post to various WMATA officials and to the official WMATA board alias, BoardOfDirectors@wmata.com. Within a few seconds, I got a reply:

From: Rider.Concerns

Subject: In Response to your Inquiry Regarding Google Transit

Thank you for your recent email to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro), requesting that Metro partner with Google in providing transit information about our system.

[… Comments similar to Metro’s earlier statement … ]

Thank you again for expressing your interest in this potential partnership with Google.

Sincerely,

Emeka Moneme

Chief Administrative Officer

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

Of course, my email had nothing to do with Google Transit. It seems that they’ve set up an autoresponder for all email coming from ggwash.org. Starting on January 7th, each time someone signed the petition, WMATA automatically sent this identical letter within seconds.

As I pointed out in my testimony to the Board of Directors, “Metro is a public agency, and the public deserves some way to have a dialogue with you. Yet even emails to the Board of Directors email address don’t actually go to the Board.” Staff reply to the emails, and as far as I can tell board members don’t even get a document summarizing the emails that come in.

The joke’s partly on them, though: they misconfigured the autoresponder. Instead of emailing the person who sent in the comment (who is on the From: line), it sends it to the “envelope sender”, the address originating the message. That’s an administrative email account on GGW’s Web server, which reaches me. As a result, every time someone’s signed the petition since January 7th, Metro sent me an email instead of sending it to the signer directly. That means that in an effort to save energy, nobody actually got Metro’s response.

Anyway, WMATA, how about turning off that autoresponder now?