The Irony Of The Stupid - Barclays (BPC Investment Services)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have a whole bunch of emails i am going to be posting over the next several weeks. But this one made me laugh pretty hard. It seems BPC Investment Services (Barclays Bank PLC), is to lazy to understand how email works, so they send at least some of their internal targeted mail from sharepoint@donotreply.com

Problem is, not all the mail is internal. So guess who gets the private emails? Do you want to know what alerts the Gerrad Company is subscribed to? While the alerts are behind in their intranet, the choice of what the Gerrad Company is tracking is in plain view.

Unilever - UK - Stock Note 18-06. was added by Wood, Matthew at 21/06/2004 11:06.

Alcatel - Eur - Stock Note 17060...was added by Wood, Matthew at 21/06/2004 12:17.

Alliance and Leicester - UK - P... was added by Jones, Jacqueline at 21/06/2004 12:53.

And it goes on and on. It seems they are tracking Pepsi Co, but Coke is no where to be found. Does this mean "one of the leading private client wealth managers in the UK" is looking to make a purchase of Pepsi Stock? Do they know something we don't? Considering I can go back through a history of what they are tracking, if I was smarter, could I see a trend? Could I pick their picks or interests before them? Who knows, but thanks to Barclays for at least letting me play the game.

So pretty standard stupidity at Barclays, but that wasn't enough. They have to end their emails with:

Internet communications are not secure and therefore the Barclays Group does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Although the Barclays Group operates anti-virus programmes, it does not accept responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by viruses being passed. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Barclays Group. Replies to this email may be monitored by the Barclays Group for operational or business reasons.

Kids? The communication would be a lot more secure if you didn't send it from a domain you don't own.