via Hackernews. It really is comical the lengths to which companies will go to avoid being contacted by their customers.
What the fuck is a ‘fuck off contact page?’
"A “fuck off contact page” is what a company throws together when they actually don’t want anyone to contact them at all. They are usually found on the websites of million or billion dollar companies, likely Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies that are trying to reduce the amount of money they spend on support by carefully hiding the real support channels behind login walls. These companies tend to offer multiple tiers of support, with enterprise customers having a customer success manager who they can call on this ancient device we call phones, whereas the lower-paying customers may have to wrangle various in-app ticket mechanisms. If you solve your own problem by reading the knowledge base, then this is a win for the company. They don’t want to hear from you, they want you to fuck off."
@briankrebs thebproblem is that companies outside of well-regulated places like #Germany are not obligated to even provide means of contact or even list their legal address!
@kkarhan spot on! Is it only Germany that requires this, though? Aren't there other EU nations that do as well?
@briankrebs That reminds me of the Proofpoint page that you get sent to when your mail server is IP banned by their "PDR" system. Most IPs seem to be banned by default via "PDR". On the "PDR" support page, it lets you file an appeal that leads to nothing but a submission confirmation message. The problem is never resolved. Community consensus on getting unbanned from sending email to Proofpoint customers involves finding a Proofpoint customer to file an appeal on your behalf through the real support portal which requires a special log in. 
Proofpoint is one of the major reasons why running an email server is hella difficult these days.
Receipts: https://www.proofpoint.com/us/support-services/ip-blocked-faq
@briankrebs @kkarhan and ultimately this is how we find ourselves fighting Paypal hosted phishing pages of fake PayPal support.
@briankrebs
Also emails from companies you are a customer of for a contract that are no-replay.
IMO no-reply emails to someone that has an account with address, phone number and has bought or rented stuff is immoral and should be illegal.
Contacting any corporate / transnational type company is nearly impossible.
Even many government agencies are guilty. A phone number may have a half hour to one hour queue.
@briankrebs then there's the "fuck off with a rusty piece of rebar" page. It doesn't even have self-help documentation. Just a crappy AI slop bot.
more recently , these pages tend to include a AI chatbot..
which is just a modern form of "Fuck off, and solve your own problem".
@briankrebs this describes ServiceNow 'support' perfectly 🤣
@briankrebs
This is why we need court precedents for terminating SaaS&c contracts without notice.
Company hosts a "fuck off" page →you're free to ignore invoices
And then there is McMaster … something completely different.
The last paper copy I have of their catalog is 20 years old and over 3600 pages.
If they don’t have what you need you can email them and they will find out if they can get it.
When you call their phone number there is no phone tree, the very first thing you hear is a person asking “what part number?” followed by “how many?”
You can cancel an order not yet shipped by email
@briankrebs @kkarhan The Impressum is a DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) thing from what I recall… And yeah, as @kkarhan notes, it's messed up that it formally applies to personal websites, too. Nothing quite like centuries-old legal traditions intended for censorship…
@briankrebs Ex-CSM here...yup. It was tragic to see the development of this trend, as the company succumbs to the pressures of wall street.
By extension, a lot of these same companies with "fuck off" contact pages tend to also hide how to get in touch with them if you're a reporter, directing all inquiries to a generic address like info@ and omitting any email addresses or phone numbers from press releases.
@briankrebs I just ran into this trying to figure out hiya.com
Ironically, because our corporate outbound phone number is registered as spam, preventing us from contacting our customers.
The solution to this problem is supposedly a company with a "Fuck off contact page"
Skip it. Do a search with your own favored search engine when you need that 800 number. It won't waste as much of your time.
@briankrebs "We tried reaching out to XY inc. before publishing, but unfortunately no contact info could be found."
@briankrebs came here to say this. sometimes it's hard to even get the email address of a press contact. Even harder to get a non-bullshit answer, but one has to try.
@briankrebs ...and don't get me started about the existence of a security.txt.
@briankrebs I think before buying a product or service (PoS), people should check whether the vendor is actually reasonably contactable. If not, boycott the PoS - it's a high risk of being scammed by being sold a defective PoS as a good one.
@briankrebs I think "company" is not important here but a "businessperson". A sole proprietor can exhibit the same behaviour. I believe it's irrelevant in this case whether the businessperson is a physical person or a legal person.
@briankrebs We’ve been giving our son an Edward Gorey calendar every year for Christmas since he was a teen. This year when I went to their site, the calendar order page had a note saying ‘coming soon’ with no option to pre order. After waiting a week or so I decided to contact them to ask when I could order. However, clicking on their ‘Contact Us’ link sends you back to the home page. Thanks, now I know that’s called a “fuck off” link.
@briankrebs @kkarhan I though it was EU wide, but maybe I'm wrong about that.
At least here in the Netherlands it is required for a company to have contact information listed on their website.
@clock @briankrebs this is the actual advice from our consumer protection authorities and the anti-fraud unit of the Police in the UK...
@vfrmedia @briankrebs Do you think it is fair from the consumer protection authorities and the anti-fraud unit of the Police in the UK to advice people to check whether the vendor is actually reasonably contactable before buying a product or service?
@briankrebs Ebay are one of the pioneers of this business technique
@briankrebs I reckon an enormously popular law change would be require any company (over a reasonable threshold) that is selling in UK markets to have an easily and publicly available telephone and email number. Sure, companies could still find ways to stonewall, but at least one could generate a record of correspondence, and non-answering could be evidenced where needed (by journalists, in court etc).
@briankrebs
In my experience, most big organisations do this now. Phone numbers, for example, that are never answered from an outside line. They also seem to call using VOIP which claims to be from Nottingham when its actually a call centre in India, so if you look it up, it looks like a scam and promotes being blocked. Then they wonder why they can't contact you.
@briankrebs The latest variant on this theme is having an automated "support agent". Often a 2-bit clanker that can't understand 1-bit of conversation.
@briankrebs They also do not maintain a stable support or contact phone number, rotating it out monthly.
nah fr, “fuck off contact page” is basically a corporate middle finger. they want your cash but not your questions. love the spice, keep it coming!
@briankrebs it's really frustrating and i hate how stupidly difficult it is to get help for anything. i use apple cash with a visa for some transactions and there's no way to dispute a transaction at all.
cool.
apple card yes, apple cash powered by visa? it's powered by visa so fsck-off.
@briankrebs Stops being comical when it’s health insurance (the plague in health care). :(
@briankrebs noreply email addresses can be considered fuckoff addresses too
@briankrebs I’m sorry, but I will push back hard on this one.
There are not enough people on this planet to provide the levels of tech support required. That is the problem.
You need 20x L1 tech support asking “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” For every L2 dealing with an actual problem.
I won’t deny that a significant chunk of that is because of the shit the companies are pushing out in the first place.
No one wants to do L1. Not even AI.
@briankrebs trying to find even just the location of their offices on there sometimes is a chore. I noticed I was better off to just search the net for that
@briankrebs Well, of course. They want reporters trotting out the guff they have fed them, not punctuating it with inconvenient questions or facts.
@briankrebs I ran into an IVR today like this.
Someone signs up for a T-Mobile reduced rate thing called Assurance wireless., but they used my email address by mistake.
I call their number to get them to fix it and it asks for my mobile number, but gives me a way to bypass.
2 layers deeper it asks again, I again bypass using the audible prompt.
It then says "Thanks for calling" and hangs up on me.
I've done L1 tech support while in college, can confirm.
People ask you to help fix their internet connection but you have to explain to them what 'right clicking' means, first. Nobody wants to do this.
Doesn't excuse not doing it. Nobody wants to call people to sell them things they don't need (BTDT too -- not proud of it, was desperate) yet they somehow find people. If they can do that, they can also find someone to answer a f***ing phone.
@briankrebs
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@briankrebs Many companies are also installing fuck off bots before the fuck off contract page - which promise to help you but often send you round in circles (looking at you Amazon). I found a bot at Oura that is actually helpful: https://mattkirby.com/2025/12/10/not-the-f-off-bot/