My original email did actually say "My question is: How do you transfer a domain from one 1&1 package to another 1&1 package"

Quite specific. If they use bots, then the bots have some way to go.

and the e-mail address & name were new ones within their system, and if I learned anything from designing equipment it was that the most and most likely requests for help came within the first month.

So their bot has to learn something that was known to me 30 years ago, and I wasn't the first to see it, the concept is so old it is classifiable as "Folk".

Perhaps I am spoilt by having dealt with a Domain UK host for most of my domains.