[_raw_your-recipient] not working

Hello everyone,

for some reason, everytime I try to get the value before the pipe using [_raw_your-recipient] I get the following error message: Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method..

For example, this is how I am using pipes on drop down menus:

[select departments “CEO|ceo@example.com”
“Sales|sales@example.com”
“Support|support@example.com”]

In the mail template, where it says To, I put this:
[_raw_departments]

But for some reason it does not work in that way. Only works if I write [departments].

My question is, am I missing something? why is not working?

Thanks in advance

https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/