JSON error when a combo box is used

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C#

Visual-Studio

WinForms

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I am very new to visual studio. I am writing a program which will retrieve the signature of an employee from an API when their name is entered and a "Get user" button is clicked (e.g. if the employee name Jane Doe is entered, the signature "JDOE" will be retrieved from the API string when the name is entered and the button is clicked).

I have been able to read the data successfully with a text box, however, I would like to incorporate a combo box so that the combo box suggests names as the user is typing (similar to google).

When I try to run my code with a combo box, the following is the error I get for my JSON:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonReaderException: 'Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: <. Path '', line 0, position 0.'

This exception was originally thrown at this call stack:
[External Code]
TimeSheets_Try_11.Controllers.WebAPI.Getsignature(string) in WebAPI.cs
TimeSheets_Try_11.Form1.button1_Click(object, System.EventArgs) in Form1.cs
[External Code]

What I have tried:

JSON String:

[{"signature":"JNDO","firstName":"Jane","fullName":"Doe, Jane","lastName":"Doe"}]

Code for my windows form:

namespace TimeSheets_Try_11

{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        WebAPI WA = new WebAPI();
      

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            webBrowser1.Url = new Uri(StaticStrings.UrlIora);
        }

        private void label1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            comboBox1.DataSource = WA.Getsignature(textBox2.Text);
        }

        private void textBox2_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            
        }

        private void button1_Click(AutoCompleteStringCollection combData)
        {
            
            
        }

        private void comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            
        }

        private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Hide();
            Form2 p = new Form2();
            p.ShowDialog(); 
        }
    }
}

Code calling out the JSON

namespace TimeSheets_Try_11.Controllers
{
    class WebAPI
    {
       

        public string Getsignature(string name)
        {

            ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;

            var cookies = FullWebBrowserCookie.GetCookieInternal(new Uri(StaticStrings.UrlIora), false);
            WebClient wc = new WebClient();
            wc.Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
            wc.Headers.Add("Cookie:" + cookies);
            wc.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
            wc.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
            string uri = "";

            uri = StaticStrings.UrlIora + name;

            var response = wc.DownloadString(uri);

            var status = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Employeename>>(response);

            string signame = status.Select(js => js.signature).First();
            return signame;

        }
}

Code defining the variables:

namespace TimeSheet_Try11_Models
{

        // Root myDeserializedClass = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Root>(myJsonResponse); 
        public class Employeename
        {
            public string signature { get; set; }
            public string firstName { get; set; }
            public string fullName { get; set; }
            public string lastName { get; set; }
        }

        public class Root
        {
            public List<Employeename> Employeename { get; set; }
       
        }
    
    

    }