Way, way OT: Internet Stalking/Harassment
"We'll be fine without you.
have a nice life"
Works everytime
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change your password and internet provider. start fresh and stay off facebook etc. if you are getting stuff you did something to let them know you info.
1-800-callsam (:)
If they're stupid enough to keep pushing, file a lawsuit and take them to court. Have specific, documented examples of how your wife is getting wrongfully screwed over by this.
I'm no lawyer but that's what I'd do. Especially if I'm wrongfully losing business because of some asshole that just wants to extort me.
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Horse head in the bed
Personally I'd hire a hacker to harass them. Maybe I've been watching too much Mr. Robot.
MGoLEO here. I've only dealt with a handful of cyberharrassment cases, and none of them were as drawn out as what you described. It can be tough when they're hiding behind anonymity, but the resources are generally there for the people responsible to be ID'd. My best advice is to document everything that's happened with as much detail as you're able and bring it to your local PD, and if they don't bring it up, ask about your locality's options as far as harrassment prevention/restraining orders. If your PD isn't particularly helpful or it seems like this is over their heads, give a call to your local district attorney's office; they might handle these types of cases more often often and know better how to assist you. Often these more complex and difficult to investigate situations can be coordinated on a county or state level-- we have state troopers assigned to our county DA's office that have assisted me on these types of investigations, for example.
An old ex girlfriend of my buddy popped up like 5 years after he stopped dating her and started harassing me and my friends.
Unfortunately she developed some mental issues after high school and was pretty bad for a while - accusing me, my family, my girlfriend, and her family on social media randomly for years. She would do off the edge for a week, then disappear for a while. I hung out with this girl once, my friend dated her for a couple months, no one in my family ever even met her, yet should would post about us on social media, call our places of employment saying we were drug addicts, and basically claiming we were all conspiring to ruin her life. Really weird stuff.
We tried to resolve it, but her family wouldn't get her treatment so unfortunately we had to take the legal route. Long story short, she now lives in another state.
Some people really shouldn't have access to social media when the behave like this, but I don't think there's any way to stop it really. As long as the Internet is free and open, at least. I mean, this girl had a dozen (or more at times) Twitter accounts, all with different names that would interact with each other, but she used her actual face for the profile pictures. Just insane shit.
I'm really grateful it's over as it caused my family a lot of grief for a while. Especially considering I did absolutely nothing to bring it on myself them.
Let it Bleed. Beggars Banquet. Sticky Fingers. Exile.
OP, if you're still experiencing the harassment, I recommend contacting the Crash Override Network (http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/) which is a group that's working to help curb online harassment. It's organized by a group of people who have experienced the kind of harassment you and your wife are experiencing right now, so they know which steps are most effective at keeping yourself safe as well as getting the people involved to stop.
Fingers crossed for you. I hope you're able to shut this down soon.
The only way to make a troll go away is to destroy them or so completely shatter their barriers of anonymity, that they fear even returning to the online world. This only ends one of two ways. You are ruined or they are, the fact that they're attacking your wife and her livelyhood means all bets are off at this point. The moral and ethical barriers of online pranks have been crossed and you have to assume they can or could do anything to harm you. You need to do whatever it takes to stop them or it will never stop and you'll simply empower them to do it whenever they get an itch.
Calling the police is almost useless outside of filing a single report to put it on record. They don't have the resources to deal with something like this and the FBI won't tackle it because its not big enough. You're best bet is to lawyer up, and start sending subpoenas to the online platforms where the harassment is happening. After a long and probably terrible process you'll be able to get the real names and addreses of the people involved. That typically only happens once you've sued whatever ISP is hosting the trolls, assuming they aren't using a string of proxies. Do the following:
- Save all records of harassment
- Get a professional troll hunter
- Be prepared to spend money
- Be prepared to cross ethical boundaries, most trolls are sociopaths of varying degrees and will absolutely play this out to the worst possible outcome. I will say it again, you will have to destroy them.
- Pray they aren't overseas
Turn the other cheek is nice in theory and terrible in practice when it comes to trolls. Good Luck.
Just have a pleasant sit down with them and explain that the voices are telling you to take care of this by any means necessary and that you would prefer that they just cease as an alternative....