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Online stalkers...


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Ok, I recently confronted someone who was stalking me online...

 

I'm so upset. I feel violated. I feel stupid cuz I thought it was someone I knew in real life. This person had me thinking I was delusional or something.

 

With the stresses I have and regardless if my stress is a bit higher this and last week cuz of my period, no one should be emotionally distressed by someone hiding behind a computer with nothing better to do with their time.

 

I've seen the Catfish movie and the TalHotBlond documentary and people who go online to mess with people cuz they are bored, lonely, can't handle relationships in real life, etc are just mean and cruel. I started looking into the Catfish series on MTV and it is so sad to see the embarrassment and disappointment on the victims' faces.

 

I think that with the Internet and our use of it and social media, laws need to be put into place to handle these people who cause emotional distress, violation of privacy and use of the Internet and/or social media to harass others.

 

Have you had any experiences with this? How did you recover?

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acrosstheuniverse
Ok, I recently confronted someone who was stalking me online...

 

I'm so upset. I feel violated. I feel stupid cuz I thought it was someone I knew in real life. This person had me thinking I was delusional or something.

 

With the stresses I have and regardless if my stress is a bit higher this and last week cuz of my period, no one should be emotionally distressed by someone hiding behind a computer with nothing better to do with their time.

 

I've seen the Catfish movie and the TalHotBlond documentary and people who go online to mess with people cuz they are bored, lonely, can't handle relationships in real life, etc are just mean and cruel. I started looking into the Catfish series on MTV and it is so sad to see the embarrassment and disappointment on the victims' faces.

 

I think that with the Internet and our use of it and social media, laws need to be put into place to handle these people who cause emotional distress, violation of privacy and use of the Internet and/or social media to harass others.

 

Have you had any experiences with this? How did you recover?

 

That sounds awful, Gloria. What was actually happening regarding the stalking? How did the perpetrator respond when you confronted them?

 

I believe the laws on stalking are lax overall, it terrifies me that usually, police are powerless to act until the stalker actually acts and commits a crime such as an assault or an overt threat.

 

But there is a lot you can do online to maximise your safety. Use pseudonyms, make sure your facebook and twitter are locked down so hard that nobody can find them or view their content/contact you.

 

I work with offenders, many of whom have convictions for domestic violence or stalking, and it's taught me a lot about trying to make my online presence as minimal as possible. When I see what they've done to the victims of their crimes, it really makes me think bloody hard about how to avoid being found and victimised myself.

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It's not just strangers or acquaintances.

 

There are a lot of messed up people out there, and even family or people who you think are your friends could be doing this.

 

My sister has BPD, and she has done some very mean things online to some of my family members. She schemes to turn friends/family against each other, and is entertained by the drama that ensues.

 

It's sick.

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I had severe problems with this that went on for 3 years and it was about 10 years ago. There ARE laws to prevent any type of electronic harassment in 48 states the last time I checked, but they're poorly enforced. I became a bit of an expert on stalking laws back then. But NOBODY would do anything about it, not the websites, not the police. Your best bet is to try website admins to try to get them blocked. I had background checks done on my two brothers, and one worked in computer technology and knew how to forge my email address and write others as if it was me. The other had a battery charge on his record. I never met either of them, but an internet friend of mine had made the mistake of doing so, and one became obsessed with her after she just met him for a friendly meetup and tried to blackmail her after she didn't want to keep seeing him. It was a very stressful time. The one that was the computer tech called all the people with my name (why I never ever give my name on the internet anymore) until he found my home phone number.

 

People do take this more seriously than they used to, but you have to save everything so you can print it off or take it on a flash drive and show the pattern of harassment. You have to have clearly told them never to contact you again and have that to show. And they're more likely to do anything about it if it involves money or threats. Basically, if it involves money, the FBI fraud unit handles it. They used to be who handled all internet crime and I talked to them a lot, but they told me they have their hands full just trying to stop the major criminals out there phishing for money and the scam artists.

 

You can take it to the police or an attorney. The problem of course is they are probably not in your same jurisdiction.

 

Your best bet is to go incognito and be sure if you're on a forum they're on, you change your name and be sure the forum doesn't show your IP as some used to do. The hardest part is controlling people you may know in common. During our mess, we found out a gay guy we considered a close friend online (I'd even gone to visit him overseas once) was feeding one of the brothers informaition and not taking our issue at all seriously and wasn't worried about the girl who lived out by them. So we had to just cut him off as well. Another online friend didn't take our word for it either and had to be cut off as well.

 

The girl our stalkers were trying to really harass who lived within driving distance, they threatened to show up at her home and work. So we put our heads together and "faked a move." We posted online but not in the obvious places we knew they'd see but less obvious ones that she was moving and changing jobs. This actually worked because they didn't think it was intended for them to see this bit of info.

 

If there are any threats, I believe the police should be willing to get involved.

 

One of my stalkers was doing a lot of his dirty work from his place of employment, and another person he was harassing called them and let them know and got him in trouble. My feeling was I could do the same but the last thing I needed was for him to have MORE time on his hands and be stressed from losing a job, because that's a trigger. But if you want to play hardball, contacting their employer and showing them something written from their own IP (copy the "source info" of the email) should make them take some action. Be sure you look at the source info of any emails for the first IP number from the bottom reading up and that should be their IP. Cross reference the IP in a few IP lookups and you may find out it belongs to a company or something.

 

Of course, just blocking and going incognito and avoiding anyplace they hang out is the best course of action, though I get that it's not fair.

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