Crazy stalker. I have no idea who it is. Reported it to the police multiple times but nothing came out of it.
Consider Turning off read receipts so they will not know you saw the message. Control the data flow.
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/turn-read-receipts-on-or-off-iph5e713a045/ios
(I’m assuming they know you block them by the “read” in the chat program, if you reply to them, that’s different, and consider stopping that. Don’t give them any attention)
Go to the police. File a report.
They’ll probably bs you saying they can’t do anything and to come back when something happens. and try to weasel out of a report.
But they’re legally obligated to take a report. start documenting this everytime it happens and get the courts involved. Cops are lazy. They have ways of tracking this down, but won’t unless they absolutely have to. Squeaky wheels get the grease because they’re annoying as fuck.
This- I assume it’s a dude- Is not safe and he can’t take a hint.
Tell the police he threatened a CEO and they’ll send the FBI after him before lunch!
Just a word of warning… don’t lie to cops…
That’s actually a crime and they love dinging people for whatever they can.
in any case, it’s not untraceable. it’s probably pretty easily traced. but it’s a matter of filling out some paperwork to get started and cops hate paperwork. (I hate this I hope OP stays safe.)
I know. I wasn’t being serious. Just trying to highlight the absurdity that this person is ignored when a CEO would get instant reaction. I hope the OP is ok too.
I think another posters idea to turn off read receipts was a good idea. Then the stalker won’t know if the message got through.
I wonder why somebody thought it was a good idea to make cell phones nark by default. read receipts was a dumb idea crafted by some middle manager from hell.
another option is to block unknown contacts from sending messages. IOS, the android/google messages and most messaging apps have a way to filter messages and just block anyone not in your contact list.
Is that an apple thing? My phone doesn’t do read receipts
its apple to apple or android to android, I think.
I know IOS does it, though.
iMessage and android RCS clients do it, but normal sms on android does not. Then basically every other chat app has it too.
You get read receipt For iMessage, not for regular SMS.
but indeed, if OP was a CEO, the FBI would take immediate action about it
Then I suggest OP hurry and become a CEO with a 7 figure income asap!
/J
If the police continue to not do their job, hire an attorney (if you can afford one) to go with you. The attorney doesn’t even need to do anything except be a witness.
They tell you there’s nothing they can do because they don’t want to be bothered. And they don’t want their stats to go up.
Having an attorney present bumps it up to “being fucked by court duty is worse than doing some paperwork”. Likely nothing they can do but having the paper trail of a stalking report will help YOU should the stalker escalate.
You know, that’s a good point.
I just checked. Victims are also entitled to speak to a public defender- or anyone interacting with the court or the justice system- including cops. (a private lawyer will be way more effective, PD’s are… stretched thin and overworked. yet another thing that needs to be changed.)
Lawyers will also do free consults, so it’s worth it to at least call around to a couple of places and see how much it will cost. My partner had to do this once and one of the lawyers ended up giving us pro bono legal advice and making a call to the police just because he thought the whole situation was stupid. He was like, “I’ll call them and figure out what their plan is and then we can figure out if you even need to hire a lawyer.” (His advice after talking to the cops was that we probably didn’t need to hire him, but that there were a couple of things he could do if we still wanted to.) So that was a nice and unexpected resolution that wouldn’t have happened had we not tried to hire someone.
They did file multiple reports with the police, who did nothing.
This has been my experience with the police too, any time I’ve needed help or something has happened that needed investigating, they couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger. The closest they ever came to being helpful was when I did their job for them and handed them all the proof, no charges but they talked the idiot who damaged my place into paying money for parts so I could fix what they did. The system is fucking garbage unless you are rich.
like I said. the squeaky wheel gets the grease because it’s annoying as fuck. Keep doing it. Keep documenting it. Keep filing civilian complaints naming the officer explaining how difficult it was just to get them to do the report and they won’t do anything else.
it sucks. It’s awful. it certainly shouldn’t be this way.
Makes me wonder what the hell I pay taxes for…
For more fighter jets, obviously.
To maintain the status quo.
It does, doesn’t it.
Then do the next steps, complain to the court directly, inform politicans and the press. Police not doing their job should be seen as a big issue.
Then the police start targeting you for being a pain in their ass. I see you are not familiar with this dance, you must be very lucky! Be grateful for your good fortune I guess but trying to hold a cop accountable can be a very dangerous game with terrible outcomes.
trying to hold a cop accountable can be a very dangerous game with terrible outcomes.
QFT
that said if you are a woman and know a corrections officer often times they are willing to trade violence for sexual favors.
Then fucking get out of that dictatorial hell and complain from a safe country
Sure, let me just grab my big bags of money to buy my way out and fund a lengthy, complicated immigration process on top of all the daily bullshit we have to endure every day. It’s not so easily done as so many people seem to think it is.
Yet millions of people from the arabics and Africa who don’t have an relativ easy way to get a work permit in the western world managed to do it anyway.
Btw reminder that your have the right to claim german citizenship if a ancestor lost it during the holocaust.
I hope you say the same thing to every citizen in every repressive regime around the world.
I absolutely would
The system was designed to protect the upper upper class from the rest of us. Everything else is a ruse to get us to sign on. Know the law, know your (lack of) rights.
This is not mildly infuriating, super infuriating. I am sorry that nothing came of the Reports.
I would agree. The best thing to do is as others have said. Disable read receipts and let them continue to get new numbers and wonder if they’re even getting through, document each one and the messages received but don’t respond. Keep the reports to police up to date with latest info. Even if they do nothing, it’s good to have a paper trail.
According to Crime Junkies Podcast, persistent stalking usually lead to violence or worse. Not to scare you but just expressing the gravity of the situation, as you already know. If police aren’t doing their job after multiple police reports, take it to your local news media and blast the police on their social media. This is force them to investigate, even if they’re pissed at you.
Plagiarizing and review-purchasing garbage podcast
The source may be bad, but their point is still true.
what?!
Yeaaah they bought reviews to get popular and straight-up plagiarized a bunch of stuff from other podcasts and stories. There’s a podcast called “Let’s Taco ‘bout True Crime” with an episode called “Let’s taco ‘bout the crime junkie plagiarism scandal” that goes into it. Or just search “Crime Junkie Plagiarism” to find some great articles and threads. Maybe they cite sources instead of verbatim copying others’ work now, but I can’t stand to listen.
oh oh. I thought you were saying the comment was plagerizing true crime and I was like the stalking leading to violence thing has been around and is basically common knowledge. So that was my misunderstanding. it was all about the podcast and not about the comment or commentator.
Ooooo no worries!
Bro cops never do shit in cases like these. Get a gun and be careful out there.
Caller: “I have a psycho stalker who keeps messaging me and I’m worried they’re going to do something violent to me”
Cops: “Call us after they harm you”
Caller: “I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield and a caller just said Deny Defend Depose”
“You’re a terrorist, you’re a terrorist, everyone is a terrorist!”
CPAC 2022: “We’re all domestic terrorists”
This is beyond mildly infuriating. I’ve been stalked and it was a bit traumatic, even though I don’t fit the profile of an easy target. I wish you had some clue who they are or some way to fight back.
Get twenty phone numbers. Whenever you meet someone you know, tell them you changed your number because of this stalker and to give you their phone so you can give them the new number. Give each person a different number every time, until you reach twenty. Make a note of who got each number. Wait a week. If you weren’t contacted yet, do the same thing with 20 other people.
When you ARE contacted again, you’ll at least have a list of people who knew the number, if not the exact person. Then you put on a hoodie in a color you don’t usually wear, take a baseball bat to their head from behind, get rid of hoodie and baseball bat in a dumpster on the other side of town and enjoy the rest of your life.
That went from lawful to chaotic evil real quick.
I’d argue it’s nowhere near chaotic evil, maybe true neutral (disregard law or morality as long as it benefits you), with arguments to be made for chaotic good (disobey the law to get rid of evil).
Hopefully doesn’t really need said but hitting someone in the head with a bat could result in charges all the way up to murder, so you probably don’t want to do that.
What?! Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck. I got to go.
Hopefully also doesn’t need saying, but this is why you get rid of the bat in a dumpster across town.
Voip numbers you mean? Otherwise in the US it can be found thanks to data brokers
We’re all so lonely, won’t you give us someone to talk to? Post the unedited screenshot so we can all make a friend
Actually that would be really funny. Imagine they just get a ton of people contacting them to tell them to leave this person alone.
It’s better than signing them up for spam. We could add that personal touch
Haha and then they freak out and hurt or kill OP lmao that’d be hilarious and epic guys.
We did it, Lemmy!
/s
Definitely not mild, this is seriously infuriating
They could be tracking you by your phone number. Yes just the phone number, not an app on the phone.
If you need to keep your current number, Port it to twilio, filter out all VoIP numbers, and then forward the call to your new phone number, or text message. And don’t text anybody back unless you know them.
The phone number on your phone is like a social security number, with it people can find out basically everything about you. If they want to spend enough money. So don’t give it to anybody
Check your vehicle, your purse, for tracking devices.
If you don’t need to keep your current phone number, get a new phone number, don’t give it to anybody. Set up Google voice, and use the Google voice number for people to contact you. We mostly use apps nowadays anyway, so anything on Google voice is just going to be new contacts or maybe a doctor’s office. But if that number leaks somehow, it can’t be used to track your location.
Okay this is probably bad advice, feel free to ignore:
Why not pretend you are interested and pretend you want to meet up
Then get a bunch of trusted friends to go and “confont” this person (with baseball bats).
okay yea this could go very wrong, but it is an option
But real advice, carry pepper spray, and if you are in a country that permits firearms, get a gun to carry with you (if you are comfortable with handling firearms, that is).
As for the messages, you can block anything not in your contacts.
Filter messages from unknown senders
With iMessage, you can prevent unknown senders from texting you directly. Their messages are filtered to another folder, and you don’t get notified about them.
Go to Settings > Apps > Messages.
Scroll down to Message Filtering, then turn on Filter Unknown Senders.
If this setting is on and you’re missing a message, check to see if it was filtered to Unknown Senders. Tap Filters in the top-left corner of the conversation list, then tap Unknown Senders.
Note: You canʼt open any links sent by an unknown sender until you make them a known sender—by adding them to your contacts or replying to the message.
From Apple website: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/block-filter-and-report-messages-iph203ab0be4/ios
For phone calls (in case the person tries to call):
Send unknown and spam callers to voicemail
Go to Settings > Apps > Phone, then tap any of the following:
Silence Unknown Callers: You get notifications for calls from people in your contacts, recent outgoing calls, and Siri Suggestions.
Call Blocking & Identification: Turn on Silence Junk Callers (available with certain carriers) to silence calls identified by your carrier as potential spam or fraud.
From Apple website: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/block-or-avoid-unwanted-calls-iphe4b3f7823/ios
I keep seeing this “buy a gun” advice. Do you have any evidence that a gun will actually help? Your likelihood of dying to a gun and specifically that gun skyrocket, and there is little in the way of evidence for it being effective self defense (that I have found):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/slightly-blighty/201601/does-owning-gun-protect-youI can understand wanting to feel protected and safe, but introducing an efficient killing device into the situation may not be the safest choice.
You may be able to reverse search the number and find out the provider then reach out to them and report him, hopefully that will hinder him from getting burner numbers easily.
Trivial for law enforcement (just send a couple of copy/paste requests), almost impossible for regular people
Depends if you’re in a country where ID has to be shown and registered in a database when activating a SIM card.
It is likely a voip that is being used.
for some reason telecoms worldwide are allowing voip companies to spoof almost any number - you can ID them but require cooperation of too many companies for a single individual without a court warrant
IMO he is spoofing numbers so he can set anything as a call ID anyway.
I was called by spoofers for a few weeks (same exact time every day but with a different number). My (European) provider said they can’t do anything about it.
Truthfully nobody is safe on our current phone system.
Even though this is not probably what is happening to OP and I don’t want to overly worry them but checkout this video by Veritasium :
Maybe OP should change completely of phone number.
WTF?
Contact your carrier and tell them you are being harassed. They probably can tell you who it is and take action. If they can’t go to the police and tell them you are being harassed. You really should not tolerate this. It will only get worse and it is a burden on your health.
Don’t stop until you have results.
Why not change your number?
And have them follow to new number after number because they are one of the 100s of people who have OP’s number legitimately? Why disrupt your whole life for this asshole. Better to get them caught and be done with it.
If that’s the case I assume OP knows who they are in reality or can figure it out pretty easily. From there either legal action or a beating can be administered, as appropriate.
Knowing how useless the cops are when it comes to doing anything that involves them having to voluntarily fill out paperwork, I imagine the legal avenue won’t do much until after OP has been assaulted. Violence is bad, but it’s hard to argue against results…
Restraining orders are a very real thing.
How would they keep getting the new number though lol
How would OP stop them getting the new number if OP doesn’t know who they are?
It could be any of the many people who has her current number and would likely be given it again freely when the number was changed.
You can stagger the dissemination of the new number to help determine/eliminate who it is but, as OP said, they have already reported this to the cops multiple times and they are refusing to help. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many victims of crime: The cops in at least some places just don’t care unless you are well off or otherwise connected.
Hopefully you can enlist the aid of somebody with significant tech/computer knowledge. If you can, it could be useful to “dox” this individual. A vindictive cracker can come up with all sorts of ways to make his life difficult until he gives up.
In the meantime, document EVERYTHING. This is absolutely crucial if you ever attempt to get some kind of protective order through the courts. Often, as long as you’ve clearly communicated that you desire zero contact, then no matter how “politely” they word things, continued attempts to contact you should count legally as harassment.
Finally, this is not mild. This is the mindset of an abuser. Please stay safe, no matter what you do!
If this happened to my gf this person would be my new hobby. I would be thoroughly pwning everything theyve ever touched online. Kid gloves off, black hat on.
If financially feasible, OP, I wonder if it would be worth contacting a lawyer? If nothing else they might be able to advise on next steps and/or pressure the police to do something more than nothing at all.
Based on this and the other message you posted, this person sounds pretty unpleasant, and potentially much worse. I hope this gets sorted soon. Be safe.
