I keep being harassed by a guy online!

[Lemon Zing]

There's this guy in America who keeps stalking me online and harassing me. He registered on a forum about Resident Evil, which is a game. He made a thread that looked normal, but after I posted links, he stalked me to other forums and found me elsewhere by using search engines. He was made aware that one particular forum does not have moderators any more, and so he registered dozens of accounts, threatening to continue spamming unless the owner of the forum banned me, which he or she then did, which was totally unfair, because I'd been posting there for over 5 years. Yet even after I was banned, he still creates new IDs and posts there about me anyway, although I noticed that the members ignore his posts.

Later, after I put information about myself on that Resident Evil site, he also stalked me to the IMDb.com related Get Satisfaction customer service site, Wikia, and Wikipedia. He also vandalized pages on my official IMDb entry by adding fake posters for films that didn't have any displayed, and putting my status on them (rumored, unconfirmed, etc). He also 'liked' each film (I assume this then subscribes people to future updates) and this attention is quite creepy and undesirable. He is still on that Resident Evil forum, but he posts normal to avoid detection. But once he slipped up and gave away his real name in a post somewhere, then randomly messaged me on Facebook to deny it was him. I know where his mother lives in Belleville as I looked up his name and family members. Should I contact his mother? The police don't do anything.

It's a real pain. I've also been getting password requests sent to my Gmail account, so I'm going to have to use different email addresses that don't contain my full online nicknames, or maybe I'll have to include numbers as well.

 

[Gritches]

Oh my God I love the internet.

But seriously, considering that contacting his mother (as well as knowing where she lives and his family members) would probably make you look like the stalker I would go ahead say don't do that. Like, I'm really not a "don't do that, that's a bad idea" kind of guy, but don't do that. That's a bad idea.

Afraid I don't really have any solutions for you, I've never had to deal with this, sorry to hear about your situation, it must be very frustrating and violating.

 

[pjcnet]

You want to ensure the stalker doesn't get into any of your accounts and that your PC remains secure by taking a few basic precautions.

He probably isn't too clever, but it's better to be safe anyway. Please ensure that you use a different password on each and every site that you use and that it is difficult to brute force (E.g. the password should be at least 8 characters long, it shouldn't be a word or even a word with a number, preferably it should have upper and lower case characters as well as numbers, if there's at least one symbol it's even better still if the site allows this, for instance "peter1979" is very insecure as a password, but "jfeDF23fd3sd" is good enough), you can use a free password manager such as LastPass to help remember passwords and also to create secure ones for different sites. So many people use a single password on multiple sites, then a site with poor security gets hacked and the hacker will attempt to use the same password on multiple sites, also weak passwords can be brute forced on some sites and if the database is leaked you will need a secure password to avoid the hacker cracking it using brute force (many sites have had database leaks, you will be surprised, a few may even store the password in plain text which is unforgivable, I doubt your stalker is capable of that, but it's better to be secure as possible anyway).

Be very careful what emails / correspondence you open if there are any links and most definitely don't open any attachments unless you're sure they're safe. In other words ensure your stalker doesn't trick you into unknowingly installing something malicious that could for instance allow them to control your PC or simply watch / record everything you do. Malicious attachments are normally disguised as something that you would believe is innocent.

Stalking including online stalking is illegal in the UK and it can be treated very seriously, I'm not sure what the law is in other countries, but if this doesn't stop you could take legal advice / ask the police for help, if he's doing this to you then there maybe other victims too. I'd be reluctant to contact his mother yourself as it may escalate against you, it would be a gamble. Hopefully if you keep ignoring him as much as possible he will eventually get bored and move on.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I know the guy very well. He ran a Resident Evil site over 10 years ago and I had so much abuse from trolls on these type of forums. I suspect he broke into my email accounts back then too, as I used the name of my pet as a security question answer and had my accounts infiltrated, but I cannot prove it was him, because whoever it was then signed up a completely different Gmail account to contact me, and the sender's ID was "Danny Your Budgie." Since then, I've made my answers sound very nonsensical, as opposed to obvious.

The reason I knew it was him annoying me recently, is because he posted stuff from a Pastebin type site onto a forum, and it had the person's name in one such posting. I even remembered that he lives in New Jersey. After that, he must have realized he slipped up, so he started posting the same things again, but changing the names listed to other unpleasant people I know from before that he knows as well, or starting threads saying, "I'm (fake name), remember me?" because he wanted to mask the fact that he slipped up.

Just to test him out, I posted a photo of his onto a forum that was then still visible on his (seemingly inactive) Facebook page. Just moments later after his suspected ID logged into the forums, that photo suddenly disappeared, so my little trick worked. Then he messaged me on Facebook out of the blue once, asking why I was messaging people who 'knew' him, to cover up the fact I caught him out, and then offering to talk it over with me. So I didn't reply. I blocked him, but then he just starts fishing with new accounts. On one of the forums he was stalking me on, my profile displays the names of accounts that visit my page, so I could compare them to other IDs he had elsewhere, but now I see he has began omitting his log in status using the invisible mode. He must have more than 30 banned Wikipedia accounts by now.

 

[Manuheleku]

If it were me, ignore him until he gets bored or frustrated. If I wanted a bit of fun, troll him back under an assumed identity until he gets bored with the real you then you drop the other account. Unfortunately the authorities don't want to do anything. If you are afraid of him coming up in person, then you need to get a lot more persistent with the police and start thinking about a restraining order and possibly protction. This is a sticky situation.

 

[Lemon Zing]

By the way, my name isn't really Paul Lee either. It's a character that is in films I am in. But he knows what my real name is, which is why you shouldn't have everything online interconnected. Like with YouTube, you can unlist videos so only people that have the links can see them. But then they may be aware of how to circumvent that tactic, and keep the links bookmarked. Also, putting videos on forums requires embedding them, so it's easy enough to find them publicly posted anywhere, just based on their titles (which I assume is why he ended up on Wikia). It doesn't take a computer expert to know that Google is a powerful search engine. Some search results can show up on there in a matter of hours.

For YouTube, you should have a different account for engaging with your Internet buddies, and another one separately for sharing content only with your family, personal friends, or maybe your work colleagues, if you're required to do so. And who says Google makes you use your real name? Just call yourself John Smith, or Bruce Wayne, regardless of your gender. It may be breaking the rules, but it's better to keep yourself feeling safe. It's hard, as you want to just be you and self-promote for enjoyment. But then you can run into problems.

It's a bit of a problem hiding everything you do these days, especially when it comes to the Internet, because if you're an actor like me and you want to update IMDb.com or any site like that which usually has to categorize everything, or the producers want to credit everybody they worked with, then it means anybody who views your pages can see what films you have worked on, or will be part of in the future (if they are listed). That's the whole point of a database. It may have been something you were in with verifiable evidence, so it's considered to be factual and probably has to be listed. This means any person can then look you up on Netflix. YouTube. Etc. Also, if you're vocal about what you do online, that can inadvertently leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

Just because you're in a film or an episode of a TV show doesn't mean you have the ownership of the videos that other people post online. You're just in it, either as a character or maybe just as an extra in the background. So once you're in any production, the people who made it can post it anywhere they wish to distribute it, and you won't have any say in their decision. So people wanting to find out what you're in can easily do all this, and it's not even illegal, just bothersome.

Now, I guess you cannot stop that sort of stalking from occurring, but it's creepy how it's just this one guy with some petty, decade's long issue with me. Like, he is somewhat professional at this sort of 'abuse thing,' since he doesn't cause a stir on that forum we post on. He even replies to some of my posts in an ordinary manner. Although if I reply, I just talk about what he's talking about. I don't post links any more, because that's how he started following me around in the first place. He had also been uploading avatars featuring people I know, but none of the people in charge could care less. Well, him and this other account did this, and I think the other profile is likely him too.

 

[HaruLanayru]

I had someone create 4 different instagrams to harass me. Calling me horrible names and such. They did it for a stupid reason. I had a misunderstanding with the harasser's friend and so they came after me. I even apologized to the person I had the misunderstanding with. I even tried to be nice and gave them a shoutout telling people to follow her awesome account. Well, she must've told her friend some absurd version of the story because before I knew it I was being called vulgar names. My only option was to block and report. Then they'd come after me again with more accounts! They threatened me too!

Worst of it was they said they knew someone who killed themselves and claimed to have tried too. If they understood depression, why would they try to get someone else to kill themselves? That was clearly their goal. Although they kinda failed. I had no intention to harm myself and they thought I was crying and shaking and scared. Truth is I didn't give them the reaction they wanted. I was actually pissed off. I even stopped reacting at all at one point.

So my advice to you: Block, Report, and Repeat if necessary. Also, don't give them any attention. If you ignore them, they'll eventually get bored and harass someone else. If you get threats or anything violent....then the police should be able to help. I think online threats are illegal, but I'm not sure. If the guy is doing anything illegal then the police should be involved.

 

[Lemon Zing]

Well, I already reported him to the police in New Jersey, but they just seemed astonished that I was calling them from Britain, and the trooper I spoke to advised me to report him to my own ISP. Like that's going to do any good.

"Morse" is this guy's surname, so I got his family details online. I've kept these safe, but it's unlikely I'll be able to get anything legally done about him, because the administrator on the forums where he leaked his real name deleted his prior spam posts, so now I don't have much evidence to go by, beyond dozens of hate filled comments and Wikipedia logs that doesn't link the harassment to who he really is. He just uses as many aliases as he can muster up and comes back, and back, and back.

I've had to ask IMDb.com staff to erase the photos on my film pages. It's truly annoying that I'm having to cease promoting my videos publicly online now, but he keeps designing fake posters for these films using screenshots in their galleries. Films that I'm in that others want to upload online or promote images of are different. It's their productions. What they do is their business, so I can only advise them what to do in these type of situations, but then that's also advertising negative things I'd rather was being dealt with more efficiently.

YouTube (like all of Google's products, really) is a massive privacy concern. Vimeo is another video hosting site that has an option where you can make your videos private and send a password to anybody who wishes to view the videos. But you cannot upload unlimited megabytes, so you have to upgrade your account. It's not worth the hassle unless you are going to make a lot of videos. My only other option is to hide them on a new YouTube account, but only send the links in a private email with established users only, and don't use my real name as I had did already.