Cyberstalking and Internet Crimes: How to Find Your Stalker and Sue Them in Court

Recently, I became the obsession for someone in the Internet world. It has been frustrating as well as scary. One morning I logged into my MySpace account. There was an alert for a message. Much to my surprise it was a picture of me. I opened the message. All there was were 3 periods. I clicked on the photo to view the profile. Of course it was marked private. I then had a friend request. It was from my impostor. I added the person. This person had created an account with pictures from my blogger. Copyrighted photos. I quickly logged into my stat counter. There this person's IP address was. Sitting there taunting me. This person had entered my blog via eBay's about me pages. This person trolled all of my pictures and articles for 2 hours. Then created a MySpace profile to taunt me.

This impostor copied my entire profile, adding their own slanderous words. It was humiliating.

I quickly added the stat counter to my MySpace page to cross reference the one from the blog. Sure enough, it was the same person. So for the next few hours this person would message me. Making threats to add my friends, extorted me by asking for sexual favors ( that was the only way they wouldn't add my friends), threatening me, and the list goes on. I was able to find that whomever this was, was only a matter of miles from my doorstep.

Later that night I tried to access my MySpace account. They had gain access to it. Changed the email log in as well as the password. I was able to view the profile by typing in my MySpace id. This person had erased all of my friends and the stat counter. By the next evening I was able to gain access to it. However, this person was still logged into the account. When I made the email log in change and verified it through my email address, this person changed it. Since I was still logged in I was able to change it again. However, I couldn't change the password since I didn't know what the current one was. So I decided to start deleting my blogs, pictures and messages. Within seconds my email account had gotten a notice from MySpace that I wanted to delete the account. I erased the message and emptied the trash in my email account. This person must have had access to that as well. They clicked the link in the email before I was able to delete it. My account was then deleted.

They also logged into my Pay pal account and deleted bank information. Blocked out of my email account. There is no way to get into it since they changed all of the answers to secret questions.

So began the frustration. I contacted my local PD. Since there are laws enacted in my state for cyber stalking. They wouldn't even take a report. Even though extortion, identity theft and harassment is against the law. I then called the city attorneys office for advice. They quickly investigated this. Told me to call the County Sheriff's dept Internet crimes division. I did that. They informed me that they did not have the man power to investigate this. To call my local PD. I also needed to report this to the ic3.gov. I would need a police report number to do so.

I started investigating on my own. I found that there is a loop hole in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since I do have the IP address of this stalker I can get that persons contact information. To do this successfully you will need to do the following.

Find out where your local circuit court is. Go to the civil division. You can only do this if you have the IP address. You file a civil suit against the ISP and then subpoena the legal department for the IP holders name, address and telephone number. Once you get that information you dismiss the case without prejudice. You then file another suit against the stalker for damages. Depending on how bad it is. What proof you have etc. I suggest taking screen shots of all Internet communications ( simply hit the prt Scrn button then open paint and paste it there) , embedding a stat counter in your blog or myspace ( stat counter.com is free and easy to use), do not engage in the correspondence, make sure that you ask them to stop, NEVER get nasty with the person, if you have sought metal health assistance that is proof, how long it took you to repair any damage from this person. I would never do the maximum alloted amount. You are just doing this to fight back and prove that you will not take this. Once this person is found to be at fault by the magistrate go to the police dept and pressure them to prosecute.

You can take the power away from these people. They do this because they feel that they will never get caught. Someone has to take a stand and get these people to stop. This is not your fault.