Tracking down harrasser

[apetaster]

Hello:

A relative of mine and his wife are being targeded by an unknown party who either has a vendetta against them (for an unknown reason) or simply gets a kick from making their lives less than fun.

Are there any recommended ways (low cost) to track down individuals engaging in:

- phone harrassment (from global callers)

- signing up parties for goods and services without their consent (everything from Army recruiters to Jehovahs' Witnesses to Sex Clinics have been contacting them "since you asked us to contact you") Also includes shipping items to them internationally COD (weird stuff from Belgium, Nigera, etc.)

- web harassment - the perp. of this is slandering the relative (by name and address) and accusing him of doing things/hate crimes in areas he's never once set foot.

Any insight you have will be much appreciated (it does have to be legal because the next step will be to involve the FBI and Postmaster General.)

Thanks!

[saltfish]

Your local police...

The postmaster general..

This doesen't sound like it's something simple. This is obviously causing you a particular level of distress.

-SF

[pinklily]

I've been having some phone harassment myself lately and you should talk to your phone service provider. I've found that on your home phone you can block someone's number to keep them from calling you unless they unblock their number so it is accessible to you, and you can tell who is calling.

[Zander]

For the internet, get something such as NeoTrace and get their IP, or use the netstat function in the dos prompt if them if you can get them connected over AIM or something else, or even set them up to connect to your IP by giving them a link to it.

[iamnormal]

Conntact the police.
Make a log book with calls, mail, email, ect... with time and dates.
Use answering machine to answer calls. One with tapes and save tapes.

Be sure to print the header of the email when printing. A header looks something like this.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Received: (qmail 13994 invoked from network); 2 Mar 2004 06:12:35 -0000
Received: from nat5.amnet.co.cr (HELO rewdv) (196.40.3.39)
by mx10.mci.net with SMTP; 2 Mar 2004 06:12:35 -0000
Reply-To: pokertoday999@hotmail.com
Return-Path: pokertoday999@hotmail.com
From: oiywea<dasf@oihlknlk.com>
To: youremail@server.com
Subject: ¼¼°è ÃÖ°í¸¦ ¼Ò°³ÇÕ´Ï´Ù...................484SC22UV36dPf
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 15:12:59 +0900
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="euc-kr"
----------------------------------------------------------------
These records will help with the cops and in court to show your case.

[apetaster]

Thanks guys. The victims have already changed their home number and had the new one left unlisted. They're opening up discussions with the Feds now (it got a lot worse in the last 24h.)

Thanks again