Hate mail - When to involve the law?

Suzkin

Hi All,

Firstly, I want to stress that I have not received hate mail from anyone on the MSE website.

Yesterday I received hate mail from a 'closed' mailing list I subscribe to. It is supposed to be a forum for people working in the 'profession'.

What happened? I made a (very polite) post to the list, and later that same day, my message had been forwarded back to me directly (i.e. not back to the list) with another message. This message was sick, and there were 4 very distressing and disturbing photos.

The message did not come from the individual who I had previously replied to, although given the message itself, there was obviously a strong link. I suspect the recipient of my original email read it, and then to protect himself, gave my email address to his 'friend' to send me the hate mail. Alternatively, the recipient sent it directly to me himself but under a different (false) email address?

I have emailed the list back, asking for the Administrator (or Moderator) to make contact with me - it needs reporting, and 'dealing' with, but I'm not sure how. I have also blocked the recipients email address from my yahoo account.

However, is there any way I can report this more legally e.g. to the police? The recipient is in the USA, and I expect his 'friend' is also?

Any constructive advice is welcome.

googler

There's the possibility that the others in your mailing list have been hacked, and are totally unaware and innocent of the suspect mail.

If you have a UK Yahoo account, I'd suggest your first port of call after the mod of the list should be

abuse@yahoo.co.uk
admin@yahoo.co.uk
postmaster@yahoo.co.uk

One of these should find a real person to deal with....

If it's a yahoo-operated mailing list, the above are still relevant.

==========================

Cast-iron guaranteed way to stop this is to cancel from the mailing list, and change your e-mail address. Inconvenient, I know, but it'll get the job done......

Suzkin

Thank very much googler - I'll look at these links. I've also just discovered that this person has been behaving like this on other mailing lists, and has been banned on one of them.

Suzkin

Should I forward the images I received from him, which are very disturbing, as evidence? (with a caution in the subject line?).

Suzkin

btw: it's a jiscmail mailing list, although the hate mail was sent to my yahoo email address.

Suzkin

I'm a bit confused: the abuse was sent to my yahoo account; the abuser was using a gmail account.

Who do I contact - yahoo or gmail?

edgex

[EMAIL="helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk"]helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk[/EMAIL]


is the content illegal?

googler

Suzkin wrote: »

I'm a bit confused: the abuse was sent to my yahoo account; the abuser was using a gmail account.

Who do I contact - yahoo or gmail?

Both, if you feel inclined to. But looks like you'd be best starting with jiscmail and gmail.

googler

Suzkin wrote: »

Should I forward the images I received from him, which are very disturbing, as evidence? (with a caution in the subject line?).

Only if the postmasters ask for them....

googler

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/contacts.html

E-mail and phone helplines here.

eamon

As well as doing all the above. If you have any questions/worries re the content of the e-mail then do not forward/copy the e-mail unless requested/instructed to do so by the relevant authorities.