Online Facebook Abuse

And88

Hi everyone 

I’m wondering if anyone tech savvy people out there could help me. This is a long story but very interesting. Myself and my partner have been receiving extremely abusive messages via an anonymous Facebook account for over 12 months. I have a good idea who the person behind them is and he has previous for doing something similar to another person. This guy is making our lives hell. We’ve reported the messages to the police and on one occasion managed to access the anonymous account and capture the URL which we passed on to the cyber crimes team. We thought we had him, unfortunately the address came back as a complete stranger living hundreds of miles away who we have never had contact with. The interesting thing was that the anonymous account had 2 friends which looked genuine accounts and one of which the URL belonged to. Very strange, why would you set up a false account and then add your original account as a friend? When I gave this some more thought I realised that this person was probably unaware and had added the anonymous account when they sent them a friend request. I think they have then some how captured this persons URL and somehow made it look like the messages were sent from there Facebook account. Has anyone come across or knows what kind of software this person could be using to make the URL for the Facebook account trace back to a different address. I’m not letting this go and feel I have to stop him trying to ruin anybody else’s life because he will go on. I believe the last poor person to receive this guys psychopathic vitriol nearly ended his life. 

If you need more of an explanation I’ll try my best but you will have to excuse my lack of tech knowledge. 

Many thanks in advance 

[Deleted User]

Seriously, just block them and get on with your life.

The fact you continued to accept their messages for 12 months just encourages people like that.

Once you've blocked them, make your profile totally private and invisible to anybody except your friends and they will never be able to find you again.

Neil_Jones

And88 said:

Hi everyone 

I’m wondering if anyone tech savvy people out there could help me. This is a long story but very interesting. Myself and my partner have been receiving extremely abusive messages via an anonymous Facebook account for over 12 months. I have a good idea who the person behind them is and he has previous for doing something similar to another person. This guy is making our lives hell. We’ve reported the messages to the police and on one occasion managed to access the anonymous account and capture the URL which we passed on to the cyber crimes team. We thought we had him, unfortunately the address came back as a complete stranger living hundreds of miles away who we have never had contact with. The interesting thing was that the anonymous account had 2 friends which looked genuine accounts and one of which the URL belonged to. Very strange, why would you set up a false account and then add your original account as a friend? When I gave this some more thought I realised that this person was probably unaware and had added the anonymous account when they sent them a friend request. I think they have then some how captured this persons URL and somehow made it look like the messages were sent from there Facebook account. Has anyone come across or knows what kind of software this person could be using to make the URL for the Facebook account trace back to a different address. I’m not letting this go and feel I have to stop him trying to ruin anybody else’s life because he will go on. I believe the last poor person to receive this guys psychopathic vitriol nearly ended his life. 

If you need more of an explanation I’ll try my best but you will have to excuse my lack of tech knowledge. 

Many thanks in advance 

Block them then, and stop getting involved with those sending them..

Also the default for anything on Facebook if the account is old enough is "everybody" can see everything even if you're not logged in.

https://youtu.be/cYVBshcN7wU?t=162

(from 2:42)

So the moral of the story is:  Set this up properly:

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy and also this:

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=blocking

And the bulk of your problems will be solved.

Tokmon

And88 said:

Hi everyone 

I’m wondering if anyone tech savvy people out there could help me. This is a long story but very interesting. Myself and my partner have been receiving extremely abusive messages via an anonymous Facebook account for over 12 months. I have a good idea who the person behind them is and he has previous for doing something similar to another person. This guy is making our lives hell. We’ve reported the messages to the police and on one occasion managed to access the anonymous account and capture the URL which we passed on to the cyber crimes team. We thought we had him, unfortunately the address came back as a complete stranger living hundreds of miles away who we have never had contact with. The interesting thing was that the anonymous account had 2 friends which looked genuine accounts and one of which the URL belonged to. Very strange, why would you set up a false account and then add your original account as a friend? When I gave this some more thought I realised that this person was probably unaware and had added the anonymous account when they sent them a friend request. I think they have then some how captured this persons URL and somehow made it look like the messages were sent from there Facebook account. Has anyone come across or knows what kind of software this person could be using to make the URL for the Facebook account trace back to a different address. I’m not letting this go and feel I have to stop him trying to ruin anybody else’s life because he will go on. I believe the last poor person to receive this guys psychopathic vitriol nearly ended his life. 

If you need more of an explanation I’ll try my best but you will have to excuse my lack of tech knowledge. 

Many thanks in advance 

Why are they making your lives hell?

You simply set your account to private and then don't even accept any message requests and you won't even see any messages from them. There is no reason why this should bother you at all and you shouldn't even see the messages unless you intentionally go to "message requests" to find them.

A "URL" is what you type into an address bar on a web browser to get to a website. To get someone's Facebook page URL you simple click on their name and copy the URL. This isn't secret information and doesn't help in any way to find out who they are.


So like i and others said block them and do not even read their messages or engage with them. Your just feeding into what they want by looking at the messages and giving them attention, if you ignore it they will soon get bored and go away and you won't even notice.

Neil_Jones

Like they say on web forums, don't feed the troll.  That's how they get their kicks by causing trouble.  Same applies to Facebook.  If you don't engage they'll get bored and find somebody else.

And88

Hi guys and thanks for the advice. 

The story is very long as it’s been going on for over 12 months. I think this persons motivation to troll me is that I think they have an infatuation with me and the messages were sent with the intent to end my relationship. I believe I work with this person who is now targeting me in work and making false allegations about me in work. 

It was very difficult to block the account as he kept messaging and then closing the account and then setting up a new Facebook account in a false name and messaging us again and then closing so we couldn’t get his URL. 

Initially we kept the Facebook account as my partner needed it to keep in contact with her friends and family abroad. We have since closed it down, I think this is why he is now targeting me in work and my friends on Facebook as he can’t get to us in facebook.

What I need to know is what software he is using to be able to capture someones URL information and then make it appear that any messages have been sent from this persons home address when in fact they have come from else where. Sorry I’m not technical.

 It’s really taking it’s toll on us. 

Tokmon

And88 said:

Hi guys and thanks for the advice. 

The story is very long as it’s been going on for over 12 months. I think this persons motivation to troll me is that I think they have an infatuation with me and the messages were sent with the intent to end my relationship. I believe I work with this person who is now targeting me in work and making false allegations about me in work. 

It was very difficult to block the account as he kept messaging and then closing the account and then setting up a new Facebook account in a false name and messaging us again and then closing so we couldn’t get his URL. 

Initially we kept the Facebook account as my partner needed it to keep in contact with her friends and family abroad. We have since closed it down, I think this is why he is now targeting me in work and my friends on Facebook as he can’t get to us in facebook.

What I need to know is what software he is using to be able to capture someones URL information and then make it appear that any messages have been sent from this persons home address when in fact they have come from else where. Sorry I’m not technical.

 It’s really taking it’s toll on us. 

You seemed to have "Thanked" my comment above but then completely ignored what i said.

If you have your settings correct there is no reason you will receive any messages from new accounts unless you go looking in the "message requests". So don't even read them and it won't effect you is the simple solution.

Like i said above the paragraph i have bolded in your reply makes no sense whatsoever. 

The URL is just what you type into a web browser to go to someone's Facebook profile. Facebook profiles are stored on Facebook servers so the URL will never tell you where someone is located.

They are NOT using any software to make messages appear to be coming from someone else's address because there is no way to track someone using a URL to where they are sending it from anyway.

You just need to ignore the messages and stop engaging them and giving them the attention that they want.

Neil_Jones

And88 said:

Hi guys and thanks for the advice. 

The story is very long as it’s been going on for over 12 months. I think this persons motivation to troll me is that I think they have an infatuation with me and the messages were sent with the intent to end my relationship. I believe I work with this person who is now targeting me in work and making false allegations about me in work. 

It was very difficult to block the account as he kept messaging and then closing the account and then setting up a new Facebook account in a false name and messaging us again and then closing so we couldn’t get his URL. 

Initially we kept the Facebook account as my partner needed it to keep in contact with her friends and family abroad. We have since closed it down, I think this is why he is now targeting me in work and my friends on Facebook as he can’t get to us in facebook.

What I need to know is what software he is using to be able to capture someones URL information and then make it appear that any messages have been sent from this persons home address when in fact they have come from else where. Sorry I’m not technical.

 It’s really taking it’s toll on us. 

Firstly stop getting so hung up on "someone's URL" because that isn't going to help anything.  The "software" of which you speak is most likely the public website/apps.

Close all Facebook accounts you and your partner have and set new ones up (setting your privacy options up properly as I've already said)  And then do not put in anything that identifies where you work or other details like DoB, interests and whatever else - only put the bare minimum in you need (if you must put additional information in, set them up so only you can see them).  Only add people you actually know as opposed to the world and his dog just because you went to school with them 20 years ago.  Disable Messenger - this will just send everything into a black hole (virtually) and if you stay from it, you will see nothing.

If what you have said is true in that that you think you work with this person (ie the same company/department/office/whatever), then take it up with your manager, assuming its a traditional "work for somebody else" arrangement.

You need really to be helping yourself with the tools that are already available.

Binkie_Huckaback

Neil_Jones said:

Like they say on web forums, don't feed the troll.  That's how they get their kicks by causing trouble.  Same applies to Facebook.  If you don't engage they'll get bored and find somebody else.

In 80% of cases, this will happen, they'll just get bored. But there's a small number of nutters who will persist, and even get worse if they can no longer access their victim online.

What have the Police said/done, OP? I'm guessing not a lot by the sound of it. 
I'm also assuming your aim is to get actual proof that the troll IS the person you suspect it is?

joeypesci

The police will do nothing unless you're a celebrity or a politician. So just block them and move on.