If anyone has had this happen to them, please clue me in as to what could be going on. Over the past several months, me, my cars, and my home have been stalked by picture takers. No, I’m not famous – and no, I’m not under investigation or doing something that would attract attention.
In some cases, someone (never the same person, near as I can tell) will drive by my home, perhaps a couple times, stop, and take a picture of the house before driving off. Another common occurrence is to be stopped at a light or be walking to my car, and someone in a stopped car will grab a camera and snap a picture.
I thought I was being cased by burglars, but these are well dressed people in nice cars, and there is too damn many of them. This happens a couple times a week. How would they know where to find me other than my home, anyway? I suppose I could be going insane, but these this is the situation as I observe it.
PERSONALLY if I were in your shoes, I would try my hardest to get the licensce plates off of these cars, also if possible I would try to see what the person looked like, and what they are wearing (also take note of atleast the color of the car) and which direction they are heading. I would call the police AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and report it. I would tell them that someone has been following me around, taking pictures of me from their car, they’ve been taking pictures of me, in and out of my house, my children (if applicable) and they are making me very nervous and threatend etc… Hopefully if you do it fast enough the police will find them and ask them what exactly they’re up to. I hate to admit this, but I would probably embellish just enough to get them to take it seriously. I have a feeling calling them up to tell them someone is takeing pictures isn’t a real high priority. But calling up and frantically saying “Someones been folloing me around for a couple days taking pictures of me in my house, I just saw them now, the licence plate is xxx-xxx they’re in an old blue escort heading west on oak st could you please send an officer over right away, they’re really making me nervous” might get them job done quicker. OTOH if possible, you may just want to walk over and ask them exactly what they’re doing.
I hope you don’t think I haven’t thought of this. They normally bolt immediately after the impromptu photo OP. I’ve been unable to get a full license plate, but it is on my to-do list.
I think that you need to speak to the police, and I think you need to register some sort of official complaint with a lawyer.
This may be a harmless misunderstanding, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. And it’s been going on for a worryingly long time.
It’s most likely to be a private detective agency. Do you have an ex seeking custody, or alimony? Have you made insurance claims or disability claims? Perhaps you have been mistaken for someone else in these situations.
May I also suggest this – get a lightweight digital camera (just for the savings in film processing costs) and keep it handy. When you see someone taking a picture of you, turn the tables and take a picture of them. Not only will it document what’s going on with a timestamp, your camera might be able to catch a license plate number that your eyes couldn’t.
Another option may be to do some investigating on your own. If you know that there’s a specific time of day or day of the week when these folks show up, why not wait for them? Borrow a car from a friend or neighbor, and wait on the street. When they come and take their pics, follow them (as nonchalantly as possible) and find out where they go, or at least until you can get a license number and description of the photographer. Why not? Sauce for the goose, and all that.
How bizarre! I’m inclined to go with the “maybe you look like someone famous theory” - have you tried looking at tabloids and gossip columns for pictures of yourself with someone else’s name in the caption? But that wouldn’t explain why people are taking pictures of your house unless you are always outside when it happens and not just seeing it through a window. The other argument against this theory is that presumably, if your resemblance to some celebrity was so strong, at least once in all the time this has been going on, surely someone would have asked you for an autograph… unless you look like a reputedly psychotic, surly celebrity that shouldn’t be approached. (Mike Tyson springs to mind.) I’ve had several total strangers take my photo in public, but they generally ask, and I can pretty much figure out why - for example, I was in Salem two weeks before Halloween and happened to be wearing a black dress. It was easier to smile for ten seconds and let the silly tourist go away thinking he met a real witch than to get into an argument over it. Also, despite the fact that several people have told me I look like Carrie Fisher (circa Star Wars) no one has ever tried to take my picture for that reason (presumably because I am roughly half Ms Fisher’s age, but no one’s ever said, “Wow, you look like Carrie Fisher in Star Wars, can I take your picture?” either). Just for the record, I don’t see the resemblance anyway…
I definitely agree that you should call the police, but do try to get at least a partial plate and a description of the car so they have somewhere to start. I also like the digital camera idea. I hate to say it, but if you just call the cops with nothing to go on, they’ll probably dismiss you as paranoid and never even look into it. I mean, a few months ago I called the cops to report a car that had been partially blocking my driveway for days, and had to go out to get the plate number, and when I picked the phone back up I heard the officer I’d been speaking to telling someone in the background it was “just a nosy neighbor complaint.” Nobody came out despite the fact that a '68 Buick that hasn’t moved in 3 days is quite a concrete, indisputable thing. I had to call back the following morning and speak to someone else, who said my original call had never even been logged. So, since your story is a little out-there and hard to prove (not saying I don’t believe you, mind you - if you were so paranoid as to be hallucinating an army of camera-snapping spies, I don’t think you’d be able to write a coherent post), I think you’re going to have to give them something to go on to even get them to listen to you.
Start a diary with a complete list of every time this happens from now on. Make sure the list contains the date, the time, the place, and everything else about the incident. Describe the person, the car, and everything both the other person and you did during the incident. As was suggested, get a camera and try to photograph the person. Try to have some other people there so that you have witnesses that these incidents occurred. At the point that you have a list of all the times these things happened with some witnesses and some pictures, then you can go to the police. However, if at any time before then you feel that you are actually in danger, you can go to the police right then.
How old are these people? Maybe it’s some kind of bizzare assignment for a photography class. You got picked at random, and now they’re taking photos of you “in real life.”
Another vote for the “look like a celeb” theory. Now you know how it feels, I guess (minus the requests for autographs while you’re eating, strangers talking to you in public washrooms, etc.).
On continued thought, I really doubt the “looks like a celeb” thing.
Firstly, because if you really did look like a celebrity, many people would have already told you.
Secondly, because if you did, you’d be getting hassled by members of the public, and it doesn’t sound like these are random members of the public.
Thirdly, because these people don’t really sound like they look like paparazzi either. Also, that’s not really how paparazzi work. They’re very often freelance. They wouldn’t waste time anyway snapping the wrong person, they’d soon find out they’d made a mistake when they got back to their picture editor.
Fourthly, I am also doubting the private investigation thing. Unless something really major is going on, it surprises me that they would use so many different personnel to snoop you. Many of these agencies are pretty much one man bands, AFAIK. And with a bigger, more professional agency, I doubt you’d be able to keep catching them at their work.
This is a real mystery, anyway. I would want to hire my own agents to snoop out the others. But it would probably cost a fortune.
“Looks like…” may still apply, but not necessarily a celebrity. It’s not impossible that you either bear a resemblence to or have the same name as someone who is being investigated by someone for some reason. I could speculate one harmless version of this to be that someone’s looking to find a long lost relative who happens to have the same name. Same can be true of less harmless motives (such as you have the same name as someone who skipped town with lots of gambling debts to the Mob or bear a resemblence to someone in the Witness Protection Program), but in either case the discrete photography would be a relatively good sign they’re making sure you’re the right mark before confronting you with anything.
