Did you expect them to stake out your telephone with guns or something? Filing a report is documentation, and it’s extremely important to establish a history when you’re being harassed.
I will seriously slap the shit out of someone.
Outside of the movies, people that are so mad at you that they want to harm you do not make threatening anonymous phone calls first… they just go ahead and harm you.
If you are not aware of anyone who wants to harrass or stalk you, it is either a random dickhead person who was just phoning a random number until they found someone who gave them a “fun” response and so now they are repeating it, or it is someone who knows you and knows you will be upset by it and for whatever reason (a juvenile sense of humor or a desire to harrass you) they are continuing to do it.
Once you stop providing the desired response (not answering your phone or just ending the call without reacting if you do pick up), they will get bored with dialing your number for no payoff.
…Unless you are involved in some seriously fucked up shit with psychotic drug smugglers, an international slavery ring, terrorists, or puppy kickers who have lost all sense of proportion. If you are, they are totally coming after you.
Otherwise, just figure out how to ignore the calls. They will get bored and stop.
As another poster indicated these are are effectively untraceable as they are Internet calls from a google gmail account. You could possibly trace the IP address with your ISPs cooperation, but for the police to get that ramped up I’m guessing they would have to think you are in imminent danger vs being harassed by so a random Internet tough guy.
The good news is that random assholes, probably without any direct connection to you are using this to harass people. The bad news is that there doesn’t seem to be much you can do about it re identifying them personally.
Call your cell phone service provider re how to get calls blocked.
I wonder if recording the threats might be a way to get the ISP’s cooperation.
Call your phone company, and tell them that you are being harassed and threatened from a caller at the number given. That makes it their problem - they can block the number or raise the issue with Google, and they have more clout than you do alone. Google cannot afford to have their services blocked by phone companies due to harassment.
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I have no idea if this will help, but Gavin DeBoeker’s book The Gift of Fear addresses situation. One of things he mentioned was that people can usually point to the most likely culprit in harrassment like this if you let them depend on their instincts instead of reasoning it out.
So, MyFootsZZZ, who do you know that’s enough of an asshole to do this to you?
I really don’t know. The person on the top of my list is someone who just wouldn’t waist their time. I took measures to warn people that I’m taking it seriously. Not knowing who’s doing it is the worst part about it. Although I don’t feel threatened, and it’s probably someone just goofing on me, I’m still curious. It sucks I will probably never know.
When I said “the cops didn’t do anything”, I meant they did all they could… I didn’t expect much, so no… I didn’t want them to “stake out my telephone.” AND YES MeanOldLady, I was quite busy last night.
I got calls late last night and this morning. I have the ringer off for when they call so I won’t wake up when they call in the middle of the night. But they called on a restricted line once last night… so I did wake up. Can restricted numbers be traced?
A little later, (today or tomorrow), I’m calling my telephone service to get the number blocked and not able to receive private calls. Until then, they can call all they want.
I really don’t have any enemies. I’m wondering if it’s not someone I know trying to play a joke on me.
What is a restricted line? Is that some sort of land line?
You don’t know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. Here’s what happens if you lose.
I don’t know, it comes up as “restricted” on my phone. I think you can press *82 or something like that, to make your number private.
Ah, OK. The way you worded it made it sound like they called your restricted line.
So now they know you’re blocking their calls and are working around it. That’s pretty disturbing.
They called 10 times last night. It’s disturbing, but more for them than me. What losers. :rolleyes:
I don’t know who your cell phone provider is but I have ATT. I called a couple o months ago and for $5.99 a month installed parental controls (I’m not sure that’s the name of it but I called ATT and they directed me to the service) on my phone to block harassing emails and texts. In this case I knew the culprit and the block was enough to get them to stop eventually. After a couple of months I removed the parental controls and haven’t had a problem since. For the price it was well worth it.
It is almost certainly bored teenagers. It is extremely rare that someone who was actually going to attack you would make unclear communications like that.
Call the cops, post the number on 4Chan.
Edit: I see that you did call the cops.
What are the people saying exactly? Just this “We know where you live.” “We’ve been following you.”?
I’d record all calls, I’m not sure if you are doing this already.
All departments are different. But in many cases the original report will be taken by an officer and detectives will follow up later.
With a lot of these VOIP or Internet text services it’s very difficult to trace. It will require a court order. Attempt to hit *57 after each call. If your provider allows for that it will record the data of even restricted numbers for later retrieval by the police. It won’t be much help with Internet calls.
If your phone company is Verizon start here: http://www22.verizon.com/Support/Residential/phone/homephone/general+support/support+tools/general/95622.htm
If not, do a Google search for “threatening calls <name of phone company>”, or call them about it. I think there are some sort of laws/regulations that require phone companies to deal with threatening phone calls.
I called and got the number blocked. That’s the last I’ve heard from them. They called me on a ‘restricted’ number twice, can those be traced at all?