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Thread: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

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    Default How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    This type of information gets asked about in a lot of threads. Rather than have it scattered all about, I thought it would be good to have it all in one place. This thread will also be a good place to post questions about what to do if you're being harrassed.

    The problem is that a nice customer can turn into a Creepy Obsessive Stalker (COS) and blow up your phone, email, facebook, etc. Or he figures out your home address and starts calling/visiting you there. There are some steps you can take now that will make it much easier to deal with that mess if it ever happens.

    The fundamental step is to create a wall between your online and work personna. Even if you are totally open about your work in real life, you never know which customer will become a COS. The better you can keep the two walled off, the easier it will be to deal with any problems.

    -- Make up a real person name (first and last) for your work personna. I'll call this your AKA name. It should be something normal and believable (e.g. Wendy Barker). Use this name for interacting with customers and when creating online accounts.

    -- Never give out your real email. Create a work email with the AKA name. I recommend gmail since you can forward the emails to your real email account. This way you don't have to log in to check for emails. WARNING: if you forward emails, make sure you reply to the email by logging into your AKA account, not your real account. If you reply from your real email account, you may reveal your real email.

    -- Never give out your real cellphone #. Get a google voice account. This will allow you to forward calls and texts to your work phone. Even if you have a work phone, get google voice. WARNING: do not call/text customers back directly from your phone or else they may get your real number. Use google voice to dial the call. Log into google voice to text customers. This way the customer only knows your google voice number. Consider getting a prepaid phone and use it for all your business calls.

    -- Create a facebook account with your AKA name and email. Never give your customers your real fb account. Be careful the info you post to the AKA account doesn't reveal too much about your real self. Do not have any friends in common between your real and AKA fb accounts. A COS will look through all the friends lists to find more info. If you have a friend on both your real and AKA fb, he may find the real you. Occasionally look at the AKA profile from your real profile and see if facebook says you have any friends in common.

    -- Never link to pictures/videos from an account in your real name. There may be risks in giving links to media in facebook/photobucket/etc. When giving links to photos/videos, only do so from a work account. If you link to something out of your real account, the URL may reveal information that the COS can use to figure out the account name. It doesn't mean they can break in, but they may be able to figure out the account name. Only give out links to accounts which have been setup with your AKA name.

    -- Use the AKA name in wishlists. Many websites allow you to setup wishlists. Be sure the name the customer sees is not a real name. Use your AKA name or "Resident" and specify your real name as c/o in the first address line. For example, your Amazon wishlist address might look like this:
    Full Name: Wendy Barker (AKA name)
    Address 1: c/o Cindy Smith (your real name)
    Address 2: 1234 Main Street
    City, St: Fullton, TX
    or
    Full Name: Resident
    Address 1: 1234 Main Street
    City, St: Fullton, TX
    This way the customer will only see "Resident, Fullton, TX". Obviously, this reveals the city. If that is a risk, have the gifts sent to a trusted person in another city, but still have your AKA name as the Full Name.
    Do not have the visible name be a real name of someone you know (e.g. your sister). A COS will take that info and google it or search facebook looking for her. Even if he knows it's not you, he will look through her facebook friends to find you.

    Taking these steps will make it much harder for the COS to find the real you and will be much easier to block him completely if he becomes a problem.
    Last edited by NickT; 12-01-2010 at 09:17 AM.


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    Default A customer is harrassing me. What can I do?

    When a customer crosses the line, there are many ways to handle it. I would first recommend a nice request "This is getting a little intense for me. Can you take it down a few notches?". If that doesn't work, then a firm request "This is making me very uncomfortable. Stop it now." If that doesn't work, then it's time to block him.

    If he's bothering you in real life, get a restraining order. Once you have one, the police will be much more likely to step in if he continues.

    Hopefully it's just online harrassment. Here are some ways to block the person:

    Gmail -- Blocking mail from certain senders

    Yahoo Mail -- How do I block mail from a specific sender

    Hotmail -- Blocking senders or domains

    Google Voice -- Blocking Unwanted Calls You can block specific numbers if he only calls from one phone. You can even block all callers except for those that you specify. This way your good customers can still contact you and the COS will be blocked no matter how he tries to call.

    Facebook -- Click on the person's profile. In the bottom left, click on "Report/Block this Person"

    Cell Phone -- Contact your provider and see what blocking options they have. Most will allow you to block certain numbers.

    If you have email/call forwarding from your AKA account to your real account, you may want to consider turning that off for a while. The COS may try to contact you from multiple accounts and the blocks won't work since he would be using a different id.
    Last edited by NickT; 11-30-2010 at 05:05 PM.

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    Default Re: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    Great Information and Thread NictT. I absolutely agree with all this. I do not even ADD people I do not know to my real name social media accounts anymore, unless it is for business or something since face-book is so easily linked to other people now. I have face pictures in my real face-book account and do not show my face in pictures on my other fake persona face-book account. I have even seen my real life friends being friends with cam-girls on face-book that are friends with me on my alias pages. Even the net can seem very small, I mean really.LOL


    I set all my accounts to private so I can know who is looking on my page for the most part too. I know some people will snoop around to try to find you out so I try hard to make it difficult for them...*Knocks on Wood* that it works..=)
    " Be Positive, Patient, and Productive after all we are all Perfect Pretty Princesses" XOXO
    No Negative Nancy or Drama Queens Please, Thanks xoxo

    "I let my haters be my motivators..Now we can settle this like you got some class or we can get into some gangsta shit."



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    Default Re: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    Why do you suggest google voice over a pre paid phone? I got a pre paid virgin mobile phone strictly for work. Is that not a very good idea?

    Also with a wishlist, if you don't want to put any names I'm pretty sure you can just put Resident. I know my amazon wishlist says resident and I always get my stuff. I did not know you could do the c/o thing though.

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    Default Re: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    Quote Originally Posted by Starxx View Post
    Why do you suggest google voice over a pre paid phone? I got a pre paid virgin mobile phone strictly for work. Is that not a very good idea?
    A pre-paid phone is definitely good, but google voice gives you more control. It will be easier to block someone through google voice than it will be with your prepaid phone.
    Also with a wishlist, if you don't want to put any names I'm pretty sure you can just put Resident.
    That's a good idea. I'll add that to the top.

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    Default Re: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    I don't know if this is the same in the US, but with Amazon wishlists over here (in the UK) there is an issue with privacy.
    if your wishlist is made up ONLY of products sold by Amazon, you can state that you don't want your address shown to the purchaser, and Amazon will never give your delivery address to the person buying from your wishlist

    BUT
    if you have things on your wishlist that are sold from other sellers (Amazon marketplace sellers) then they MAY give your delivery info to the custy on the invoice. (This is all stated on Amazon's page where you set your address to private) So, be careful!

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    Default Re: How to keep your online personna safe, and what to do when you're harrassed

    ^Thanks for saying this BritishBecky. The same applies in the US, 3rd party sellers *can* disclose the full address of the recipient. It doesn't always happen but it happens. Certain wishist sites do not dislcose anything to the buyer (even city, state) - or you can carefully choose to make sure everything you add is an item that will be shipped by Amazon.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/gift-central/help/faq

    The bright side is that you can opt out of your address being shared. If the item is from a 3rd party, the buyer may be prompted for your address

    Id add that if you buy a domain name for your online persona - add on privacy settings so your whois can not be looked up. For most sites it costs $5-10 to add on. Even if you put in a fake registration name the addresses & city/states can be disclosed by a simple google search... or if someone is ridiculous they can contact the company you purchased your domain name from and ask for the tax/company info for the site.

    Probably the uglier side of not adding on privacy settings is Ive seen girls post the full names, addresses, and IP addresses of someone they're having drama with... for people trying to be somewhat discreet about their online sex working life (for whatever reason), having your *real* name be associated with your cam persona somewhere in an internet cache can be more damaging then "maybe" being seen on a tube site as its standard for employers, schools, friends, dates, family, etc to google your name.

    If someone is just being catty and can find that info, someone obsessed probably already has it. Discreet people are probably the best at avoiding drama - but hey, sometimes people just have an axe to grind and its a useful preventative measure.

    Domain privacy - highly recommended. Sorry if youve seen me say this a million times, but having seen the behavior of some of the more-intensely drama-addicted that seems to be where they first strike. Probably because it hurts the most. Sucks.

    I also lie about my birthday (oops, in fact my "cam girl" birthday is coming up) and my exact location... so I'm a bit overboard with it, but if you're neurotic too and like gifts/etc its still doable! I tend to ask for amazon gift cards instead of wishlist purchases since those can be confirmed & not canceled... Ill send them the links of what Im planning to buy and ask for the same $$ including the cost of shipping. The people really hellbent on buying you stuff will do it especially if you send them a picture of it or whatever.

    Great tips OP! Google voice is a lifesaver, I didnt realize you can block numbers! Awesome.





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    Default Paypal/Chipin

    I've seen some people using a Chipin.com link in their webcam profile. Although Chipin is an easy way to accept donations, it can also reveal your true identity.

    Chipin is just a frontend to PayPal. If a person makes a donation, they will see the name and primary email address for your PayPal account.

    I'm not sure how to obscure your name in PayPal. If you use a fake name you may have trouble getting validated or have problems if PayPal ever audits your account and asks for your ID. A business PayPal account doesn't reveal your name, but PayPal does not allow Chipin donations to a business account.

    Only use Chipin/PayPal if you are comfortable with people learning your real name.

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