[MaVen85]

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am writing in here tonight due to a problem I am having with my website.

I run a Sports Website it officially opened to the public on Jan 01 2009 - and has since made decent headway - we have a hosting company as a sponsor which is getting us free hosting on our own dedicated server, and have also got a Merchandise Sponsor where they have donated prizes for our competitions on our website etc.

We have a very large amount of sporting associations, clubs, players on board - who are sending us media releases, giving us access to players and coaches/team officials for interviews - and the players are offering us interviews and the odd one is writing a weekly blog.

Although the website is not extremely active, it has its active members and at the moment am stuck with trying to get it more active - but that is something I am hopeful of finding advice on at a later date at this website.

I am having issues with a certain member - I hired a news reporter - he is a young guy passionate about his sport and wants to become a sport writer - he is doing his diploma in journalism - however a couple years ago he wrote a news article and put on there that he was reporting from a sporting ground - when infact he was reporting from home - he was 15 at the time (so its almost 3 years ago).

This member I am having issues with has since been harrassing this kid ever since, and when I signed him up to report for my website this other guy and all of his mates have come and bombarded my website with comments on news articles, but have signed up on forums and bombarded him, abused me everything - i continue to ban them, block their ip's and everything i can do but they then use proxies to access my site.

The ring leader of them all runs a successful sport website (we are not in direct competition his is based on one sport while I am based on all) and keeps mocking everything we write and when I say we will take action they all laugh saying noone can do anything as it is on the internet blah blah blah and it is getting disheartening.

I say it is getting disheartening as I have invested alot of time and money into this website just to be able to report from a fans point of view, and whenever it starts to get popular it gets hacked (I can't prove its them), it gets bombarded with these messages from idiots which is discrediting my website, and I do not know if I can do anything? And if so what can I do?

Thanks in advance for any and all help

[walshy]

There are laws in place that can be used against them.

i would suggest legal consultation

get a whois on them and as many as there members who are doing it.

If its only the basic harrassment it is stil viable.

Its just how much you want to sort it out.

[MrKielington]

yeah, you can only do so much before your back is against the wall and you have to take legal action. Good Luck.

[jamesgilfoyle]

I would say that your web space is your private property - and if you put measures into place to ban anybody from accessing your private property and they deliberetly circumvent such measures then they are illegally accessing your site and the law does cover you for such cases.

Also as previously mentioned these people are harassing you via your site; which only adds to what i mentioned previously.

I would first of all contact the mentioned members and explain the above; and tell them you are willing to give them one last chance to stop before you are forced to take action.

If they do not comply; get their IP addresses and track down whoever their Internet Service Providers are and let their abuse departments know what they are using their Internet Service to do; ask them what they can do to help stop this harassment and deliberate breach of an IP ban - being sure that you advise them that you will next be seeking legal counsel. Be sure to provide them the ISP with as much details and evidence as you can - but i would say make sure that it is 100% pertaining to the users in question.

If this fails then i would advise you to seek legal advise as you have gone through everything which you can do personally to put a stop to it.

Do try to keep as much evidence as possible; logs, posts, emails, IP Traces etc as you will need as much evidence as you can get because Internet based laws are somewhat dicey.

I have myself had previous problems such as you are describing so please feel free to contact me if you need anymore advise

[MaVen85]

Good Morning Everyone,
I thank you all for your responses it is highly appreciated.

I have looked into the evidence I have, which is alot , and saw that one of the 'idiots' worked for a council run establishment where he was a duty manager - and was using his work email address and work computer to perform 80% of his actions.

So after looking into it I then called my legal advisor (My step sister is a lawyer - saves heaps of cash at times like this) and she outlined what I needed to do and say.

And so I fired off an email mainly outlining the following:-
+ Constant Harrasement - and provided evidence
+ Constant breach securities - getting through IP Bans using proxy internet websites
+ Informed them that it was in breach of their own Internet and Email Policies.

And informed the Council that I would like to see action taken as he is defaming myself, one of my news reporters and my website as a whole and now that it has been brought to their attention their failure to act would result in them being caught up in any legal action for condoning such behavior and providing him with the resources to perform these acts.

I provided them with evidence which included emails:-
BACKSTORY: I sent out a MASS Email to all registered members as we have new sponsors for our website and as a result we have some fantastic prizes for our competitions, and have a new competition starting.

He replied back being an idiot saying things like: Please stop contacting me I am sick of your harrasement.

Acting professional I replied and asked for him to supply his username and I would remove him.

And he continued just to reply saying things like I am harrassing him and he is scared to leave his house due to the bullying etc - I then went to a website he posts on and saw he was posting emails his emails showed his proper messages but my emails had been changed to be threatening him etc - which all other members of that site were then coming to my site to insult me and all that about my level of conduct.

So back to current story I provided all emails, and copies of that website where he was posting this stuff, and copies of messages other people had left to show that he was a ring leader in organising the gang like mentality.

To make a long story short - I received an email from the Councils IT Department informing me that his Email access has been restricted - he is only able to recieve and send emails to council email addresses now, and his internet access has been retricted where he can only view government websites.

Their Human Resources Manager contacted me and said that he has been given a written warning and continued behaviour would see his job dissolved (finished/Fired!) - the guy was pretty cool and mentioned that he understands he can access our website from home, and incite more retalliation and informed me that if I have any further emails from him, or any trouble from home to inform them as it still reflects on the council his actions.

Since then I have not had any messages, emails, anything from this guy - his idiot mates have stopped coming to my website and for the first time in about two months since they launched their large barrage on our site every day my members have grown by about 20 since Sunday when I took this action and all of them have become active forum members.

So either two things are happening - this is the end of it and they have finally decided to grow up, or they are planning something big

Thank you to all for your advice!

[Moelman]

Glad it all worked out for you!

[jamesgilfoyle]

Very well done, glad to hear it went well!

[MrKielington]

Nice job! Hopefully they are gone for good!