Forcing people to stay off my site

Do I have any recourse?

[zomega42]

I need to ban a "problem member" from my site. I know exactly who this person is (real name, address, etc). When I close her account, she just signs up again with a different name, email, IP, everything. I can't believe that an adult would stoop to this, but she does.

What do you recommend? Is there any way I can legally threaten this person to stay away?

[FourDegreez]

You can block their ISP from creating new accounts. I had the same problem. My deviant was using AOL, and yes I did block all of AOL from creating new accounts for awhile. But it was a hobby site so I had more flexibility to do that. Eventually the user actually switched ISPs in order to keep up his harassment. Hopefully your problem user has a shorter attention span.

[LifeinAsia]

You could try complaining to the user's ISP, although it probably won't do much good unless the behavior is seriously harassing.

[surfin2u]

Not knowing your site, it's hard to say if this will work for you, but I do it with success when dealing with spammers, who attempt to use my site.

I allow them to think that they are creating and sending their spam emails to others on the site. They get a copy of the email "for their files" but the email is not sent to the person, who they are trying to spam. I don't reveal this setup on the site, so it's my little secret.

[zomega42]

Thanks for the suggestions.

FourDegreez, I will consider blocking the whole ISP. It's a dynamic IP but maybe I can block an IP range. The problem is this is a commercial site and I don't want to block paying members so I'd have to be very careful.

LifeInAsia, unfortunately it's probably nothing an ISP would get involved in, since it's not actually harassment (more like fraud).

surfin2u, this isn't a case of spam but I like the way you think. The person is posting things for sale. I suppose I could try to trick her into thinking the posts are still alive when in fact they have been removed. I do use the method you suggest for spammers -- besides working well, it gives me immense satisfaction when somebody spends an entire afternoon sending 500 emails through my site and every single one gets blocked.

[LifeinAsia]

If it's fraud, they probably would be more willing to get involved, as should the local police.

[zomega42]

I actually did talk to the local police. They know all about this woman and confirmed everything I suspsected about her. But they said that what she's doing is civil, not criminal, so there's nothing they can do about it. Evidently small time fraud doesn't count as a crime anymore.

[mflo]

the best way to deal with this prob is to ignore her. She'll get bored of it sooner or later.

if you keep on banning her, she'll try to outwit you time and again.

[jatar_k]

if you know her account and IP then just let her be on the site, better to know where she is and track her than to constantly have to find the account again

[surfin2u]

I suppose I could try to trick her into thinking the posts are still alive when in fact they have been removed.

If you can do it, then your problem is solved, as long as she doesn't figure out what's happening. It will definitely be satisfying while it works.