Since the calls have stopped, there's nothing the police can do. What do you think a visit from a police officer will do? Make the calls stop even more than they already have? Wut?
Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by Mistake
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08-01-2017, 05:21 AMeerelationsRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by Mistake
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08-01-2017, 07:44 AMqwaspolk69Re: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by MistakeWhy wouldn't you want to block the number? That stops any harassment. Go ahead and try to pursue charges you won't get anywhere but wasting your time.Quote:
Quoting gardening123
Why do you think the police would do ANYTHING in this case? They have far more important things to do than waste their time and resources on your petty crap. Just block the number. No cops are going to investigate this or figure out who this person is based on only a phone number. How do you know the person on the other end is the owner of the phone number even? Just let it go. There's no harassment now since there are no more calls. -
08-01-2017, 08:19 AMcdwjavaRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by Mistake
If you do not know who the person on the other end of the phone might be, then the police are not likely to do it for you. Unlike TV, there is not a magical, mystical database of cell phone numbers and their owners. It would take legwork and subpoenas or search warrants to obtain the information (and that's assuming the number you see on your phone was not spoofed), and that's a lot of time and effort for a low level offense. The most the police might do is take a report for the harassment and offer you suggestions to avoid the problem ... such as suggesting you block the number.
If the calls are ended, then consider yourself lucky. You might also want to remove the contact on your phone that began the whole affair so that you do not "accidentally" text them something in the future. -
08-01-2017, 12:25 PMjkRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by Mistake
I suspect there is an underlying reason op wants to involve the police and harass the guy that made the calls.
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08-01-2017, 12:46 PMgardening123Re: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by MistakeHmmm. If someone carelessly drove their car through my fence, would I be using the cops to "harass" the driver who damaged my property?Quote:
Quoting jk
I hear where you all are coming from, but 87 phone calls in a 6-7 hour time frame seems egregious. So if I had called the police after the 30th call, and the phone was actually still ringing as I made a formal police report, and continued after I filed such a report, then I'd get some assistance. Ok, seems odd but OK.
If it's some teenagers, then yes, I think a visit from a police officer to announce that 87 calls came from this number and it needs to stop would have a great effect.
In the spirit of full disclosure, when I was a teenager I made some random prank calls to a neighbor over a period of a few months. I never said anything threatening, but I said odd, incongruous things. One night a police officer called my house and said that these people were going to press charges against me. My mom had to take me to the police station and the cops read me my rights. They then wanted me to write a letter apologizing to the neighbor, which I did. This was probably in 1993. They said making repeated calls to anyone was against the law, even if you weren't cursing, swearing or threatening. Maybe the whole thing was a scam to scare me, well it worked. I certainly didn't do that sort of thing anymore.
Here we are 25+ years later and I get 87 calls in a night and everyone is telling me the police won't waste their time with this. The police sure were happy to "waste" their time with me in the 90's, but it had a good effect. I'm just thinking that if police got involved in this the same effect might be achieved. -
08-01-2017, 12:58 PMMr. KnowitallRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by Mistake
You are free to make a police report, indicating that you were called a large number of times over a short period, several days ago, with no subsequent contact. You will subsequently learn what the police are willing to do in response to your report.
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08-01-2017, 01:37 PMeerelationsRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by MistakeIt might have a great effect if the calls were still happening. But they're not. And the police know this, which is why they won't be bothered to do anything.Quote:
Quoting gardening123
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08-01-2017, 06:00 PMcdwjavaRe: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by MistakeDamage to property is different than being annoyed or vexed.Quote:
Quoting gardening123
However, since you do not know who is making the call, the police wouldn't be visiting anyone. As I said, they are not at all likely to waste time with subpoenas and search warrants on multiple phone providers in an effort to obtain the holder of the phone number just so they can tell someone to stop doing something they have already stopped doing.Quote:
If it's some teenagers, then yes, I think a visit from a police officer to announce that 87 calls came from this number and it needs to stop would have a great effect.
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08-02-2017, 10:11 AMqwaspolk69Re: Phone Harassment After Sending Somebody a Text by MistakeSomeone damaging your property and someone calling your phone are two VERY different things. You can block a harassing caller. You can't predict or stop someone from ramming a car into your home or yard. Apples vs oranges.Quote:
Quoting gardening123
No you probably wouldn't have gotten any assistance if you called after the 30th call and it was still ringing. They'd probably tell you "Why don't you just block the number?" Especially when you don't know who it is. How do you expect them to find out who it is if this person is in another state?
It probably was something to scare you - and obviously you did it to neighbors who knew your phone number if they had caller ID.
1990s compared to now - you can block phone numbers now.
No one said you can't file a report - we just said it won't get too far.