I moved to Gwinnett County in 1980, when I was Honorably Discharged from the U.S. Army. My family had moved here from Dekalb County while I was on active duty in the U.S. Army. Ihave family members all over Gwinnett County. I helped in the construction of Gwinnett Place Mall and many of the other developments around Gwinnett and North Georgia. I am a Heavy Equipment Operator.
I began selling off my music gear investment. I had been collecting music gear for over 30 years. I began selling my items at Craigslist in mid 2008 when I became underemployed by the housing industry collapse and eventually disabled by a repetitive stress injury from my occupation.
I did very well for a few months. I was able to pay my bills, and buy a few items that Iwas able to sell at a profit.
Then the problem started with abusive and derogatory postings that were intended to embarrass, threaten and humiliate me. Photos of hillbillies, mental retarded people, toilet bowls with feces in them. They were directed at "RickinBuford". The language and grammar were the same in all the posts, and they were all done at the same time of day, so it was obvious the same individual was doing it. "Take your crap to E-Bay!", "Nobody wants your crap!", etc.in one it was suggested that someone come to the Buford City Library and break my hands so that I couldn't post anything else to sell. It scared me very badly. How did he know where I was? Did he get my IP Address number? I didn't know. I was afraid he might find out where I lived too and be waiting for me sometime in the future when I stepped out of the house. And possibly kill me. Or one of my family members.
I called the Gwinnett County Police repeatedly about the problem, with no help offered. Apparently a suggestion of violence was not enough.
After I stopped including my first name, location, and phone number in my posts, those type of postings stopped, and copies of my postings with all of the prices changed started being posted with my contact information included.
My phone rang over and over and over at all times of the day and night and my email box filled up with inquiries about the items I was selling.
For example, an item I was selling for $500 was posted for sale at $50 (we are discussing thousands of dollars worth of items here).
The Stalker began playing a ' Cat and Mouse" game, in that if I posted 10 items for sale, he would have his associates at work help him to immediately flag all of my items off of Craigslist. It takes 5 individual people to flag, or remove a posting from Craigslist, so, he had assistance.
If I ever "Top Posted" anything that the Stalker recognized as being one of my items for sale, he would post a copy of my sale list with all the prices altered later that day or night when I was away from the Buford Library.
I would have reply to countless emails and phone calls, explaining that they had seen a false ad with the prices changed and I'd send the correct listing to them.
Some people took my explanation well but others were very angry and ugly about it. Several complained about how much time and expense it took to come to my home. It made me look like I was enticing people to buy under false pretenses. At one point a man showed up and was disappointed because I wanted more money than he showed up with. He had been lured to my home twice. He was the owner of Braswell's Music in Suwanee.
It was very bad for business. I had to verify every inquiry to make sure that the person was replying to one of my legitimate ads.
In order to avoid this, I would have to post items he didn't recognize as mine, and then change the ad a few hours or a day later to the items that he would recognize as mine. It only worked occasionally. This went on for months and months. Sales slowed to nothing. I was forced to take on more and more debt. It caused me a great deal of stress, grief, and embarrassment.
I sent Craigslist many emails reporting his abusive posts and asking them to help but was told repeatedly that they could not intervene because to do so would violate his privacy.
Tomorrow: Installment # Two The Sex Ad!!!
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