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What
to do if you have problems
- Gather your evidence
- Assess the damage
- Contact the user
- Contact online resources
- Contact offline resources
-
- Gather your evidence
- Whenever you have a problem with someone on the Net,
try to save everything that might be useful in resolving
the situation. Things that might be helpful include:
- Copies of email or other correspondence
- Posted articles
- Copies of Web pages
- Literature, warranties, receipts
- Record of relevant events with dates, times
- Email and posted articles include header information that may contain important clues to resolving your problem. However, your email program may not show all of the header info. You may need to change the configuration settings, or options, to see the "detailed" or "rich" header. Try to save that info if possible. Consult your system administrator on how to do this on your system.
- Assess the damage
- Before deciding what to do about the problem, assess the damages. Try to answer the following:
-
- What did you lose? (for example: money, data, time, reputation)
- Was your privacy violated?
- Was there any physical harm?
- Did you suffer harassment?
- What damage is possible if you do nothing about it?
-
The answers to these questions should help you decide whether to pursue a resolution. What will it cost to attempt resolution, compared to the cost of doing nothing?
- Contact the user
- The first and simplest approach is to be direct with the person you believe is causing your problem. It is possible there has been a miscommunication or technical problem. Sometimes the problem is not really being caused by the person you think is causing it (as in the case of spoofed email or a "hijacked" account broken into by a password sniffer). But in any case, they should made aware of the problem!
- Contact online resources
- If direct contact doesn't resolve your problem, there
are a few folks to contact online:
- Your network administrator, or Internet service provider, should be able to help you with email and posting problems.
- If your Internet account is through work or school, your company or campus may have a security investigation group.
- Try contacting the other user's postmaster or
system administrator, who can sometimes be reached at:
postmaster@the.user's.domain
(substitute the second part of the user's address for "the.user's.domain" in the above example) - If the problem is with a mail list, report it to
the person who mangages the list. They are usually
reached at: listowner@the.list.address
(substitute the second part of the list address for "the.list.address" in the above example)
- Contact offline resources
- Don't expect much from resources offline unless you have huge monetary losses. The Internet is confusing to local law enforcement and most governmental agencies. Many people in these offices do not know how to handle issues of harassment or computer crimes.
- For local problems, check your phone directory for:
- Local law enforcement
- District attorney
- State attorney general
- If the problem involves telephone "phreaking" or fraud over the telephone wires, contact:
- Your local telephone company
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation
- If the problem involves snail mail contact:
- For problems with transactions:
- The Better Business Bureau collects complaints against businesses.
- The Federal Trade Commission investigates transactions that cross state lines.
- If you cannot resolve the problem with the above sources, you may need to consult an attorney. Make sure you choose one who is knowledgable about the Internet!
-
- Caution: This page contains suggestions only and
should not be substituted for legal advice.
- Background on this project.
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- © copyright 1996, Jan G. Hogle