Someone has been impersonating me on Tap -- advice, please?

[sewingneedlecomics]

I really don't know what to do. Any advice is appreciated. (Sorry this is long.)

A group of people who know me well in real life ('real life' meaning they don't just know me online) created Tapas accounts just to come harass me and make fun of what I write/draw. They would delete their accounts every 24 hours or so, so the Tap staff wouldn't have a chance to block them, then open a new account and start harassing me again. It continued for months.
I ended up closing my Tap account and opening a new one with a different username to try to get away from them. Unfortunately, they found me again and continued to harass me, and threatened to harass some friends of mine on Tap if I didn't leave. I ended up deleting my new account and leaving Tap for a couple of months, because I couldn't take their bullying anymore, and I didn't want my friends on Tap to be harassed, too.

Until tonight, I had no idea that this was going on because I haven't been on Tap at all, but apparently when these people realized that I'd left Tap and deleted my account, they opened an account with my old username and have been pretending to be me all this time to try to ruin my reputation. Worse than that, they've been harassing my friends on Tap, while pretending to be me. As I said, these people harassing me know me really well, so they're very good at imitating me, and so my friends on Tap believed that it was really me.

I won't get into everything they did while posing as me, partly because they wouldn't tell me everything they did and partly because the stuff I do know is just too personal to share on the forums -- but for the past couple of nights they've been going around telling my friends on Tapas (while still claiming to be me!) that I'm a pathological liar and lied about being bullied online to get attention.

So now, if I try to apologize to these friends of mine and explain what happened, and that it hasn't been me contacting them the past couple months, they're going to think that I'm lying to them.

Again, I just don't know what to do! Any advice? If anyone else on here has been in a similar situation, I would love to hear how you dealt with it. If you're not comfortable with posting it on the forums, you can private message me.

Thank you in advance to anyone who replies.

[theladiesi]

I'm sorry to hear this. You might need to go to the authorities about cyber bullying.

[kimber_anne]

I would let the staff know ASAP, even if you feel they can't help. You never know, they may be capable of fixing some things. Maybe try this email address? hello@tapas.io hello@tapas.io; I'm sure they'd be able to direct you to someone who can help.

I was in a situation like this years ago. I didn't get justice. I hope you do. If not, it'll be ok. You can make yourself over again on the internet and make new friends as well.

Still, it wouldn't hurt talking to your friends. They very well might believe you. Many of mine did.

[SleepingPoppy]

File a report with the police, and ask them if there is anything they can do. If they are school mates, report it to the school. If you can get their parents numbers, tell them too! Also, take screenshots of everything.

[Nugtown]

you know them in real life, confront them about it. If confronting them personally doesn't work, get the authorities involved. Getting tapastic to try and solve your woes is only a temporary fix, because these people know you, it's safe to say they will just find other ways to harass you.

[Zorg]

Hazy, I'm pretty sure that's who you are. You should really try talking to us, your tapas friends, instead of asking the forums.
I want to let you know that Tapas does keep a record of the deleted accounts and can figure out the email and IP Address of the aforementioned.
So, give them all the information you have plus some screenshots and they'll surely be able to block them.

[ratique]

Since you are concerned about your friends at Tapas, those you need to talk to. You can't assume if they believe you or not, you never know for sure if you don't try.

Then you already received some good advice. Please also visit Stopbullying.gov - How to Report Cyberbullying. Go down the list to see what seems to be helpful to you.

When Tapas blocks a user, they can block their IP - creating a new account wouldn't help. So in that case you have to contact the staff, so they can remove harmful users. None of us like idiots around, you can help make them go away.

And aside from that, I'm sorry. Bullying is awful and cowardly and nobody deserves it.

[JimJom]

Well i've heard that impersonation can get people up to a year in prison or 1000 dollar fine.
Or you could ask one of the higher ups on tapas. If I was you i'd get the second one because you don't want it to escalate.

[Rhombik]

I'm really sorry to hear this. I think if you are transparent with your friends here then they should be able to recognise when somebody is pretending to be you.

[mg78]

steal identity it's big problem and can cost very much... so dont take it too soft.
inform tapas about it, maybe they re able to ban those users, dunno like on mac address or similar...

then, try to understand what's going on.
are they dumbass troll? or are they acting evil on purpose? if it's the 2nd option, got a different relevance than the 1st option...

last: dont start a Streisand effect.

[LordVincent]

I think there's been a lot of good advice in this thread and I would second everyone else's advice to report it to tapas regardless (if there's a way for them to find out their IP they could block them from making new accounts), and going to the police. The latter is absolutely neccessary because if you only take the first action they might start harrassing you even worse IRL.

I will, however, urge you not to confront them in person. People that do these kinds of things prove themselves unreliable and malicious, and this raises the probability that they can also get violent. Be safe, get help. Don't suffer alone.