There are probably various volunteer-driven web-sites that try to inform and direct the public to safely avoid internet scams and the scammers that delight in creating them. Maybe your information can help them get caught by the FBI. I had a relative that worked with a White-Collar-Crime Squad of the Chicago FBI and they knew how to track down these sorts of people. Anything that crosses state boundaries is FBI territory because it then becomes a Federal Crime with relatively stiff penalties for typing on a computer to create illegal digital ruses and prey upon others with privacy-violating information-collection scams. They illegally (false pretenses) obtained your personal information (e-mail address is considered a piece of personal information like a telephone number or address). I think it’s a fair penalty for the damage it can cause. Identity Theft is so easy with what you just described. This person can be brought to legally correct the actions he’s misleadingly performed on your privacy and then probably serve time or at least get probation for it. It depends on what he’s done with your e-mail address so far. If he’s sold it yet, then he’s in the hot seat. If he’s still just holding onto it and there’s no evidence of any sales of personal information, he’s off the hook. The important thing is to pursue it and get justice started, to at least find out if you have a case. I hope this happened recently.
I think, in a nutshell, you should start with contacting your state D.A.’s office, or even simply the local police (though you gotta be careful they don’t give you a run-around just to avoid the work and of having to hand it over to the FBI anyway, in the end). Bureaucracy and politics are your adversaries in this. I hope you choose to prosecute, if you can. State-funded attorneys aren’t as rare as you’d think. They’re good too, compared to some of those in private practice.
I don’t know where you’re at, but it is different in the city compared to the country, how the FBI operates. You might have a field office of only 2 agents covering a huge swatch of land and they may both be busy on something that trumps your troubles but you have to file the report and then play the waiting-in-line game.
Six weeks after being jumped by 3 male strangers and suffered 2 broken vertebrae, a hairline skull fracture and a concussion from all the punches and kicks, I had to do some of my own investigating (I found their pictures by pouring over friends lists on Facebook cause I knew one of the people they were friends with). Long story short, I mailed 7 1/2 by 11 " photos of them to the detective assigned to my case because he’s busy with a double murder (mother and daughter) and until he solves that and there are no other pressing concerns, I’m not at the top of the stack. Just the other day he called to tell me he hasn’t forgot about me, also asking a few questions and giving me address to send the photos to. He told me he knows where one of them lives. It's progress. One down, two to go. He'll wait to serve all three warrants together, after he knows he has enough information on all three. Then it goes to the State's Attorney's Office of Illinois and they decide whether it's worth prosecuting before a judge.
Be polite and helpful and they’ll respond warmly. They have tough jobs and tougher lives, all of them.
I think, in a nutshell, you should start with contacting your state D.A.’s office, or even simply the local police (though you gotta be careful they don’t give you a run-around just to avoid the work and of having to hand it over to the FBI anyway, in the end). Bureaucracy and politics are your adversaries in this. I hope you choose to prosecute, if you can. State-funded attorneys aren’t as rare as you’d think. They’re good too, compared to some of those in private practice.
I don’t know where you’re at, but it is different in the city compared to the country, how the FBI operates. You might have a field office of only 2 agents covering a huge swatch of land and they may both be busy on something that trumps your troubles but you have to file the report and then play the waiting-in-line game.
Six weeks after being jumped by 3 male strangers and suffered 2 broken vertebrae, a hairline skull fracture and a concussion from all the punches and kicks, I had to do some of my own investigating (I found their pictures by pouring over friends lists on Facebook cause I knew one of the people they were friends with). Long story short, I mailed 7 1/2 by 11 " photos of them to the detective assigned to my case because he’s busy with a double murder (mother and daughter) and until he solves that and there are no other pressing concerns, I’m not at the top of the stack. Just the other day he called to tell me he hasn’t forgot about me, also asking a few questions and giving me address to send the photos to. He told me he knows where one of them lives. It's progress. One down, two to go. He'll wait to serve all three warrants together, after he knows he has enough information on all three. Then it goes to the State's Attorney's Office of Illinois and they decide whether it's worth prosecuting before a judge.
Be polite and helpful and they’ll respond warmly. They have tough jobs and tougher lives, all of them.