Complaints Lead to Mystery Harassment

Image courtesy of

Michael Harrison's experienced an update of the classic 'Yellow Pages' prank—where someone signs a target up for every magazine subscription, free credit card, and food delivery person in as small a window as possible—for posting negative comments about a company on his blog. He suspects the dozens of phone calls, spam, and junk mail he received came as recompense for a negative post about BatteryGeek.net's service based on the IP history of posters on various trackbacks and blogs.

Michael Harrison’s experienced an update of the classic ‘Yellow Pages’ prank—where someone signs a target up for every magazine subscription, free credit card, and food delivery person in as small a window as possible—for posting negative comments about a company on his blog. He suspects the dozens of phone calls, spam, and junk mail he received came as recompense for a negative post about BatteryGeek.net’s service based on the IP history of posters on various trackbacks and blogs.

It’s all a bit technical—and we couldn’t actually tell if he has a smoking gun—but it’s interesting if for no other reason that to see how thoroughly a person can be harrassed with only a small amount of personal information known by an attacker.

We certainly hope that Battery Geek’s employees weren’t involved, as the original complaint wasn’t even that vicious. It doesn’t look good that the IP address from Sean Murray of Battery Geek was also found in positive, contradictory comments posted to Harrison’s original complaint. (Would you buy a product from a company run by people too dumb to hide astroturfing?)

Interesting Coincidences [DragonsEye]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.