Would you know if you were being snooped on by a private investigator?

[Collectorofcookbooks]

It's the only very paranoid explanation I can come up with as to how someone who is massively digitally inept can know the information they know about me. They've no-one else to ask and the information isn't freely out there. We're not in touch and we have no common friends.

I've no idea how easy it is to find a PI to work for you, or for them to find out information about you, including contact details.

I'm terribly boring really, they wouldn't have had much fun following me, if that is how it's been done! Just wondering what the chances are of the information having been found out this way? Someone on MN must be one!

You wouldn't know if they're any good at their job, I guess.

In a former job, I used to work on financial legal cases with another law firm who used, shall we say, unorthodox methods to find information. They were very expensive. I think anything can be found out, if you have the money.

We’ve moved since they had access, to a totally different part of the country. The gifts have arrived since then. Again, our new address is something not generally available.

They wouldn’t risk getting involved with anything dodgy. Too much at stake.

Maybe I just need to wait and see what happens this Christmas, whether any gifts arrive. If they do, do I have a reason to get in touch and say stop it? I seem to recall from previous threads on here that you need to tell them to stop?

Emails can be ignored, as you are doing, but I’d be more concerned about the mystery ‘gifts’ tbh as that means they know your new address.

Do you have an unusual surname? Do your or other family members details appear on 192.com? Are either you or other family members company directors? It’s possible to look up director information as a matter of public record and some people register their home address as the company correspondence address.

Sorry you’re going through this.

There's another thread on here tonight where I helped someone find an old school friend. That friend had no social media presence at all. It took me around 2 hours based on name, approximate age and married surname. As it happens she changed her name completely.

I didn't use any nefarious methods, didn't use the dark web either. It just takes a bit of common sense and the knowledge of where to look.

Could it be that you've mentioned something vaguely in the past that links to this? You say your social media is private but if you've made comments on public groups or groups this person is a member of they would be able to see them. It is pretty easy in 2018 to build a picture up of a person without any real skill.

Private detectives do credit reference searches. Or could the person have access to credit reference searches via their work? Those would show up a new address if they had your old address, and possibly email addresses you had used with banks.

The Occam's Razor explanation is - gossip. Someone's chatted to someone and so it goes around ...

Are you on the electoral roll? I've used Ancestry.com, the Times archives and local records to piece together a person's narrative when it was important.

The most obvious explanation is word of moutj, and although you say your friends wouldn't tell, they might - and they wounld not fess up to you.

They know your address - even the postcode? Are you hidden on the electrical roll? If not, you can look on 192. Or again, were told by a friend.

Perhaps you could tell your dp, your friends all a different tall tale which would be of interest to this mystery person and see what happens.

The presents are a bit creepy though. Whom lived in the house before you, maybe they had a stalker snc their stalker doesn't know they've gone which could be a co incidence I suppose.

Sounds like it could be someone like an estranged parent. Do you have kids? Are they in touch with them.

Have you googled yourself and family to see if there is any information online.

My step-sister hired a PI to find me when my (estranged) dad was dying.

I assume the PI did it at least in part via birth/death/marriage records, as the final step was to contact DH’s best friend who was a witness at our wedding so his name/address was on the certificate. We’d moved house a few times in the meantime but DHBF was still living in the same place.

He declined to give out any contact details but offered to pass on PI’s contact details for me to get in touch if I wanted to. I can imagine some people wouldn’t be that discreet, either by accident or design.

The previous time my dad got in touch with me was just after my mum died. That happened before the death notice was in the paper and at my mum’s (unlisted) number. I assume someone thought that in the circumstances passing on the info and phone number was the right thing to do. Prior to that he found me via Friends Reunited, which is why I just never got into social media at all.

Oh, and ina previous job, I worked alongside people whose job it was to maintain contact/membership lists for an organisation. There are a lot of dress tracing/matching tools and databases that are available for that. Think 192.com but a bit more sophisticated and more ways to piece things together.

Someone could have access to those resources via work and decide to “check” out someone from their personal life.

Did the email come from them? It it a scam thats "taken over" their email address.

If they are poor at IT they may have compromised their own email address making this easier to achieve.

Are you on the public electoral register? If you are that might be how they got your postal address.

Have you tried Googling your email address to see if it is publicly displayed anywhere?

That's all I can suggest. Without knowing more info it's hard to know what other means they might have used.

I suspect via electoral register and address seeking websites like Royal Mail.
It isn't difficult just time consuming- I've traced an old friend this way.

The simplest explanation is usually the best.

Someone was gossiping about you to this person.

Not necessarily deliberately.

A friend of mine joined a new group recently. At a social occasion she heard another woman holding forth about her friend who has just done xyz. Though no names were mentioned my friend quickly identified that the woman was talking about me. She was sharing private details about me, thinking she was in a group of strangers and speaking anonymously.

The world is really small. There are connections everywhere.

Nope

I was being followed (not going into it all) in the years before internet and mobile phones . I had NO IDEA at all until the shit really hit the fan .

Yes, the email definitely came from them. There's literally no-one that is still in touch with them that I am still in touch with. And thinking about it, there's no way that even if they were, they would know this stuff.

Yes, I'm on the electoral roll - but I very much doubt that they would even have thought of that and be able to do the necessary digging. Even then, the presents bit is what's weirding me out - if the two are linked.

The presents were correctly addressed so not related to the people who lived in our house before. Yes, I have kids but they're under 10 so I know who they're in touch with (generally speaking!)

This person is 200 miles away from me as well, so it's not like they will know the people we've met since we moved.

Guess I'll just have to see what happens this Christmas and if anything else arrives.

Sorry to hear that others have had bad experiences.

Oh - and yes, I'm a company director, but use my accountant's address for correspondence.

Maybe I need to just let it go - channel Elsa

A lot depends on who this person is to you, how much the contact is creeping you out and, without wanting to unnerve you, whether you think things might escalate eg with perhaps this person turning up at your door one day. How much of an issue something like that might be only you would know.

I may be projecting a bit as I had an unwanted ‘admirer’ who I’d in no way encouraged but who followed my every move and just wouldn’t take no for an answer until the police had a quiet word.Your situation sounds different but if it continues to bother you, it might be worth speaking to the police on the non emergency number for advice.

I also think you should report unsolicited and inexplicable contact of this sort, absolutely if there's history. If this person knows your address there's every possibility they could turn up unannounced, if that would cause a.problem you need to report suspectes stalking.

Stalking is part of a profile of a pretty sinister character.

A bit random but could the 'presents' be in anyway involved? Perhaps have a listening device or the likes inside?

Have they put a tracker app on your phone ?

New cars can also be tracked.

Yes, I'm on the electoral roll - but I very much doubt that they would even have thought of that

Hmm, that would have been the first thing I would have thought of.

Are you ok?

It particularly savvy but I coincidentally recognised someone on here via BabyNames. Even though they had switchednames around for their children a little bit I still recogniised them and searched their posts to check. Their name changes always included ssomething specific. I never mentioned it to them because I didn't want to come across like a stalker.

In the 1990s I worked for a PI briefly doing admin. and was amazed at the tactics used by them to find people. Theyd go door to door in the targets neighbourhood porporting to be a ‘friend’ trying to get in touch and youd be amazed how helpful people like to be to a charismatic stranger. These days, its simply a case of cyber sleuthing. There are many tools avsilable to track people down and those with the skills can easily hack into email and bank accounts not properly secured. Thats apart from services like ‘the bin men’ who litterally remove your rubbish (or that of your family and friends) and sift through it for information. Finally, people who hold information such as doctors, police, councils, law firms are sometimes open to spilling the beans for a fee (or being bribed).

I also agree with the PP whi suggested that the ‘gifts’ may contain listening or recording devices. The more specific you are, the more we can help you. I’d also suggest you ditch your current email and get a new secure one and also start to use a VPN and change all your passwords and start to use something like LastPass.