To actually be happy that I was right about a troll

[MadSprocker]

Reported my first thread which was becoming more unbelievable, and was indeed a troll. Usually these things go over my head completely!

Yes I wondered that too. V odd.

I think the thread has been deleted but wtf???

How what why????

And they're genuine?

Yes thread deleted as guessing it got too messy. Concerning all round.

Oh what a mess.

The flip side of all this is, horrible things do happen and genuine people posting looking for support might just get 'TROLL!' shouted at them. We can't think that every post involving child abuse is a troll, can we? Because it does happen.

I think my troll-dar is broken.

I was trolled in real-life, the woman faked a cancer diagnosis, right down to shaving her head. Her motivation was money. We held a fundraising event so she could take her daughters to Disneyland. I only became suspicious when my brother was diagnosed with the same aggressive form of cancer and his treatment regime was totally different. Sadly my suspicions were confirmed a bit later, after other people did a bit of surreptitious sleuthing and discovered she wasn't ill at all, not physically.

That was horrible.

Similar thing happened to me liberated and it is horrible.

That's awful liberated and pinkflower :( I don't understand how people can lie about these things when some people are actually going through them.

The thing is, when someone says they have cancer and are having chemotherapy, wearing a bandana to cover their hairloss, you'd be an utter bitch to ask for proof.

'Mine' lied about miscarriages and still births and absolutely, you can't say 'prove it!'

I'm still 'err on the side of caution' but add 'but be cautious' as a caveat.

That's it! The ones who are so obvious don't bother me that much, tedious but sometimes good for a giggle at

But the ones you can't ask for proof from because you'd be an absolute bitch to do so - yet you KNOW it doesn't quite add up. Like they 'forget' incredibly significant details

My blood boils

No, of course you can't question them - you would look like a total bitch.

Oops - early post!

Then they'd get even more attention and sympathy and you would look like the bad guy who was giving them a hard time in the hour of need.

My real-life troll vanished - she left her job and relocated to another city - probably spinning the same sob story to a new group of people, and planning another jaunt to Florida.

I don't think being exposed as a liar was enough to stop her wanting to reap the benefits of faking a serious, life-limiting illness - endless sympathy, help with childcare, housework, dog walking, lots of paid days off for hospital appointments, and of course, a massive cash donation from sympathetic colleagues, for the "final" family holiday.

It's sickening. My brother likened having cancer to falling down a well, and struggling to climb out, not knowing if he was going to slip and fall back into the darkness, at any moment. Thankfully he's in remission now, but it was a tough journey, and for someone to pretend to be going through the horrors of cancer treatment, well, they are the lowest of the low.

I think trolls in real life are farey common
My mum had a man claiming to have cancer in her office.
We had a girl who came in every day with a new drama of what had happened to her the night before.
Then a temp we had started off with his mum going to visit relatives in india going missing, his dad was in hospital with the stress, then the mum was found but very ill, he had to go out to get her back,his village took days to get to. Then we had updates on how he had to get a doctor to travel back with her.
Unfortunately he sent an email via his works email to his friend saying what a wonderful time he was having with his wife in bali.
He also passed his a level maths at 13 etc
I had to do all his work when he was away and was not amused

The boyfriend in hospital after motorcycle accident and wife at hospital was dodgy. I didn't want want to flag it in case this actually happened but it sounded so staged and long winded I couldn't keep up. I wasn't surprised to go back and find it had been pulled. Great work. Some people must be so bored to make up these stories.

I've just remembered another real-life troll, she claimed her daughter had a miscarriage and took 2 weeks off work to care for her, then forgot 5 months later, when she had time off to help the same daughter with her newborn baby. Then her mum died suddenly, but she forgot to put her facebook settings to private, and while she was emailing HR about arranging the funeral and coping with her grief, she was also posting photos of her and mum knocking back cocktails in Lanzarote.

But these RL ones. I don't morally agree but I can sort of 'get' excuses for skiving work or extorting money

There's some on here who just want to direct sympathy away from genuine posters and control how people react to some posters

I can't get my head round that

There's a couple I've noticed popping up reasonably regularly . The woman who suddenly discovers her DH/DP is cross-dressing/looking at transgender escorts, and the one who is about to get married, her DP is an abusive drunk and favours his grown-up DSs over her teen DS.

I read somewhere that MN is the most trolled forum. I guess it's not massively surprising when you see the deeply personal stuff that people post, the fact it's predominantly women and a very fast-moving forum.

There used to beva lot of fetish trolls that were on lots of forums
One used to post about
School kits and nappies on bigger children ( may have a fetish about safety pins ) also posted about teenage boys having to wear shorts as part of their uniform
The torn tights one
The plimsoll/ sandals one
The gym knickers one

There was a thinly-disguised ABDL on one forum. posting about his urinary incontinence. and asking advice about 'nappy-changing' at work, going into graphic detail about his urinary flow and the method his 'incontinence nurse' used when showing him how to apply his pad.

We had one at work, claimed her mum had died and all sorts of other things. It turned out none of these huge life events she'd told everyone had actually happened.

There were collections for her and endless sympathy, especially from other staff members who had been through similar things. They were pretty angry when they found out. The woman was sacked. I can imagine she'd be the type to make up crap online for the attention.

I think the majority of trolls, both online and in real life, lead empty lives of undiluted loneliness. The compassion and sympathy they receive fulfils them. They don't care that the people offering support may themselves have suffered a bereavement or battling a life-limiting illness or some other devastating tragedy.

The pervy trolls are a different story and I always feel a bit uneasy if I've unwittingly contributed to one of their threads.

I'm surprised that people are shocked/suprised by trolls and ask 'why would anyone do that??'.

There are loads of reasons that people would troll - people that are attention seeking, lonely, bored, inadequate, sad, depressed, personality disordered, cruel, mischeivous, those with sexual fetishes or perversions and even, being generous, those who are testing the waters and will post with their real problem at a later date...I don't see what the big mystery is.

It is very sad when vulnerable people are suckered in by trolls but honestly people really must not invest too much time or emotion on MN, nor give away too much personal information or RL practical or financial aid (which really is quite stupid).