Dd2 and the internet - Possibility that some man has emailed her, not sure what to do next

[NervousNutty]

Right Dd2 is 9. She has had her own email addy for about a yr, mainly so my brother and her friend could email her. She is also allowed to use msn, and up until now we have never had any problems.

I have chatted to both dd2 and her elder sister about the dangers of the internet, and they always have to ask me before sigin up to anything, and when doing so they always use their middle name as their last name etc.

Last week, dd2 was on a site called Viz Voz, I was sat i the room with her, and I noticed that when I got up she went to delete what she was going to type as a reply to someone. They create a charatcer on there and this one she'd been talking to was a boy.
He had said to dd 'i hope you don't hate me now'.

I asked what he meant and eventually she told me that he had said to her that he was upset beause he had dreamt that his dad had hung himself.
I told her that she should have told me immeidatly, and for her not to speak to him again.
Again I went over what info she was allowed to give out to people and that she should tell me straight away if anything seemed odd.

So, today she has just told me that a man has emailed her 4 times to her hotmail account. She said she cant remember his name but that 2 of the emails were requests to join facebook. Dd2 isn't on facebook.
She said she didn't read the other 2 emails.

I logged into her account and she has not only deleted all 4 emails but has also emptied the trash which makes me very suspiscious.

Dd1 said she thought it might be XXXX so I have searched dd2's hotmail for that name and also searched facebook but nothing. Dd2 said that yes she thinks his name was XXXX but she insists it was a pic of a man, and dd1 insists the person she is on about is 13yr old boy.

So basically, I have no idea what is going. Dd2 is upset because I have told her off for not telling me before, and also as I have told her i think she is hiding something from me.

What next ??

Little bump

Stop her from going on the net.

Oh yes I am going to do that anyway, but is there anything else I should do.

I'd like to know who it was that was emailing her, but if she has emptied her deleted folder then I can't can I ??

If she had just deleted them and i'd found them in deleted folder, then I would have given her the benefit of the doubt, but the fact that she has emptied the deleted folder makes me very uneasy.

I dont think there is a way to find them again. I'd change her password to something she wont know, then check it to see if he emails again.

Thanks, I have told her she is banned from the computer until I say otherwise, and that I will be regularly logging into her account to see who is emailing her.

She is now saying that the one email that wasn't a facebook request, had a red background with a picture of a man sitting in a chair. She said the man looked odd, and the email said 'Do you know this person' and a click yes or no thing.
She said she clicked no and it took her to a site she didnt recognise and she just closed the site down and deleted the emails.

She also said that there were lots of email addy's in the address bar, so it had obviously been sent to alot of people.

Not good! He sounds very worrying. A distant cousin of mine had emails and was talking to a mysterious 'uncle' for a while, she's now been banned from anything to do with computers and he was reported to the police.

Try your police station, they may be able to hack her email account and dredge them up, it could get you important informatioon about a potential pedophile which is what the case was with my cousin

nutty well done for catching this before something really awful happened

definitely let the police know, they need all the info they can get re this sort of thing

how worrying for you - but it sounds as though no real harm has come to her, thank heavens

these can help

Thanks all.

Dd2 is saying she thinks the one email was one of those chain ones as it had been sent to lots of addresses.
I asked her if the name was the same on that email as the facebook requests and she said yes, but she can't remember it. I am not sure I believe her.

We have regular police surgerys on the estate, so I am going to find out when the next one is and go and speak to them about it.

I am kind of hoping that whoever it was will email again so I can find out who it was.

Thanks for the link Fluffy, have bookmarked that to read after dinner.

Oh, dd2 doesn't have a mobile by the way.

Could it of been one of those emails from bebo/myspace? I get those all the time and Im not even signed up with them!

I asked her if it said Bebo and she didn't seem to think it did.

She said she is pretty sure on the first name of this person, but not so sure about their surname.

Will search bebo and myspace for the name too though.

Even if it was one of those emails from bebo/myspace/facebook, the man must have had her email already if she's recieving them, and usually the kids websites don't allow them to publicly show the email addresses, which, sorry to say, means that she must have given him her email address in order to speak to her via msn and email.

I have panic attacks about what my charge goes on all of the time, everything gets vetted by me and her parents! (I do feel sorry for her sometimes haha)

Exactly Pixinanny. I have asked her over and over if she has given her addy to anyone and she swears she hasn't.

I know that vizvoz in particular has a little policeman symbol pop up if they attempt to give out any personal info, so I don't think she'd have done it on there, and the only other sites she goes on really is barbie and some pet shop one i think.

The problem with dd2 is that for her age, she is very into boys, much more so than her elder sister. Because of this I do think she would be stupid and give out info to a boy she thought was interested in her even just as a friend.

It's probably just junk mail, people sign up to facebook/bebo/etc, then those sites search their MSN contact lists and email all on list

Poor kid prob hasn't done anything and there prob isn't a 'man' either

Tell her she must save all her email, or you have password and check email yourself and see what comes up

She sounds like she doesn't have a clue what has happened

I think I know the petshop one actually, my charge uses it, but I'm not there till next week atm so can't check it, but that one does allow them to contact one another I think? Check if she's on things like neopets, that penguin thing, etc as well. And double check facebook, bebo and myspace in case she has accounts, I know I had a few when I was younger (though this was 13ish I started making them?)

As I said before, the fb notifications will only be coming from people who have her email and are members of the site already, this could be rl friends or worse, and you can usually tell a little about what company a child keeps online by who's 'invited' them to these websites, but then adults tend to be more careful about sending thgese notifications out.

It's scary what a child does online without even realising what they are doing, and some adults for that matter too!

It may be a good idea for you to find a mail provider that will not delete any emails without your authorisation or allows you to see it all. With hotmail, she could sign on, delete emails and then delete them from her deleted box without much effort, you need more control over her online antics.

If she uses hotmail, you could check the sent messages in case she has forgotten to delete them.

Yeah I checked sent ones, there was only one to me and one to her dad.

I'd really like to believe her, but I don't.

You're better off not believing her and being cautious with it then taking her word for it imo. The internet is a very dangerous place for kids and they can easily be sucked into things, you're better to be cautious than to let her roam free on it.

My cousin and her friend, who was also involved, had given this guy their school email addresses (which consisted of names and surnames), photos of themselves, had signed up to bebo or one of the many social networking sites to chat to him, personal email addys, and various other things which they didn't understand was bad. I'm not suire of the friend's situ but my cousin lives with her nan who is computer illiterate; the only reason it was discovered was because my Mum went round to fix the computer for them and this guy wrote on MSN to her!

Not sure if it's already been said on here, but you can set her MSN so that any requests to email her have to come into your email account for you to approve.

You can do that Paolosgirl? How, if you don't mind me asking, I think my MB would be interested in that for her 12yo, he's responsioble, but it's good to have the backup!

Responsible

just another thought - DH has set up our children's email accounts so that anything that hits their inboxes is copied into both of ours. This means we can tell them if GP's have emailed so they check their inboxes, but also is a way we can monitor what is going on.