Ex Husband tracking my movements

[2024willbetheone]

Been divorced 8 months after a very difficult break up and divorce. Ex Husband was a manipulative cheat and controlling and I’ve definitely made the right choice to get out.
We have no contact and his relationship with our teenage children has sadly broken down.

A couple of days ago I visited a male friend of mine and parked on his drive. I returned home a couple of hours later to my 15 year old stating ‘Dad has been on the phone and asked where you have been. I told him you were out and he said he knows exactly where you are and that you have been at a man’s house. Someone has texted him a picture of your car on this man’s drive”

I chatted to my son about how this is not normal behaviour and my whereabouts are no concern of his fathers.

Im now driving myself crazy wondering how he knows where I am. Did someone send him a pic? (Unlikely!) or is there a tracker on my car or phone?? To give this some context, he is working away in a foreign country so would have been unable to follow me himself. I have reported this to the police and it is logged on my file after previously reporting him for harassment.

Any advice?

Aren't Apple AirTags supposed to make a noise after a while and alert you they're there now, for this exact reason? Apple (rightly) took a lot of heat over their capability to be used for stalking and domestic abuse.

‘Got a tracker’ sounds so scary when it’s far more likely there’s just a setting that’s been enabled and no one has disabled it. I can’t believe pp are telling you to get a guard dog as an initial solution to this.
and genuinely to the pps suggesting you ‘get your car checked over’ I don’t mean this rudely at all but where?! If I took my car to a garage or the police they’d look at me like I was crazy. All they could do would be look, like I could surely? Genuinely I wouldn’t know where to go to get my car checked for a tracker
and if you have an iPhone yourself, an air tag would tell you it was travelling with you. A new phone and password changing will not help you if you are still on the same accounts with the same location settings turned on.
You just need to go through your phone properly and check your car properly.
I work with a lot of victims of crime who are adamant they ‘changed their passwords’ or some other precautions that frankly were entirely useless because they left other huge glaring holes in their security, and they got totally distracted worrying about things like AirTags, rather than more realistic issues, simply because they didn’t understand how it works.

you’ve likely got your location turned on your phone, in your photos, or your WhatsApp, a family group, Google home, or something like that. Did you post on social media? the amount of people who give away far more info than they realise is astonishing so it would be easily done. Who pays for the car, was it ever him? He may just have access to anti theft info on there that gives him some info about the cars location. All of this can be shut down very simply.
i don’t mean that to minimise, he’s obviously being a dick and you’re absolutely right to be concerned and to report to the police, but just I think it can sound really scary to start thinking someone has purposely placed a tracker on you. Maybe he has, but it’s far more likely he’s just an opportunist using the info he already had access to. If you have a tech savvy friend (or your teens) maybe they can help with your phone and the car
good luck

They do @DreadPirateRobots but it's honestly not a loud noise, you wouldn't hear it over an engine. Our suitcases live in our bedroom wardrobe and only make a noise when we move them, so they perhaps wouldn't go off in a stationary car, and then you wouldn't hear it over the engine as I say. And I think there are other brands out there that don't make a noise.

OP it's a sort of electronic jingle, like a little trill.

Using bank refs is (unfortunately!) a well known source of harassment - the police should take it seriously and allow it to be logged to build a case against your ex https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/26/man-put-cash-into-exs-bank-account-with-references-like-tramp-17450996/

It doesn’t matter whether the ability to track comes from a previously shared location. However the ability was obtained, it’s being used maliciously.
If you can do it logistically, park the car somewhere odd overnight and see if he asks. Then you’ll know there’s a tracker on the car.

How on earth is it a bad suggestion?

It just helps eliminate things surely. Not everyone is as tech "savvy" as you proclaim to be. Some people may need support in helping to stop this man from tracking them.

And it isn't unknown for people to place trackers in cars, I've seen it in cases before. And I'm also sure the police have seen it before. So maybe they would have have more ideas on where to look as to where it typical someone would place one.

Ridiculing people isn't cool when they are only trying to help!

Contact the police - log it with them tell gh you are frightened and ask them to look at your car for a tracker and speak to your ex. Do it now.

Blatant lie on his part.

Who on earth would even think - much less bother - to randomly send a photo of an unattached woman's car to a man to whom she once was attached, but very clearly hasn't been for some time?

It's as much a smoking gun as providing evidence of somebody coming out of Tesco with a loaf of bread.

This is absolutely awful I hope you are ok

Thank you all so much for validating my feelings.
I do think it is more than likely to be my phone and will get this checked out.
I haven’t spoken to the police yet but will ask if they can log it.

Would it be worth letting him know you're logging all these tedious attempts to niggle you with the police?

Obviously don't if it's likely to put yourself at risk, or cause other problems.

But maybe him knowing all this is just being consolidated into one big pile of evidence by the relevant authorities might make him think twice?

As said above I was also going to say you can get a tracking device detector. Something I only found about yesterday.
I think Amazon sell them-

I did report the tracking incident / conversation with my son to the police (not the recent Baby Reindeer issue) they logged it as an advice and concern call as he wasn’t directly threatening me, he’d used my son.
I don’t really want any action against him through fear of fuelling the fire so I was quite pleased with that.
Whilst debating the new incident, the police have phoned me back to say my call re the tracking incident has since been reviewed by the domestic incident team and they want to come out to speak with me. I’ve arranged to go to the station as I’d rather them not come to the house where the kids are. I feel a bit worried now.

It is very very easy to put tracking devices on both cars and phones. My ExH did it.

Cars in particular have many places to hide them.

It's harassment. Speak to the police.

Tell them about the baby reindeer thing when you speak to them.
Banks have been getting better about dealing with references being used as a way of harrassing someone too.

Make a record of everything.

Could his mum or other family member be following you?

If the police suggest further action you should consider it. Appeasing abusers seems the best option (I know) but it doesn’t work. In fact the reverse, it emboldens them to keep going.

Good luck.

@2024willbetheone go to Find My in settings and/or via Find My app and make sure it is set to off. Very simple. Google if in doubt.

Sorry @2024willbetheone meant to post both images, one is when you go via Settings and the other via the Find My app.

If he does have an active tracker, it will track your visit to the police station.

On the whole, it might be better if they come to you.

Or leave your phone at home and go in a cab.

So this is what my location looks like on ‘find my’. Does this mean it’s not the phone that is being tracked?

You don't need to take anything apart. Turn on Bluetooth and scan for devices.

He could have installed a key logger on your phone if he has ever had access to it.