Email Threats

Have you received a threatening email? Or worse several threatening emails? How should you react?

First let's go over what you should not do.
Do not reply. Do not threaten back.
Do not complain to their ISP and get their account closed. You'll destroy evidence.

Now here's what you should do.
You should always take any kind of threat seriously. You should immediately print out the threat and save the email to a disc. Take this in person to your local police station and make a police report. Then follow up with the police. Ask to have an appointment with the detectives assigned to your case . Make sure you follow up.

Unfortunately many police departments will not take an email threat seriously. They will try to parse the wording of the threatening email and attempt to make light of the threat claiming it can be interpreted in different ways. They may just tell you to turn off the computer, change your email and ignore it.

If they tell you they don't have the resources to try to trace the email and identify the sender they are probably right. Unlike CSI on TV not many police departments have a full time computer crimes division and if they do they are probably overwhelmed with cases.

But don't lose hope. You can hire a private investigator that has the time and resourses to locate and identify the sender of the email threat. An investigator that specializes in email investigations has the experience in collecting and preserving the evidence you'll need for court. Many times they will have contacts with local police and can act as your agent in dealing with the police and assist in getting your case the attention it deserves.

If you decide that you need to hire an investigator be sure to do your homework. Do a Google search on the PI's name and see if they are recognized as an expert in email tracing and cyber stalking investigations.