That's shocking!

Sorry to hear that. Some people are assholes - and cowards. They'll say things online that in no way, shape or form would they say the same to somebody's face

Putting your real name online, apart from a few limited instances is mental. There is so much dodginess out there it's not funny. The less info you divuldge, the better

People can be just awful sometimes, and forum members would be appalled if they knew what goes on I'm sure. I've had similar, including somebody who sent me the most horrendous video and threats via my business website - no idea if he just got lucky and guessed it from the little info I've given on here, or if somebody I know both on and off the forum gave it to him. Either way, he was banned pretty quickly and then all the regulars were up in arms at him being banned because they thought he was lovely and we were evil.

So yeah, the 'real name' thing is a no brainer for me.

That’s the problem, some are ready to believe lies that are spread around, when really they have no idea what has been happening.

I agree about anonymity. Is my real name really Jerseygirl, or has everything I have posted been based on someone else.

I think anybody that does so is mad
Putting your real name online, apart from a few limited instances is mental

Well...!! Look at that. I've been insulted twice within 24 hours! Whatever next?
(Joke! I'll take my chances. But still... "mad"?? "mental"?? Me?? Heavy manners, people!)

No matter how many times you say ‘this is the real me’…it may not be.

I wrote the 'mental' quote and was not insulting you - and to think so is somewhat bizarre

If I'm going to insult you, you'll reply to your post directly and insult you that way

Hope this helps

I would've thought with your oft-claimed long association with Australia, you would have a thicker skin than that! Incredibly mild for this forum

I'll not you'll!

My real name is spouse of scouse.

I had taken from your post that it wasn't your real name, but perhaps not……….

Hopefully as you're not a mod you won't get the charming missives which make our lives so exciting, so all will be good even if it is your real name.

I knew that!

This! I could actually have written it myself.
This, IMO, for too many reasons to list them all, but including employment, and stalkers/ on-line wierdos (iincluding some family members - my sister is a registered member of BE).
All of these reasons.
I am not kean to broadcast my identify to the world, and while there have been a handful of occasions that I have shared my true identy and/ or location with individuals, I would not be comfortable leaving enough breadcrumbs for anyone with an internet connection to track me down. On the plus side there are several people with the same name as me in the area where I live, but I live in a relatively sparsely populated area, and I think it would be easy enough for someone who was determined to track me down, to do so if I used my real name. Even without my name I avoid posting stories about my immediate neighborhood (for reasons given below), at least not until months or years later - for example fatal road accidents or police activity, which if I mentioned real-time could easily be traced to my neighbourhood, but there have occasionally major news stories of one sort or another that link back to my sleepy corner of NC, which I therefore don't mention on BE.

All that said, I am a faily private person and certainly don't want to be traced by people related to either my employment or business, as far as possible. At one of my previous employers, one colleague (I never knew or met) "disappeared" (not in either the US or UK/ Europe) while on an assignment, and I would sooner not run too much of a risk of that happening to me. I do cross paths, albeit usually distantly, with a few unsavoury characters - I know of two murderers currently imprisoned in NC - one I used to work with and knew on first name terms, and the another was the son of a client who I met many times. I also knew two people who were killed - including the victim of the client's son.

On the filp side, I did inadvertently spook one of the BE regulars some years ago after he shared, over a period of several years, enough snippets of information to nail down his home address, despite him being registered under a totally ficticious name on BE! He published his location as a relatively small (pop c20,000) city, which was his first, but arguably his biggest mistake. Then one day he described in one of his posts something about the shape/ design of his street and the number of immediate neighbours he had, so that narrowed his address down to just a handful of possible roads in the city where he lived. Then another time he mentioned that people commonly mispelled/ misheard his street name (obviously he gave only the part of the name which caused problems - but it was like "chase" or "passage"), but that only overlapped with less than a handful of houses that also fit with the previous description of his immediate neighbors homes. From there it was easy to find his real name, his wife's name, and her registered business ..... so even using a fake user name on BE is no guarantee that you can't be traced if you are careless with other personal information.

Hey, Pulaski. If you're ever down in Grand Cayman, give me a ring and come over for a cuppa and a chat! My address and phone number are in the book. Open house, man!

That hardly seems like much of a challenge!