What is an ISP Complaint, and what Happens if You Get One?

CaptainNemo

Title.

To put a long story short, I used to be an immature asshole and I repeatedly evaded a ban on another forum. A few days back I saw that, if caught, the moderators would not only ban the account but also register an ISP complaint. That was the wakeup call I needed to figure out how pathetic I was being. I changed my ways, said my goodbye, and left the forum on a good note.

However...

Now I'm constantly paranoid everytime I boot up the computer, use the phone, or watch T.V. because both rely on my modem. I have no idea what happens when an ISP complaint occurs, or what it will entail. I'm up to date on all my payments, and have never ran into any trouble with my ISP before. I know this is a stupid problem caused by my own stupidity, but I need to know what can happen.

Samir Duran Duran

Yeah what the hell is an "ISP complaint"?

And why the hell would an ISP care about forums behavior?


It is a mystery

CaptainNemo

Wait.

Are you telling me this may just be a bluff?

useless4

I don't think it's a bluff but on the other hand i don't think it means anything unless you threatened to kill the president , used racial slurs or something of that ilk.

CaptainNemo

Nah, just sarcasm and ban evading. Simply put, I had an account for a while, got banned. A few months later, I made a new one. Essentially, every few months I'd get bored, want a debate, and I'd make a new account. It was stupid and immature, but my ISP wouldn't really care, right? Not when I give them so much money, right?

SmokeStacks

CaptainNemo wrote: »

It was stupid and immature, but my ISP wouldn't really care, right? Not when I give them so much money, right?

Unless it involves child pornography, piracy, fraud, identity theft, or terrorism, your ISP doesn't give two shits what you do on the internet as long as you aren't going over any bandwidth caps. They don't care if you were trolling the shit out of some webforum, because you give them money every month which, along with all of the other people who give them money every month, keeps them in business.

If ISPs started dropping people from their services for being dicks online there would be three people left on the planet with an active internet connection.

CaptainNemo

Well, when you put like that, I'm aces. Smoke Stack, you are a glamorous son of a bitch.

You here me?

Glamorous.

Synthesis

I always assumed "ISP Complaint" meant a complaint from your ISP.

Usually over some illicit activity (read: illegal sharing).

splash

SmokeStacks wrote: »

CaptainNemo wrote: »

It was stupid and immature, but my ISP wouldn't really care, right? Not when I give them so much money, right?

Unless it involves child pornography, piracy, fraud, identity theft, or terrorism, your ISP doesn't give two shits what you do on the internet as long as you aren't going over any bandwidth caps. They don't care if you were trolling the shit out of some webforum, because you give them money every month which, along with all of the other people who give them money every month, keeps them in business.

If ISPs started dropping people from their services for being dicks online there would be three people left on the planet with an active internet connection.

ISP's also will remove accounts that are being used for spamming purposes, which is the closest thing the forum could claim (ie signing up a bunch of times to post when they clearly intended to permanently ban you) but this would not be severe enough at all. I could see them considering it, whether the forum's owner or company shows some actual intent of legal action, if you were doing this daily with multiple accounts with the definite intent to just harass this forum over and over, which could fall under "this account cannot be used to spam.. etc" which is likely in the ISP's terms and conditions agreement.

bowen

In addition to what smokestacks said, you can be "turned in" for threatening activities like telling someone you'll kill them, spamming too.

CaptainNemo

splash wrote: »

,if you were doing this daily with multiple accounts

Oh shit no, I was never that bad. I'd make one new account only after an old one got got banned I'd say after about three or four months. It's was a dumb thing to do, yeah, but it was never multiple accounts a day.

UncleSporky

Hypothetically, what if the forum threatening to report you spoofed/hijacked your account to make it look as if you were making death threats or worse, and then reported it?

I assume it'd easily be debunked, right? Or would ISPs likely not bother to examine the complaint in that much detail and go by the forum's word?

CaptainNemo

I doubt they would, since I made nice and said I was leaving for a while without revealing my past accounts. It's certainly possible, but if it were so serious I'd imagine they'd investigate. One thing's for sure, I am never, ever going back there.

Really, I never did anything horrible like post gore or CP or something stupid like that. I was just making new accounts and being sarcastic and argumentative. I don't think I have anything to worry about, but I'll never make this mistake again.

This was a pretty valuable lesson for me, all things considering. I guess I just have to grow up more.

CaptainNemo

Well, it's been over a week now, and still no message from the ISP. So I think I should be fine. It just pisses me off it took getting so upset over something like this to make me realize what a prick I was being.

I thought I was smarter then that.

Kyanilis

Yeah, you're freaking out about nothing. Basically an ISP complain would go like this: The forum admins ban you again and find out your ISP based on your IP address. They send an email saying "Hey, CaptainNemo from this IP address has been being a silly goose on our boards." The ISP will likely say "So?"

Worst case? The ISP will send you an email saying "Hey, we got a complaint, whatever you were doing knock it off." Just like if a big name sent them a message saying you were pirating things. ISPs very rarely just cut you off unless it's getting serious. For harassing a forum? Hah, not likely.

Dhalphir

Its the forum moderators trying to sound tough. Nothing will come of it.

Burden of Proof

I once got one for using Limewire.

Remember when downloading music was a thing?

I suppose that was a bit more serious than forum shenanigans though.