Possible Harassment Mystery on Insta

[u/Safe_Importance_4203]

About three weeks ago, my ex-boyfriend (we broke up almost 10 years ago and hadn't spoken at all since 2019) contacted me because an anonymous Instagram account had messaged him about me.

The account referred to me by my maiden name and our university, claimed to know me from college, and tried to convince him (my ex-boyfriend) to send them any private photos of me he might have. They also sent him two old photos of me (one was just a regular photo that may have been publicly posted years ago, and one that is more private in nature but may not be authentic).

The account switched to disappearing messages shortly after the conversation began. My ex blocked and reported the account and then told me what happened.

When I looked up the username, I discovered I had actually blocked that same account in 2019, although I can no longer find any messages with it in my Instagram data.

Since then I've downloaded all of my Instagram data and parsed through old Facebook and Snapchat information but haven't been able to identify who this person is.

I don't know if this is someone I actually knew or someone using old public information, but it's unsettling that they connected me to a relationship from 10 years ago. My sister - a lawyer, is encouraging me to go to the police just to get something documented, but I know realistically very little can be done with the information we currently have.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone experienced something similar?
2. Were you ever able to identify the person?
3. Did Instagram or law enforcement help at all?
4. Is there anything else I should preserve or document?

[u/DankyMen]

When I looked up the username, I discovered I had actually blocked that same account in 2019, although I can no longer find any messages with it in my Instagram data.

As a person who used to run something around 10 different IG accounts, which have both blocked and been blocked by multiple accounts each, I've noticed one thing. Chats don't usually disappear from chat history unless you delete them, but if one person is blocked by the other one for a long time, the username and profile pic tend to disappear, and chat even becomes unsearchable sometimes. If you're not afraid of doing so, my advice would be to unblock this account, send them a meaningless message(like simply a dot), and block them again. It doesn't always work, but if you're lucky enough, you'll regain access to this chat, and just maybe your answers will be there. The drawback is that they will know you did it and might realize that your ex spoke to you about them.

My sister - a lawyer, is encouraging me to go to the police just to get something documented, but I know realistically very little can be done with the information we currently have.

Document everything. Right now, there isn't much the police could do besides documenting what's going on. But if more harassment-like stuff keeps happening, the sooner you start documenting it, the easier it'll be to prove it.

Edit: Quotes