WSVN — How would you feel if you got a visitor over and over, coming to see you, expecting a hookup with another man. Surprised? Irritated? Worried? Clearly someone is playing a trick on one South Florida woman, but is that legal to do? It's why she called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
When your parents and grandparents are diplomats, you meet people most of us just see on the news.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "The prime minister of Greece. The president of Austria."
Tamara Oyarzabal has met many famous people. Recently though, she has been meeting people she does not want to meet.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "Somebody put my address, including my exact apartment number, on a gay hookup website called Grindr."
Grindr is an app for gay men to go meet other men. In Tamara's case, three or four times a week someone who calls himself Ahmed, tells men to come meet him and he gives them the address of Tamara's Brickell Avenue condo. They then show up.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "Well they just say they are coming to see Ahmed and they are coming from Grindr and you put two and two together given the type of website it is and it's very clear what they are coming for."
She has security which blocks most of the men from making it to her door, but one did come up and knock and he showed her a picture of the Ahmed he thought he was going to meet.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "And the security chief also looked at them and he said that he did not recognize that person as somebody living in the building."
The so-called Ahmed was probably using another guys picture, but the Grindr app also has a GPS feature which showed where Ahmed was.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "The GPS point of this person Ahmed was shown as somebody in my building."
And her address popping up as Ahmeds toys with her is not a typo or accident.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "They chat with him and he invites them over and gives my address, so it's an ongoing thing. It's not a one time mistake."
It's been going on for months. Most of the people who come to her building understand they have been tricked just like her, but Tamara says one day…
Tamara Oyarzabal: "One day I might get somebody who is not nice. Who is drunk or violent and if it's somebody in my building, it's scary."
Tamara has complained to Grindr, contacted the police and so far nothing has been done to stop Ahmed.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "Whenever someone calls or I get a knock on the door, my blood pressure goes up."
So Howard, is what some person is doing to Tamara illegal?
Howard Finkelstein: "Yes. This is what the law calls cyber stalking. In other words, using the internet to harass someone and intentionally cause them emotional distress."
We first tried to track down Ahmed. We got in touch with him, When he asked us for a picture and we didn't send it, he stopped communicating with us.
I then contacted Grindr. A spokesperson wrote, "It deeply troubles us to learn about the extreme misuse of Grindr that you are describing."
He added, "We do take action against a user when we learn of violations of our Terms of Service."
Tamara has filed a complaint with Grindr about the man who calls himself Ahmed and the Grindr spokesperson wrote, "Together, we will work to keep these users out of the Grindr community."
Howard Finkelstein: "Legally, it's unclear if Grindr has to do anything to stop this stalker. But if something were to happen, who knows what a court would do. So it's smart business for Grindr to get the user out of their system."
Tamara hopes the identity of the man claiming to be Ahmed is caught before it's too late.
Tamara Oyarzabal: "Who knows in the mind of this person what is going on and what it can escalate to."
Patrick Fraser: "Which is why it's best for Grindr to get Ahmed off their app. Now some good news, over the past few days, Tamara says the visitors looking for Ahmed have stopped and while Ahmed could be charged with stalking, it would only happen if Grindr notified the police of the person's identity. Interestingly they are not required by law to volunteer that information. It's up to them whether or not to do it."
Gotten a surprise visit from an unwanted problem? Apt to give up trying to solve it? Don't do that. Contact us. Hopefully we can arrive and open the door to a welcoming solution.
With this Help Me Howard, I'm Patrick Fraser, 7News.
CONTACT HELP ME HOWARD:
E-mail: helpmeHoward@wsvn.com (please include your contact phone number when e-mailing)
Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
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