“Verizon royally fucked up,” Poppy told me in a phone call. “There’s no way around it.” Verizon, she added, was “100% at fault.”
Verizon handed Poppy’s personal data, including the address on file and phone logs, to a stalker who later directly threatened her and drove to an address armed with a knife. Police then arrested the suspect, Robert Michael Glauner, who is charged with fraud and stalking offenses, but not before he harassed Poppy, her family, friends, workplace, and daughter’s therapist, Poppy added. 404 Media has changed Poppy’s name to protect her identity.
Glauner’s alleged scheme was not sophisticated in the slightest: he used a ProtonMail account, not a government email, to make the request, and used the name of a police officer that didn’t actually work for the police department he impersonated, according to court records. Despite those red flags, Verizon still provided the sensitive data to Glauner.
Remarkably, in a text message to Poppy sent during the fallout of the data transfer, a Verizon representative told Poppy that the corporation was a victim too. “Whoever this is also victimized us,” the Verizon representative wrote, according to a copy of the message Poppy shared with 404 Media. “We are taking every step possible to work with the police so they can identify them.”
In the interview with 404 Media, Poppy pointed out that Verizon is a multi-billion dollar company and yet still made this mistake. “They need to get their shit together,” she said.
I knew instantly that she, like myself, was an adult content creator, because this keeps happening to women online; but especially to SWers.
I had a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer and he stalked down and threatened my grandma. I had to get the police involved.
Meg Turney, her stalker learned she was in a relationship, and he broke into their home with a gun ready to kill them.
There was a story of a singer in Japan whose stalker found her location through the reflection in her eye, went to her house, and sexually assaulted her!
Anytime anyone says it’s so easy to make money with digital sex work, I tell them stories like this. We have to put our photos out there to advertise, we have to show interest in our supporters, we need to traverse so carefully… our lives might be on the line.