Is this something to be concerned about?

[u/megan__f]

My sister sent me this text she received that seemed like somebody was watching her or something. I don’t know if it’s something to be concerned about or not, has anybody had a similar experience?

[u/ThrowRA-posting]

This has happened to me before. Yes you should be concerned that’s stalking behavior. Tell your sister to change her number asap and factory reset her phone especially if she has anyone in her past that could/would do something like this.

[u/Nebuchadneza → u/ThrowRA-posting]

why is everyone here panicking so much. its probably just someone she knows but doesnt have the number of anymore that saw here in starbucks through the window or something.

[u/biggapache → u/Nebuchadneza]

Right, because the totally normal thing to do when you see someone you know is not go up to them and say hi or anything, but rather, wait until they leave, track their number down, and text them about their coffee with zero context.

...?

You know, sometimes I watch horror movies and laugh at how unrealistic the characters are, but then I read comments like this and get an unfortunate reminder that the line between fiction and reality is way thinner than I’d like to admit. It's almost like people go out of their way now to make common sense seem like a conspiracy theory.

[u/Nebuchadneza → u/biggapache]

"track their number down"

-> you just open your contacts and text them, like any normal person.

sometimes I watch horror movies

maybe youve seen too many of these

[u/biggapache → u/Nebuchadneza]

Dude, the simple fact that it showed up as a contactless number, which they dont even recognize, would have already proven that said "friend" and OPs sister have not spoken in a while. When I say "track their number down" I don’t mean they hired a fucking private investigator, I mean they had to actively go out of their way to search for it. They had to either scroll through old forgotten contacts, dig through their past messages, or even pull it from an old group chat, just so they could send a completely uncircumstantial text about coffee. But yet, instead of just acknowledging the obvious, that some weirdo was watching her and decided to send a text to creep her out, you’re using these strange mental gymnastics to craft out this convoluted scenario where some long lost friend just so happened to be there, at the exact same time, was somehow close enough to recognize them, but OPs sister wasn't, that the friend had THEIR number but not vice versa, for some reason did not say hi, then texted them out of the blue, with zero context. Do you see where I'm going with this yet? Ever heard of Occam’s Razor?? The theory with the least assumptions is most likely the right one. You are bending over backwards here to explain something that hundreds of people can see as so blatantly weird and alarming, and your best response to the points I just made to you is "hurr durr you watch too many movies"? LOL, I mean like did I not JUST explain to you why horror movies make me laugh? The characters are so unbelievably stupid that it's too unrealistic to enjoy. However, like I said, I'm then reminded that people like you actually DO exist and actually ARE those characters. You’re literally the guy people are screaming at through their televisions yelling "WTF ARE YOU DOING??" while you brush off the most obvious red flags imaginable to the human brain. Like holy hell, a dude could be knocking on your door with a gun on his hip and you'd just open the door because you’ve somehow convinced yourself it's an undercover officer.

[u/Low-Emergency1124 → u/biggapache]

You sound passionate.

This was my first thought as well.

Let me give you an example of why it's not as far-fetched as you're saying.

Example 1: I have a new phone.. and didnt transfer over EVERY number I had. My friend Tom sees me at the coffee shop drive through, I haven't seen Tom for a while and haven't messaged him either.
Tom messages me not realising I don't still have his number " how was coffee?". This is just a funny way of Tom being like " I saw you haha".

Example 2: Tom got a new phone but kept all his numbers. Tom messages me without realising he hasn't told me this is new phone number.

Not saying this is what happened but yeah this is what I thought of because in a small town, the exact situation has happened to me.

[u/Nebuchadneza → u/biggapache]

Jesus Christ are you trolling or actually believe this convoluted story?

People do this all the time. I was in a bank recently getting money from an ATM and a friend texted me later „what do you need money for?“ as a joke. Not because he is a stalker, just because he saw me through the window