[Blahah]

1. Report the incident to the police. Right now.

2. Report it to the VPS provider. Explain that you've reported it to the police. Ask for their cooperation in investigating the problem.

You do not have to pay. If they try to force you to pay, depending on your country, you'll probably end up in small claims court where you'll find judges are very reasonable people who usually side with the little guy. (IANAL)

[monstermonster]

Yes. This happened to a company I worked for in the UK in the last 1990s. We had a half rack full of NT4 machines and someone got into our kit and used it to run a pr0n FTP. They took us to court to pay up and the magistrate said we had no bill to pay and that it was a waste of court time as it wasn't intentional.

You're right about reporting a crime though even if the police don't take it seriously. A crime ref number goes a long way on its own.

Edit: we had to move our kit sharpish though as the company exercised their right to throw it on the street within 24 hours.

[burtonator]

MAKE SURE you file a police report , and are diligent in recording and logging everything and have a long paper trail.

Including ALL customer support interaction , police logs, diary , journal, etc.

Judges will show favor if you have a paper trail.

[joshmn]

Not going to lie I think that the chance of this getting to a judge is about 0.009%

[donniezazen]

I hope cyber crime police has improved their working in recent years. 5-6 years ago a Ebay seller defrauded me. I filed a complaint with all the information I had since everything is online and involved bank transactions there had to be a money trail. I never heard back from cyber crime cell. I don't know how many folks were defrauded by that person before and after the incident with me.

[FireBeyond]

Doubtful. I got a call from someone about a month after my GF's iPhone was stolen. He'd bought it on eBay and asked if I'd got a new one yet - her phone gave a number to call and was activation locked.

He wanted to know so maybe I'd give the password so "he wouldn't be ripped off, too". I'll give him credit for having the balls to ask. But (as I later found out) he knew he was buying an "activation locked" iPhone.

I said a few things like how do I know you're not the thief, etc. He pointed me to the eBay listing which, sure enough even had the IMEI with two digits transposed (plausible deniability, I'm sure).

He contacted the seller and said "Tell me why I shouldn't give this phone to its rightful owner and then file a fraud complaint with eBay and get a refund?" Unsurprisingly the seller offered to take the phone back. So he sent it (I didn't care, and while I knew the insurance company was about as unlikely to care as the police were, I didn't want to do anything that might trigger insurance fraud questions - "This phone was reported stolen, unlocked using your credentials. Explain.") and got me the seller's home address.

I contacted the insurance company. They didn't care, just told me to file a police report and send them the case number.

Looked at the seller's profile, quite possibly the sketchiest thing I've ever seen.

Bunches of phones, all "activation locked, no charger". Tablets, no charger. Laptops, no accessories or charger. At least 50 or so.

Gave that info to my local PD. Their response, "We won't investigate. He probably bought it from someone and is selling them. Could have gone through a few people first."

I didn't want the original thief caught but this guy was openly selling stolen gear. Hell, the message on my GFs phone said "I don't care about stealing the phone. Will trade cash for it.".

They weren't interested. Bear in mind, this isn't someone complaining about their car at the impound lot in LA, a la Big Lebowski, this is town of about 40,000 with a well-funded PD (I work for Fire in the same town).

The urge to drive to this jokers house in the middle of the night and pour sugar in his gas tank was one I avoided, but only just.

[Blahah]

I doubt it has improved much - in general if I report a crime to the police I don't expect it to be solved.

The reason for reporting is that it is the first step in initiating most civil means of compensation (insurance, company cancelling the charge, etc.).

[minopret]

I wonder what experiences we have with police in similar situations in recent years. In the USA many years ago I brought a telephone bill dispute to police. They explained, not without kindness and patience, that the legal question involved intent. Consequently it wasn't a matter where they could easily provide assistance.

[hyperpape]

What was the situation? In the OP's case, they're alleging a very definite crime of illegally accessing a VPN to do nasty things with it. I think at least taking a report is going to be standard behavior, though I wouldn't be surprised if they just let it "sit on the shelf".

If it's just a garden variety dispute with a company, then it's more likely to be a) a civil matter, and b) subject to interpretation.

[minopret]

Well, that's the point. The specifics make a difference.

In my example, it appeared that a roommate unknowingly permitted a friend of theirs that I never met then or since to run up big charges at billable services on the apartment telephone line that was in my name. (I understand what my mistake was and because it was so long ago it's not a sore issue.)