Received thinly veiled threats from local business. I feel like I need to do more. AIO?

This all happened yesterday but the story starts a few months ago. I’m going to be vague about details for reasons that will be obvious.

My spouse and I were looking to hire someone locally to help complete a project. We called several folks for quotes. Two of them ghosted us for reasons unknown, maybe because the job was a small one? I waited about two months with follow ups. I found these businesses based on reviews, so I felt it was appropriate to write my own review. (I am trying to be so vague, but rest assured we were polite, patient, and understanding about things maybe falling through the cracks.)

One business responded professionally publicly, but still didn’t follow up. Whatever.

The second business immediately called me. To be fair, the review here was a little different in that I included clear evidence of ghosting. However, I merely expressed disappointment and was not at all aggressive in my tone. My goal was to share an honest experience in case someone else got involved with them based on their perfect record.

Anyway, I couldn’t answer the phone at that moment and I wanted to wait and see what the tone was in the voicemail. Glad I did, because it was aggressive. The owner claimed they tried to contact me numerous times and accused me of lying. They also said we could “handle this like adults” instead of me trying to “ruin their business” and they were still willing to do the job for me if I called back (like I would want to work with them at that point).

My spouse and I double checked and have no records of any calls or texts.

Like most folks, I don’t enjoy conflict and also found responding unnecessary, so I did not return the call. The exchange was over, from my perspective.

Not from theirs. They replied to my review and edited it about once an hour, with the tone going from angry to pseudo-professionalism to straight unhinged.

Finally, at about the four hour mark, they called me again and left a voicemail claiming my evidence was fabricated (I legitimately don’t even know how to make a photoshopped thing like that). And then the threats:

- They claimed to have found where I worked and said they would get a large group of people to leave negative reviews there, mentioning my name.
- They said, “You don’t want to mess with my business. Anything is possible.”

At that point, my spouse had enough and called them. Spouse tried to be reasonable, maintained a calm tone, and even said that maybe there was a technological issue where their calls didn’t come through (although happening to two separate phones is unlikely). The business owner dug in their heels and repeated the threat to review-bomb my supposed place of work.

Spouse decided it was worth calling the cops, and I agreed. They knew where we lived. We have vulnerable people living here. We cannot play around.

We filed a report. We didn’t take any further action other than putting it on the police’s radar, and the cop said he would reach out just to let the business know that threats are not allowed and this is probably not a good way for a business to conduct themselves.

WHILE THE COP WAS WITH US, the business owner update the review again and sent us a ChatGPT legal notice of a defamation lawsuit if we did not remove the review (lol, as if there was any case there — they were getting themselves into that territory though with their threats of review bombing).

With the support of the cop, we elected to remove the review simply to pacify them and hopefully prevent any stalking or violent behavior. I have family spending the day at our home to keep watch.

However, all of this made me feel I need to do more, but discreetly. What if this is how they have a perfect review score? This person is clearly unstable and I genuinely believe could be capable of more, what with their knowledge of personal homes and their claims they have a large community ready to come to arms for them. This is not a person I want anyone else to fall victim to.

So, AIO in feeling the urge to do more? Or is this the end of the interaction and should I just let it go and move on?

I don’t know that it’s my battle to fight, mainly for the safety of the others in our home, but I can’t shake that something has to be done.

ETA: I tried to gloss over details for brevity and to avoid sharing too many revealing details, but we DID have several interactions, quotes, and promises of work. I genuinely believe our job was too small because they mentioned having big jobs lined up at our first meeting. We both expressed that’s fine and we understood and were okay with waiting. We gently followed up 2-3 times as we were waiting for a modified quote (which the business expressed they supported), and then there was a deliberate ghosting “action” (trying to be vague).