Dennis Toeppen, the owner of the Illinois bus company Suburban Express, has become something of a legend for the way he manages his company's reputation online and deals with customers who fail to play by his rules. Still facing a trial in Lake County for misdemeanor charges of electronic harassment, Toeppen has continued to police reviews of Suburban Express on Yelp and other services, using his company's website as a way to call out those who he believes have wronged him. From his perspective, this is just digital self-defense; from the perspective of his targets, it's Internet intimidation and an attempt to damage the reputations of anyone who complains about how Toeppen does business.
In a recent post to the Suburban Express website, Toeppen again called out an unhappy customer who posted a negative review on Yelp. Calling the reviewer, Siyao Luan, a "little weasel," Toeppen went on to post his phone number and e-mail address while ridiculing him for other Yelp reviews he had posted. "Siyao, if you're going to go after people online, expect that your anonymity may be pierced," Toeppen wrote.
Luan is not the only person to get such treatment from Toeppen and Suburban Express—he's one of 12 people called out on Suburban Express' "Response Page," which includes posts about the redditor that Toeppen once threatened with a lawsuit and a former University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student named Jeremy Leval (whom Toeppen made a $500 "liquidated damages" claim against for complaining about a Suburban Express driver's behavior on Facebook). These posts include personal details about people who have run afoul of Toeppen, usually accompanied by personal attacks.
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