A TikTok user named Mel (@kissedbymel) claims she was doxed by Pittsburgh eatery Gordo’s Tacos & Tequila after she left a negative review following a poor experience with the establishment.
Mel posted a series of TikToks detailing her legal struggles against the business. They included claiming that Gordo’s Tacos filed police reports with false information and that they wrongfully accused her of not only harassing the restaurant but Pittsburgh police officers as well.
In one video she uploaded the day before she headed into court to seek damages against the business, Mel says the business allegedly put her husband’s full name and her personal phone number under the review.
“Now, I know you’re probably thinking, that’s not really doxing,” she says. “Like they didn’t provide my address. Wrong. I got a text message from someone claiming to be the owner of this restaurant’s wife, and she was threatening me, she named the street I lived on.”
Mel says the person who contacted her used racial slurs when speaking with her.
“To this day I don’t know if it was his wife who sent those messages or if it was a complete stranger on the internet who saw my telephone number, and then decided to message me,” she says. “After I made that TikTok video, the owner then filed a false police report saying that I was calling threatening them and harassing him as well as his other employees.”
In a video, she says she is gathering her evidence to present to the judge.
“But because I’m black in America, I partly feel like this is not gonna go my way, because he’s this in America,” she says, showing the palm of her hand, intoning that because the individual is of a lighter complexion than her he’s probably going to end up receiving favorable treatment from the judge.
Mel says in a follow-up video that after posting about her experience, the restaurant called her up and harassed her. She says they accused her of doxing them after she shared an image of the court docket number related to their dispute. She stated that this isn’t doxing as court documents are public knowledge.
Mel has posted several videos about the alleged doxing on behalf of Gordo’s Tacos & Tequila. In another clip, she delineates how the company retaliated against her poor review by posting her personal information online.
Her reason for leaving a bad review came about after she received incorrect portions of her meal and her complaint about it wasn’t handled well by the staff.
@kissedbymel @Mel #pittsburgh ♬ original sound – Mel
The result of the TikToker’s dispute with Gordo’s Tacos and Tequila ultimately didn’t end in Mel’s favor. According to a later video, she was found guilty of harassment and stated she planned on appealing the court’s decision.
She went on to say that the business owner filed a “false police report” where they lied about her calling the business in a manner that was so threatening a member of their staff “had to be sent home that day.”
Mel says the judge refused to look at the “physical proof” she provided. She says this proves the business owner lied (call logs), stating that they surmised a business owner wouldn’t lie about a customer harassing them. She went into further detail about the nature of Gordo’s Tacos’ claims against her in another TikTok covering the topic, where she states that she called up the establishment to harass its employees.
After losing the court case, she says the business owner then changed his story to include that Mel was “harassing police officers” in addition to workers at his restaurant. She categorically denied the business owner’s claim and called out users on the platform for “believing this man” and his claims.
“What purpose would I have to harass the Pittsburgh police?” she questions in her video.
Mel says she ultimately visited the court to file for an appeal and that she launched a GoFundMe to help her pay for legal fees in her doxing case against the business owner.
“Please donate to my gofundme if you can! Again, i am not looking to receive any money back, but if I do, I WILL refund everyone their money,” she said. “I just need your help in fighting the false allegations.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Gordo’s via email and Mel via TikTok comment.
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