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—Toeppen claims that it was for "disruptive behavior" on the bus). These posts include personal details about people who have run afoul of Toeppen, usually accompanied by personal attacks.

The blow-up with Luan began with a response by Toeppen to Luan's September review. On February 2, Toeppen posted to Yelp, "Siyao L seems to be a pushy Chinese engineering student. He has been permanently banned from Suburban Express. If I were a guest in another country, I would certainly not act like Siyao. I would be humble and polite...Siyao is young and immature and lost. We forgive him." When Luan responded by identifying Toeppen by his last name, Toeppen added him to the response page, claiming he had revealed "personal information about an employee."

In the response page post, Toeppen claimed he had attempted to contact Luan about his review through Yelp, only to find he had been blocked. "It's hard to address a reviewer's concerns when he puts his fingers in his ears and hums," Toeppen wrote. "Siyao responded to contact attempts by revealing employee personal information in his review of Suburban Express. When he didn't like our response to this idiotic behavior, he went whining to Yelp and had them remove our response on the basis that it revealed his last name. In other words, Siyao wants to spew his venom anonymously. All we can say is, WHAT A LITTLE WEASEL...The above is purely our opinion. We reserve the right to call out anonymous online detractors."

These kinds of online attacks aren't reserved just for social media detractors—they're also leveled at those who defy Toeppen in court. For example, Toeppen maintains a page about a student that prevailed against him in Champaign County small claims court. Toeppen posted a screed against Anne Mauro, her mother Robin Mauro, and the judge in the case—complete with PDFs of the court documents, company ticket records for Anne's brother, and Robin Mauro's letter to the court regarding Toeppen's online attacks. Toeppen accused the Mauros of perjury, among other things, and called Robin Mauro's letter to the judge about his online harassment "whining."

In the letter to the judge in the case, mailed last September, Robin Mauro wrote:

After you found in favor of my daughter, Anne Mauro, in your courtroom in April, our family has recently been subjected to disparaging comments and postings on the Internet by Dennis Toeppen, President of Suburban Express. These comments, exhibits and documents include postings on various website pages for Suburban Express, Reddlt, and Scribd.tom; and also include negative comments about you and the court proceedings that I wanted to bring to your attention.

In response to the letter, Toeppen wrote, "Mauro seems to be the epitome of a helicopter parent. Perhaps things would turn out better for her kiddies if she disengaged a bit and let them scrape their elbows every once in awhile. Mauro should have held her daughter accountable for her actions. Instead, she continues to pretend that the world is the problem, not her lying, irresponsible children."

Ars attempted to contact Toeppen and his attorney but received no response as of publication time. Update: We received the following e-mail from Toeppen: