Facebook trolls cause Cozy Dozee inventor Leanne Guglielmi to fear for her kids’ safety

A MUMPRENEUR has spoken out about Facebook trolls who abused her for two years - all because she designed a product to help kids sleep better in the car.

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A MUMPRENEUR who won an award for a product which helps kids sleep more comfortably in their car seats, says her success has been soured by a two and half year bullying campaign by troll mums.

Leanne Guglielmi, 38, from Belrose, designed a headband to stop kids’ heads from lolling about while sleeping in the car.

After her business Cozy Dozee won an AusMumpreneur award in 2014, she was excited about the future.

Mum Leanne Guglielmi, inventor of the Cozy Dozee, with sons Valentino and Orlando in 2014.

But, what followed was more than two years of bullying, after misinformation about the safety of the product was spread online.

She said mums would share negative posts based on hearsay without thinking about the implications or bothering to research the facts themselves.

While, others would actively harass anyone who supported Cozy Dozee — even Ms Guglielmi’s friends and family.

At one point it got so nasty a hate/ban Facebook page started posting photographs of anyone connected to Ms Guglielmi, including holiday snaps of her family and friends, to “name and shame” them. They also said they knew where she lived.

Leanne Gulgielmi, a mumpreneur from the northern beaches, who has suffered intense cyber bullying from others mums after launching a child product.

“I was worried for both the wellbeing of me and my kids,” said Ms Guglielmi.

“My health was taking a serious hit and my family life was beyond stressed to say the least.

“I was really deflated and down. I had vertigo from the stress for three months. Some days I’d vomit and was so dizzy I couldn’t drive or get off the couch.”

Ms Guglielmi, who has two boys aged 8 and 6, found mums interested in the headbands were cancelling orders after reading these posts condemning her product.

Despite, pointing concerned consumers towards her website, which explains in detail how the product was tested and where, the power of social media meant she was fighting a losing battle.

“Trolls would go out of their way to saturate my ads, posting negative comments after every person who had shown interest,” said Ms Guglielmi, who has spent more than $40,000 on safety tests.

“People would cancel their orders after reading these comments.

Mother putting daughter in car seat

“I had done everything by the book. Performed beyond the required tests with great outcomes but somehow there was now a pack mentality that was knocking on from one mothers’ group to next, enraging people.

“I had comments and threats like “How can you sleep at night with your death trap putting kids’ lives at risk”, “I’m reporting you to A Current Affair”, “you’re just in for the money”, “you’ve only tested it as a toy, not the effects on a child”.

“They were making comments based on guess work and hearsay of general misinformation that was flying around.”

Some trolls went even further, actively harassing businesses supporting the product, via social media.

Ms Guglielmi said it resulted in several sponsors withdrawing their support and a store to stop selling the bands, purely because they simply couldn’t cope with the online onslaught on their social media pages.

“It impacted my whole family, with my husband having to step up, taking time off work to drop the kids at school and pick them up,” she said.

It also affected her marriage.

The ACCC began a review after they were alerted to the product, the outcome establishing no data that could concede or demonstrate risk to a child using a Cozy Dozee.

Ms Guglielmi is also fighting back with the help and advice of police from the Fraud and Cybercrime Squad, who are investigating more than 1,000 pages of social media posts relating to the bullying.

Whatever, the outcome of their investigations, Ms Guglielmi said she wanted to educate people to take a step back and think about the ramifications before posting.

She added that if people weren’t so quick to jump on the bully bandwagon, her brand would be in a better position than it is today.

“Over the past two years I’ve thought about throwing in the towel and giving in, but then the bullies would have won, so I won’t do that,” said Ms Guglielmi.

“Now I have a zero tolerance for bullying on my page and encourage other brands to do the same.”