SHOCKED. How did my accounts get linked?? Experienced user

[agent006140]

well,it must have been a good 6 years.

could be technology has improved,back in old days to catch seller bidding on his own auction,ebay will call and ask 'is so and so home?(so and so is your alter ego doing bidding on your auction) and you said speaking,Ebay will hang up and shut down your account.
Now they dont have to do that.

[SaiJin]

I bet. But still that's not how stealth was taught even 10 years ago by us.

[sulemen]

Originally Posted by joanna4051

To answer all of the above:

Q: IP6 or IP4? Question, did you have big IPv6 IP addresses when you were logging?
A: I always used IPBurger to check ips, hence recording IP4. In a previous post I inquired about the difference and which one is ‘seen’ by ebay. When I tried tethering via my phone (t-mobile), IPBurger showed me the IP6 and I couold only see IP4 on whatmyip.com. Either way, I never used this method (tethering).

Q: IP - I strongly advise you to record these within excel. The fact you're using a word document for 6 years make me feel you're not too experienced with IT, and may have made a mistake somewhere, perhaps unknowingly
A: I highly doubt that, as long as tracking IP4 only (not IP6) is ok. I use a mac computer and Word has a lot less glitches than Excel for MAC, and does not crash as much. In my word document I have each account listed with a list of ips and a date each ip was used for the past 6 years. Using the CMD+F (command find) option I can wuickly scan the whole document for repeat ip’s. Very rarely do I get the same ip’s ac from several years ago, more often I get repeat ip’s from the same day or few days prior. Of course I don’t log in on those, I repeat the process of mac change and router reset.


Q: Are you positive EXIF data is purged? Did you use the same item descriptions? Any similar wording? Or was it all unique? That can easily link you.
A: Again, yes. And even if some descriptions etc were similar to other accounts, at least 7 accounts did not have any images, items, categories or descriptions in common with other accounts and yet were suspended as well (all at the same time).

Q: One upset buyer buy from multiple accounts and make a formal complaint?
A: Yes, there was an upset buyer but again, 7 of the accounts had no similarities in items sold etc.

Q: What are you doing for return addresses?
A: I have had all accounts suspended 2 years ago for having the same return address so I learned that lesson. This time around, only few of the accounts had a return and on those I sent the customers a PDF file of return label via email from the USPS website.

Q: shared Icloud account?
A: No iCloud. I did use the same dropbox account for all, but the images were cleaned via exifPurge.

Q:Were you using portable browsers?, I'm assuming you weren't, and were just using browsers within each user account. Which browser where you using? Safari? Chrome / Firefox? Did you sign into the browsers (and thus sync browsing data together)?
A: I used Safari within each user account. I’m not sure what you mean by signing into the browser? I had the same gmail account signed into from the browser on each user.

.

Q: Internet - Is anyone else using your internet connection whilst you're using ebay? and perhaps even logging into their own ebay account(s)?
A: No.

Q: The listings - were you selling same item across accounts? were you using the same images? were you removing exif data from images? did you're listings contain any html content that were the same across all listings?
A: As explained above. I’m not sure what the html content is but I hope the exifPurge took care of those?

Q: Did all 16 accounts go down same time, or over some period of time?
A: Yes, down to the minute according to the timestamp on the email messages.

Q: OP, in your GMAIL accounts. Did you disable IMAGES? if you didnt, and opened an email to read, you basically spread a virus to ALL of your accounts :(
A: Yes, images were disabled.

Safari is not safe,I use firefox only,I mean ONLY

[agent006140]

I put my money on hardware,she is using the same device Mac for all 16 accounts,with modem and router.
Some of these are hardly used ,and some do no have bank account linked.
To take all 16 accounts down at the same time,the common link is the hardware.
question-what about Ebay cookie?

[agent006140]

do it the old fashion way,set up multiple hardware and ISP in different rooms,preferably in different homes.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by agent006140

I put my money on hardware,she is using the same device Mac for all 16 accounts,with modem and router.
Some of these are hardly used ,and some do no have bank account linked.
To take all 16 accounts down at the same time,the common link is the hardware.
question-what about Ebay cookie?

Similar listings across the accounts? Just clarifying

[cafonabob]

OP. Your accounts got linked by the beacons in your gmail accounts. You were checking your emails from the same device. Every email eBay sends you has a beacon in it. You need to set your gmail to "never download photos".

1000000000000% this is how your accounts got linked. Case closed.

[cafonabob]

I had the same exact thing happen about a year ago. 15 accounts. 15 paid private VPNs, 15 phone numbers, 15 bank accounts, 15 user accounts, 15 gmails, 15 names. Nothing, nothing, nothing linking anything in any possible way. All of a sudden within about 3 hours I got all of the messages on 14 of my 15 accounts.

It was because I was checking my emails all on one device, I was accepting photos and the beacons in the photos linked them.

10000000000000000000000000000000%

There were even stealth accounts I was making up as backups that I never used. But the ones I had my gmail on my phone already. ALL banned. The ones I never but the gmail on my phone. NONE banned. 100000000%

This is something overlooked. Every stealth member, right now. Needs to go into their phone mail settings and disable pictures. Set to don't (or ask) download photos.

Beyond any shadow of a doubt this is what happened to you.

[cafonabob]

That's what all of the "HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT....." bull**** emails are for. They are tracking beacons.

[joanna4051]

I have had the automatic image download for gmail turned off on my iPhone.

[james_112233]

This is the first thing I did.

Disable images in my email management app on my phone. Even then I hesitate to open the email. I just read the subject, if an item has sold I will physically log on on my PC.

[james_112233]

Originally Posted by tinsoldier

I've been using 33mail.com for my email addresses for years now with all security settings in place routed to a non-ebay gmail address with images etc disabled which is in turn handled by MS Outlook with all the security features possible enabled.

The only way they could link me would be a pattern in my 33mail.com account format, but at the end of the day its no different to the way other mail providers handle their customer base.

For example, my email addresses could be

john@tinsoldier.33mail.com
albert@tinsoldier.33mail.com
jack@tinsoldier.33mail.com
stealthysod@tinsoldier.33mail.com

It is very easy to manage, with endless instant email addresses.

Will they catch on and block my active accounts....who knows?

I think they will. It's too obvious.

[agent006140]

I dont use stealth account.
just curious,how did you guy got banned?
and is it worth having 16-20 stealth accounts to sell,is it profitable enough to justify such?
I dont mean I sell 1000 items at 99 cents and make 1000 dollars?

[Vue]

Originally Posted by agent006140

I dont use stealth account.
just curious,how did you guy got banned?
and is it worth having 16-20 stealth accounts to sell,is it profitable enough to justify such?
I dont mean I sell 1000 items at 99 cents and make 1000 dollars?

Stealth accounts let you avoid certain ebay restrictions like duplicate listings.

[agent006140]

so you list duplicates using different ebay ids.
Ebay rotates our accounts,so if the same item does not sell under 1 id,it will sell under another.

[joanna4051]

to clarify, if images are disabled on the gmail on the phone then the linking shouldn;'t happen? I always have had them disabled so unless just having the accounts on the same phone is enough, that shouldn't couse the linking.

so far from all the feedback on here, linking via hardware seems to be the only variable. That to me seems a bit extreme and unrealistic, sci-fi type of stuff ha. ebay is unable to obtain your name from a federal financial institution (bank), get your exact location via ip, but can track the identity of computer and modem being used?

That said, I am far from what you'd call a tech savvy individual and would love to hear how likely that is from those of you much smarter than me on here.

[Canvas]

You got linked by canvas browser fingerprinting
if you use canvas blocker you cant even upload a listing to ebay

[joanna4051]

I'm "googling" and reading about it now. Can you clarify/tell me more?

[joanna4051]

I seem to have found the right threads on here. Thanks so much for directing me to them.

[agent006140]

Read what OP said-
hat triggered a manual review I assume, as I had an eBay rep contact me on my private cell phone number that was on my personal ebay account (with my info).

[joanna4051]

"hat"? Can you clarify what may have triggered the manual review?

[agent006140]

Originally Posted by rsot

Similar listings across the accounts? Just clarifying

depends on what she is selling,you should see the sellers who are dropshipping from AMZN ,all have the same pictures copied from AMZN.
so if one of her account sells sushi bazooka with picture copied from AMZN,tons of other sellers have the SAME PICTURE,same description ,the only difference is a few pennies difference in price!