IP address observations ( not too accurate though)

[ricky084]

Dear All,

When I was creating my stealth accounts, I had everything changed except my I.P address. All my three stealth accounts are login to the same computer but with 3 different user account. Everything runs great. These accounts are about 2 years old now. I called eBay to increase my sell limits a couple times during the last year, I am pretty sure they did manually review my stealth accounts. My accounts were from 10/$1,000 upgraded to 500/$20,000. The accounts are still running good, no issues.

From my personal experience, I would say that I.P address is not a big issue if you have everything else (phone#, address, names, bank account and etc) changed and maintained well on your stealth accounts. If your account gets linked, it must be something else linked to your account it would not just be linked by I.P address.

I have an example, there is a business industry nearby my house, and over 10 different companies are business on ebay and amazon, they are in the same building and sharing the same I.P address, warehouse and even restrooms. If one of their account gets suspended, other companies in the same building would be linked by sharing the IP address? I really don’t think so. Therefore, if your stealth account gets linked, it must be something else cannot just be IP issue.

Thank you.

[oompaloompa]

nobody said using same ip for all your accs per se is wrong, it is not flagged as a problem when then going is good, and it may not be something they even know about or look at when accounts are in good standing... but it does link them, so if 1 goes down the rest might.

the thing with the business address linking 10 companies, firstly I doubt they use the same internet, but if they do, ebay would see a 10 different legit businesses in a legit multi building, they have phone numbers they can call and they will do checks and verifications and see they are not one and the same......the same cannot be said about accounts based at different addresses, all with same ip....

[Jeak Custoe]

I've had some similar experiences where I was banned after 6 years of selling... and a close relative with the same last name was selling out of the same house, same internet connection. At first I thought I had blown him out of the water but as time went on it turned out not to be the case. He was fine. Its a question of risk, and a question of what they can track. Ebay and Paypal are somewhat unpredictable, and they're system in my opinion is largely automated and changes with the selling seasons (banning and stealth problems were huge this year around christmas and people are still dealing with issues surrounding that for example). To me its best to play it safe, especially since there are a wide variety of ways to change IP addresses. If you have a high sale volume and a long term reputation, ebay probably won't risk hurting you for the loss of revenue. But again, the higher the volume of sales, the more paranoid I am about playing it safe... so, yeah

[jeffweico]

eBay searches for links when an account is banned, or when they look behind the scenes if they feel an account is risky. When one gets banned, they start looking for other accounts with similarities.

The IP address would be just ONE similarity. A relatively strong similarity, but just a similarity. But, when you add up the other things like accounts selling the same items, or in the same category and they have the same IP address AND they all have gmail accounts attached to them AND all of the credit cards for those accounts begin with the same first 5 digits AND all of the bank accounts are at the same bank (and many other things) then they start using the ban hammer.

Everyone has their own way of doing things, but the stealth techniques are meant to eliminate the possibility of accounts being linked. Zeroing in on any one thing is a mistake. Eliminating ALL possibilities of being linked is the safest way to go.

Search for threads on the forum. There are many with titles such as "All 5 of my Amazon accounts went down this morning" or "How come ALL TEN of my eBay's went down at the same time?" and read through them. When we start getting it sorted out, inevitably we find that corners were cut.

I'm glad the OP is fine. But if one account goes down, the rest could easily follow.

Jeak Custoe also mentioned that his 6 year old account was banned, but a relative's account at the same address using the same IP was just fine. YES, that CAN happen. But my guess is the relative's account is also an older account and what was being sold on that account was viewed as low risk by eBay.

If you want to take the extra risk, that is up to you.

[rsot]

The key point is to keep possibility of linking to MINIMUM - any way possible...including different IPs.

[ricky084]

Thanks guys for the comments and advices.

Lets say, if eBay has recorded my ip in their system already, since my stealth accounts are still using the same ip as my banned accounts, the same ip for 2 years with no issues. what if from now on i start using a new ip, do you guys think this would be turned a red flag in thier system? or i should keep running the accounts as currently??

Thanks.

[GreenBean]

firstly never title a thread MUST LOOK. Does not happen here.

Make your own choices as to what to do.

Your current method may eventually fall down.

Not what we suggest for stealth operations.

[JamesNorth101]

Its so easy to avoid using the same IP address on the same accounts there just seems no point taking the (even if very small) risk.

The less links the better IMO.

[ghackett5]

would using inkfrog solve the ip linking issue for multiple accounts?

[JamesNorth101]

You need to make sure that the ip address is different between accounts when the token is issued.

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by ghackett5

would using inkfrog solve the ip linking issue for multiple accounts?

inkfrog is flaky.

Provided your account meets the requirements, auctiva is a faithful stealth friend.

[okay]

Originally Posted by ricky084

..what if from now on i start using a new ip, do you guys think this would be turned a red flag in thier system? or i should keep running the accounts as currently??

Ill ask my question here since it kinda relates to this instead of making a new thread. It's 3am here, too.. Excuse me but, I currently only run 1 stealth and began hitting it good with no problems so far. I use a wireless hotspot and have noticed sometimes my ip will stay the same for a fairly long time if the battery doesn't die and I keep it on. I thought since I only do 1 stealth I have kept the same ip for about the last 6 logins, paypal too.

What also got me thinking and worrying is, what if, just what if by any chance this ip I have been holding onto for a while now has been used on a bad account somewhere at some point?

So, this is my question, keep the ip's changing and try to avoid logging in with the same ip address when using these "public" usb cellular modems and hotspots? Because now I'm kinda afraid that since I've been using the same ip for a while now without changing it, that it just may look suspicious to all of a sudden change it, again.

[okay]

>>>^^^<<< anybody have anything for my question?

[tatersalad]

I have accidently logged in under a bad ip address before. (By chance my router duplicated the ip when i spoofed it) My account, however ,was not suspended.

When my account was nixed i noted the ip address. I logged in with other accounts (each login with a unique ip) about ten times.

On the eleventh time i accidently logged in under the bad ip address. But all is well.

So perhaps not enough similarities between the accounts to link them by ip alone.