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What am I doing wrong?
 

Hi everyone! Merry Christmas!

My Etsy shop was shut down after 1 year of business at the end of October. I was basically hopeless and depressed for 2 months until I found this forum and got hope again! I had been trying to create new Etsy accounts and changing some things like Credit Card, personal info, paypal, etc, but then learned about real stealth from here and I have been reading the forums about Etsy for about 2 weeks and decided to try stealth Etsy. Today, they shut my shop down after 2 days and 2 sales later. I'll list what I did and please let me know if you can see where I went wrong or what I should do differently.Thanks a bunch in advance!

- I connected a dongle to my computer to generate a new MAC address (my boyfriend is a bit of a techie so he helped me with this part)
- I changed my IP address on my Internet router (I confirmed I had a new MAC and IP address)
- I created a VCC with Entropay using a completely different name and address
- I created a PayPal with that name and address and only linked that VCC to the PayPal
- I set up a new email with a different email provider (Yahoo) that I haven't tried before
- I created my Etsy account and only added PayPal as the payment option and entered the VCC as the payment method where they ask for credit card info
- I started by listing about 5 items. They are all NEW items from what I was selling before. I even changed the way the photos are taken and saved the photos to an External Drive (My SD card) instead of directly on my computer.
- After it worked for 24 hours, I proceeded to add up to 50 items and received 2 orders.

So does anyone know why my shop would have been shut down? It's completely deactivated, I can't even access those 2 orders! My boyfriend thinks it's because I added too many products within 2 days. Can anyone confirm? Thanks so much!

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

A bit confused here, which are you using to get a new IP? Are you using the Dongle OR the Home Internet?
Just so were clear, a Dongle is a self contained device that provides it's own internet service.

These steps all seem fine.

This is fine BUT did you clear the metadata off the pictures?

A few questions:
1. Did you create a new User Account for the new Account?
2. Did you use the same Browser? If so did you clear out the cookies?

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

Creating a new / unused user account should be step 1. Also, you need to make sure your ONLY internet connection is coming from the dongle. Keep track of the IPs that are used to access the account. Your other steps look good :thumb:

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

VCC.....do these allow a test charge from the merchant to confirm they are valid? Unknown5454, the etsy lord, uses physical gift cards to set up his etsy accounts and pay the bills.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

Hi all, thanks for your replies! I am connecting to the home internet but using the dongle which disguises my MAC address. I also went into the internet admin and rebooted the router so it changed my IP and I verified on wanip.info that the IP changed.

Also, I did create a new user account on my PC and also did use a different browser. I cleared the cookies at the end of each session.

I don't know a lot about the metadata for the photos. I use Photoshop to edit and then save my photos. Is it possibly storing some info that's linking me?

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

yes. Clear your photo metadata, a good program is batchpurifier.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

A dongle is used to connect to the internet no for changing your mac address.

Also you need to remove all the data from your images, including changing the jpg name.

There is a program to do this, batch purifier its called (Google it)

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

And etsy doesn't need MAC changing. New IP address, new info, new Windows user account, gift card, new email address that can be attached to existing PP account for payments, is all that's needed.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

You added items too too fast.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

I think your a bit confused on what a Dongle is, but as long as your making sure your changing IP's and logging them, then your fine.

The reason you create a new User Account is so you DON'T have to clear the cookies, cookies are extremely important for Ebay, Paypal, Amazon, etc....and even Etsy. Next time you don't delete cookies.

Metadata is information saved on image used. Try using a program exif cleaner.

Also, I agree with GreenBean, you might have listed too quickly.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

Thanks! I will download that program.

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

Before you make another etsy account, go back over ALL the posts by unkown5454.


He explains in depth about what to do to keep your shop up. He explains some info about why accounts get taken down.

Good Luck

Re: What am I doing wrong?
 

Welcome to the forums - steps look well but it does seem like you have listed too quickly.

I am a fan of building PP before using it for anything (As a sidenote)