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Bad Experience with MaxBounty Signup due to IP Geolocation
I know a lot of us here are webmasters and such so I thought I would share my experiences with my MaxBounty signup with you guys. I needed to join MaxBounty for some surveys for a site I'm working on and so I spoke with Ryan and he said my ip geolocation was showing up in Virginia and that it didn't match the address I gave on signup ( my correct address here in Texas). I explained that the geolocation on the ip that the internet service provider gave must be wrong and that I could provide my state issued ID as proof that I live here.
Ryan said 'Unfortunately we can not accept your state ID because you could still be trying to sign up FOR someone else, and since you can't explain why your ip is showing up in virginia then I have to deny this application.'
I responded - 'Well I did just explain why the ip is different from my location but you didn't like that'.
Ryan promptly ended the phone conversation and hung up, unwilling to work with me. So I guess I'll sign up from a different ISP here locally and make sure the geolocation says exactly where I'm at. I hate jumping through hoops.
Edit: Just did some research and apparently they are using IP2Location which is severely inaccurate. IP Address Labs AND GeoIP Javascript from MaxMind both say my correct address.
Edit2: Update from Ryan
So I sent this to ryan after doing the research -
Hi Ryan I just looked up my ip address here at work after being really frustrated with you on the phone here. You seem to want your signups to do all the leg work for you. Please have a look at this website -
http://www.iplocation.net/
Your sources for ip geolocation are severely outdated/wrong. Call me back if you need to -
Geolocation data from IP Address Labs (Product: Pro)
IP Address Country Region City ISP
66.208.136.146 United States Texas Longview Centurylink
Continent Latitude Longitude Organization
North America 32.5832 -94.7148 CenturyLink
Google Map for MONROE, LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES (New window)
Geolocation data from GeoIP Javascript from MaxMind
IP Address Country Region City Postal Code
66.208.136.146 United States Texas Longview 75604
Reply from ryan:
Hey Corey… like I said on the phone, we see your sign-up IP as Virginia while you are located in Texas. You were not in Virginia and could not explain why it was coming from Virginia so we could not approve you in.
You could always try applying again.
Comments
Geolocation has always been a shitfest. 3rd party databases are aweful. If the company does not use ARIN SWIP data. They are not worth working with.
edit**
This is what arin shows for you.
http://whois.arin.net/rest/customer/C00765062
Just as an update - I demanded my information be passed along to management and my application was approved.
He was protecting his ass. These sites are strict when it comes to signups, if they let in the wrong person and that person begins to scam and commit fraud with the provided offers, companies would start pulling their offers from MaxBounty.
You were rude to the guy, so he didn't want anything more to do with you.
Yes I did get rude when he didn't listen to me - because he was rude by acting like my explanation wasn't good enough and insinuating that I was trying to commit fraud.
If a provider is willing to lose a sale because of faulty GeoIP location (he could have also geo-located your phone number as verification) then I doubt that a missed sale is their primary issue.
You're better off finding someone else who is more accommodating and doesn't give you a hard time over a GeoIP (even though you called in from a Texas phone number).
The reason you provided probably sounds the same as the hundreds of scammers who tried to sign up with them. Perhaps your response after he said he's denying your application should have been something like "Can you use other tools to check my IP? Perhaps the one you're using has some sort of glitch in this instance."
Most of these sites all work the same. They are extremely picky at who they let into their system. Many of them require you to call them and explain in detail what your signing up for, what your website is, what advertisements you will use to generate leads, etc. Then they'll require copies of government issued id's. If anything seems off, they'll toss the application away. Losing 1 potential user is better then having multiple companies pulling all of their offers from them.
It works both ways - without advertisers they don't have companies.
I followed up in an email with this basically - and he still responded that 'due to my ip being in virginia blah blah'.... it wasn't until it was escalated to management was my application approved.
Is Ryan the ryanp from here?
Why does the IP Swip show Virginia?
http://whois.arin.net/rest/customer/C00765062
If your pushing their ads on your site good luck trying to get your payout if thats what signup was like.
There be only one Ryan in this here world.
?
Its a different Ryan I think.
Your guess is as good as mine. Laziness?