google adword ban

[FoxHoundMM]

I just opened up my first google AdWords account and they banned me for violation of their AdWords policies. The google support line says it was suspended for Payment Fraud Abuse but im not even sure what that means since this is my first Adwords account.

anyone else ever encountered this issue and what are my other options?

 

[CCarter]

Did you try creating the account behind a VPN? Or was the IP address through a proxy or maybe the country doesn't match. There are services that cross reference known footprints of credit card fraud or abuses which online merchants can use to determine the likelihood you will commit credit card fraud.

Any sign of attempting to hide your identity or signing up with one of those 10 minute email services or being behind a VPN, proxied IP, or amazon IP (Little known fact Amazon publishes all of their IPs so people can block them or detect them better - https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json) can add points to the end score of your likelihood to commit CC fraud.

Even using a prepaid debit card can be the trigger OR signing in from different country locations.

I am not saying you were attempting to do CC fraud, but you obviously got caught within some triggers of known fraud patterns. So the question is, what was your process of signing up?

 

[FoxHoundMM]

Did you try creating the account behind a VPN? Or was the IP address through a proxy or maybe the country doesn't match. There are services that cross reference known footprints of credit card fraud or abuses which online merchants can use to determine the likelihood you will commit credit card fraud.

Any sign of attempting to hide your identity or signing up with one of those 10 minute email services or being behind a VPN, proxied IP, or amazon IP (Little known fact Amazon publishes all of their IPs so people can block them or detect them better - https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json) can add points to the end score of your likelihood to commit CC fraud.

No, the account was created on a home desktop with no network modifications. I plug my Ethernet in when i work directly into my home router.


"Even using a prepaid debit card can be the trigger OR signing in from different country locations.

I am not saying you were attempting to do CC fraud, but you obviously got caught within some triggers of known fraud patterns. So the question is, what was your process of signing up?"

I signed up at google /adwords and linked it to my google business email account with my personal CC. Which i also use to pay for my google business account.

The only thing that comes to mind is when signing up it seems as if google requires you to create your first advert with them which i did create but never made the campaign live and deleted it since i wanted to do some research prior using their keyword planner tool and others. This may have triggered some sort of flag. While researching the reasons for account bans for adwords, I read that google does not allow you to just use their tools for data gathering. Is this true? Not really sure what happened here...

 

[lion1978]

The only thing that comes to mind is when signing up it seems as if google requires you to create your first advert with them which i did create but never made the campaign live and deleted it since i wanted to do some research prior using their keyword planner tool and others.

They won't ban you for that, at least they never have in the past to my knowledge.
about not letting you just use their tools for data gatherng, I'm sure it's in thrier TOS, but I think it's more to just give them a carte blanche to do what ever they want, just like with their adsense program where they give them selfs permission to change the TOS at any given time without notice, personally I have been using google to gather data for years on end.

One quick thought though, when you signed up did you use a mastercard? mastcard is by some considered a prepaid, since it is a debit card and not a credit card

 

[CCarter]

mastcard is by some considered a prepaid, since it is a debit card and not a credit card

The Mastercard brand is the second largest credit card brand behind Visa. I got a Diamond credit card from citi. I don't have a bank account with them, it reports to the credit bureaus. There are banks which issue mastercards debit cards just like Visa as well. There are prepaid Mastercard cards just like Visa as well.

What alot of people don't realize is when you use a card with a merchant, in the charging process it states to the merchant what type of card it is, credit, debit, prepaid, or charge and what country it was issued from. In fact in Stripe you can directly see that information and then create segments in your app to group users by card type. There are certain "patterns" you notice within each segment and therefore the likelihood of them being fraud or likelihood they will not have enough funds in the future for example.

Another thing somewhat hidden from consumers is the level of identifying details you can get from a simple ip address combined with an email address, regardless of any CC information being entered. For example if you chargebacked some merchant or did something sneaky to them there are "systems" out there which a merchant can "report" that "bad activity" to and other merchants can then query to check the likelihood of chargebacks or you being a general asshole. Then they can just decide not to take your money.

I personally believe the reason for the hush hush nature of these "identification" and "merchant" systems is to safeguard their integrity. With a single email address for example one can find ALL social media accounts you registered. If you have a LinkedIn and Twitter or Facebook, and its active you are less likely to commit certain unsavory activities when using that email. If your email comes back as blank, well... let us just say that is suspicious.

Maybe your router was insecure and a hacker jumped onto your WiFi and used it to commit credit card fraud so now your ip address us coming up in those "system". That would then trigger your ip address or home address or email to come up when cross referencing known fraud activities. You can be completely oblivious to all this meanwhile all of a sudden major operations are declining you for no reason.

 

[thespy]

From which country are you ? Some countries have a bad scoring before even entering their credit card.
Did you enter your exact address registered on your bank ? Some have a scoring also based on AVS (Address Verification System)
Did you already made a chargeback with your credit card ? This may also be taken in account.
Is your IP address correctly geolocated on services like Maxmind or so ? An IP address showing at 1000km away of your credit card address can also lower the scoring.
Do you host a proxy, a web server, or so, on this IP address ? It can lower the scoring too.
Payment fraud detection is based on a lot more things like this.

 

[FoxHoundMM]

Maybe your router was insecure and a hacker jumped onto your WiFi and used it to commit credit card fraud so now your ip address us coming up in those "system". That would then trigger your ip address or home address or email to come up when cross referencing known fraud activities. You can be completely oblivious to all this meanwhile all of a sudden major operations are declining you for no reason.

I really hope thats not the case...I am a systems administrator by day so I tend keep security up to date.

From which country are you ?

I am in the US.

Did you enter your exact address registered on your bank ?

Absolutely, not to say this can never happen, however, i copy and paste my CC info into the fields as i keep a master record of everything.

Did you already made a chargeback with your credit card ? This may also be taken in account.
Is your IP address correctly geolocated on services like Maxmind or so ? An IP address showing at 1000km away of your credit card address can also lower the scoring.
Do you host a proxy, a web server, or so, on this IP address ? It can lower the scoring too.
Payment fraud detection is based on a lot more things like this.

I checked maxmind and its right by me and like i said I used my desktop I use and work on everyday to sign up.

Thanks everyone the input but for now i'll use other tools to achieve my goals.