t ra n io o p r o C il v STEALTH E / i. o d MASTER e k c a r c 01 BEFORE YOU START READING First of all we wanted to truly thank you for placing your order! Means a lot to us. Good news are - this book is exactly as advertised. It will keep its promise of providing all the knowledge you need to create multiple Etsy stealth accounts. t ra n io This guide is written using a very simple conversational English, making it easy for anyone to understand and learn the secrets of stealth accounts. Some technical details are explained just to provide o p r o you a general understanding and we encourage you to check the free resources on the web (reddit, forums, blogs) to gain some deeper insights if there's something you want to dig deeper in. C il After reading this ebook, you'll be able to connect all the dots completely and understand what is needed to create accounts successfully, legally and at scale. / o v E a r c i . d e k c 02 OUR STORY (short version) We are a team of e-commerce and operational security specialists, managing 40+ our own Etsy stores at this moment and been doing that consistently for the past 2+ years. Etsy isn't the only venue we currently sell in, but this marketplace alone grosses between 3 and 4 million dollars of revenue for our company every year. We sell a high variety of items, starting with clothing, ending with craft supplies, digital items, pet products and custom home decor accessories. t ra n io Similarly like you, we are selling items and at some point got suspended without any proper explanation. Back in 2018, selling on Etsy was our main source of income, and we could not afford firing our o p r o employees, cancelling office and warehouse and get into debt with our suppliers. We took a fight and decided to figure out a way to continue selling and were successful in winning it. Instead of selling on just a one account, we now do that with 40+ and whenever account gets suspended - we make new ones. C il Suspensions are a very common thing nowadays. Account can be shut down completely by mistake v E and never reinstated back. Ask yourself: who they are to prevent you from selling and profiting from / o your hard work? You are the one to dictate the rules there, not some marketplace algorithm and bots i . d e suspending accounts without even looking at them and impacting thousands of sellers, their employees and their families worldwide. k c You might be selling high risk items, and that's up to you completely. No matter what you sell, in the end of the day you are putting your work, efforts, time, taking risks, paying suppliers and possibly a r c employees. The algorithm will not decide whether you can continue selling on Etsy and profit from your work. You will learn how to make new stealth accounts and will continue on. Dealing with thousands of suspended accounts in the past, we've seen it all. You were suspended without any email notice, and can't even sign in into your account anymore? Wondering what will happen to your funds, since you can't even login? You received a letter that your items are against "house rules" but tens of your competitors are selling exactly the same? 03 You just created an account and it got suspended after 10 minutes. You messaged support and they responded after 3 weeks that account was "comprehensively" reviewed and then shut down. One of your accounts got suspended, and the other 2 accounts you had were shut down without any notices also? You already got 4 intellectual property complaints and now Etsy informed its your last one? Should you resume selling? Should you create new account? Will they be linked? t ra n io You always manage to create accounts successfully but for some unknown reason all of them are always getting suspended after first 5-10 sales? o p r o You are selling print on demand products, just connected printify and account got shut down the next day? Was there something wrong with your setup? C il You were successfully creating accounts up until April of 2021 when the PayPal was removed from Etsy, and now can't figure out a way? / o v E There secrets that marketplace security algorithms use against your stealth accounts to figure out what's going on. And we will teach you how this algorithm works and how you can master it to your i . d e advantage. So let's begin. a r c k c 04 WHY YOU MUST MASTER ETSY STEALTH? Its extremely fast growing platform. While the retail e-commerce sector is continuing to grow and is forecasted to expand by additional 16% n io in the US by the end of 2022, Etsy's growth is something close to outstanding. Company's revenue t ra increased by more than in 100% compared 2020 to 2019 (from 819 million to 1.7 billion). Etsy earns from transactions and sellers mostly, meaning this 100%+ increase in revenue is caused by enormous increase in new customers and order volume. o p r o You must always diversify. C il Having ATLEAST 2 additional backup accounts is a must. Etsy has introduced a new security algorithm in 2021 and increasing its security teams: htLink tps:/ blog.etsy.com/to news/2021/their our-commitment-town o-the-trust-and-safearticle ty-of-the-etsy-marketplace/ making you more vulnerable than v E ever. The chances are increasing that your main account can get suspended (sometimes without any / o reason) simply because they are testing new security algorithms and bots. You must always maintain at least few of the accounts to keep your business, future and income protected. i . d e Test more and dominate k c With multiple accounts and correct strategy you can take over the first page from your competitors. You can test different listing strategies, photos, optimizations with having multiple accounts. Also multiple a r c seller accounts enables you to list new products you want to test with no risk to your main account. 05 LET'S BEGIN. What is needed to successfully create stealth account? Summary of all aspects you need to create your new stealth account a) New identity b) Operational setup (how to configure your laptop, what plugins, extensions and software n io to use, how to make sure you can operate multiple accounts on one laptop). c) Correct IP solution d) New or altered listings (photos, titles, etc) e) New phone number or google authenticator f) New bank account g) New credit card t ra o p r o C il Understanding Etsy's security algorithm v E Etsy marketplace has specific internal security measures, assigning risk and fraud scores to each of the / o newly created account. There is certain things in your account creation methods, information used, i . d e account patterns that will make or break your attempts to create a stealth account. By making sure you tick all the boxes, you maximize your account creation success which can reach 50-80% of success rate once implemented correctly. Without knowing and implementing these aspects, your chances are k c close to 0 in 2022, or having 1 out of 100 attempts to survive on a good day. a r c 06 What they are looking for: 1) Where is the IP of this user coming from? Who is the internet provider? Is it a VPN? A proxy? A residential proxy? A mobile hotstpot? - Score is assigned based on the answers 2) What is the country of account? Is it from one of high-risk countries? - Score is assigned based on the answers 3) Browser fingerprints. What are the languages, timezone, browser, operating system? Is it consistent with the account information? - Score is assigned based on the answers 4) n io First item which is uploaded. Is it unique or taken from google? Is it made with t ra photoshop or a real picture taken by device? - Score is assigned based on the answers 5) Is the phone used a real one? Or a random incorrect number? Is it online VOIP number o a number coming from a real sim card? - Score is assigned based on the answers 6) o p r o Credit card used. Where is it based from? What is the issuing bank? Is it credit/debit? Prepaid or not prepaid? Is it a gift card? 7) Bank number used. Is it a real bank number? Is in virtual bank account? Is it coming from C il risky low tier banks? v E Good news is that all of these aspects can be obtained legally, safely and without any hassle. / o You will learn what are the options of getting new identity, how to setup your laptop for multiple i . d e accounts, how to make sure your listings are edited correctly to avoid linking between accounts, what phone numbers you can use, how to get multiple bank accounts legally and how to use virtual credit cards which are accepted. a r c k c 07 Getting new identity There are different options depending on the country of your Etsy account you want to create. Since there are operational differences between countries and regions, we will breakdown each country and region separately. For US For European Union/Euro currency zone countries For UK t ra For Canada For Australia n io o p r o Non Etsy payments country list Few important aspects to understand when selecting Etsy country for your business. C il 1) It technically does not matter what country Etsy account is registered with. You can adjust your shop location, items location, shipping settings to whatever country or region you want to. We have tested v E this with 30+ our own accounts where on none of them the registration country and shop location / o matches. Etsy does not have local domains unlike eBay or Amazon, therefore it does not matter where i . d e your shop is based from. 2) You can be a US person and sell on Etsy verified with EU information. In case you want to avoid the k c hassle of obtaining SSN, EIN, forming LLC's, you can create your stealth account using European/Canadian/Australian (any other country enrolled in Etsy payments) and select that your BANK COUNTRY is a r c based in US. In this scenario you are getting an option to still use your legit US banks, and avoid taxation hassle during Etsy registration. (It does not mean that you don't need to pay taxes, as deposits are still hitting your bank account). Going on, we will expand on the different account creation methods for different countries and regions. 08 a) For US residents. Starting 2022, during registration a full number of Social Security Number is requested, which is then crosschecked with IRS and other internal records for fraud prevention and marketplace security. t ra n io o p r o v E / o a r c i . d e C il k c We do not suggest obtaining this data from darknet marketplaces, as from 2022 IRS monitors taxes of online sellers more strictly, sending 1099-K tax forms for the ones crossing $600 revenue market. Meaning with stolen identity, there is a real person behind who will receive the tax form. But there are ways around that. How to get new identity information for US Etsy account? Option 1: You need to ask a permission/consent of the person you are in touch with to use his details for opening an account initially. 09 Option 2: As explained in the paragraph above (darknet), but we do not recommend this option. Option 3. Stealth method. Going with random (made up) identity information (name, surname, SSN, address) and uploading your identity documents to confirm identity during registration. Put your real EIN info once tax threshold reaches, since made up full SSN seems to be rejected later on even if submitting the required documents. Stealth method still works in 2022, but with noticeably decreased account survival rates. You can expect n io around 1/10 of accounts to survive this way. On a larger scale it can be around 5-15 survived accounts t ra out of 100 made. Since made-up information does not match to any real records once Adyen crosschecks it, your account is assigned with a higher risk score. You are then required to upload verification documents (passport/id/license) Then it comes down to luck and how close to reality your profile actu- o p r o ally is. Do not expect extremely random names to pass like: Donald Duck or Tony Montana. Try to get creative and think of a way to create your identity profile as realistic as possible. C il After successfully creating your account and getting first sales your options are the following: v E 1) To pay the taxes for the person under which information account is held 2) To open an LLC and add your EIN information and fully own the account and control its / o tax process (recommended approach). i . d e LLC and EIN: How it works? k c LLC can be opened easily online and it will provide you with an EIN number. Open submitting your tax payer information you will be able to put LLC as a name of the business and EIN as a taxpayer’s code. a r c That's the two details you need. Why it works? During information validation process, Etsy sends automatic request to IRS to match the EIN information with taxpayers name which is LLC name in your case. As both of them are fully legit and with matching details - it passes. The director, owner or shareholder is not being checked, only the EIN and LLC names. This is your way to having a multiple accounts in a legal way. 10 b) For European Union/ Euro currency zone countries This zone is less complicated than the US, since there is no $600 sales threshold after which taxes must be reported and collected automatically. Therefore it opens some more options to operate your account. Option1: Getting confirmation to use your close friends/relatives information. t ra For option 1 you will need: n io 1) Their agreement/consent 2) Their exact date of birth 3) Their exact address 4) Depending on the country, their personal code (most EU countries do not require that) o p r o C il Option2: Using made up information to open your account (stealth method) / o v E In the EU you have an option to use a legal way to create a stealth account using non-existent personal details. i . d e Does it still work on 2022? Short answer is - Yes it does. And it will until verification algorithm will not change. k c Why it still works? a r c After account information is submitted, Adyen and other 3rd party non-disclosed operators aggregate account data and crosscheck it with different both internal and public records of that country, such as: • Credit reports • Tax authorities • Public databases • Social profiles 11 When using non-existent details for the account, you will get an error in most cases that there was a trouble verifying that information. Force the submit button 3 times in a row and you will be prompted to upload the document of the account holder which you will have created before. Because of European user data privacy laws, different country legal systems, credit check restrictions and the fact that its a union of different countries - Etsy algorithm can never 100% be sure whether the details are correct or not, and will have a room for error and mismatches. The less digitalized the country is - the more chances to pass the verification. Your best options can be: • Italy • France • Spain • Portugal • Poland • Croatia t ra n io o p r o c) For UK accounts v E / o i . d e C il There is a similar option as for European based accounts (Option 1 and Option 2). There is also an Option 3. k c Disclaimer: We do not recommend doing this, just explaining the possible options. a r c Option 3. You can search the public databases for company directors or any similar information and try to recreate the account details using the publicly available information. You will still need to produce the identity document for verification but it can help you to create a more realistic profile of your seller account. d) For Canadian/Australian based accounts Follow the same procedures as explained in UK/EU section. 12 e) For non payment account countries. As of April 2021, Paypal was removed from payment options so if your country is not included in Etsy payment country list, you will not be able to create your shop. But the good news are - you can learn how to do that in our book. n io You need to follow identity steps as explained in the previous sections and after that you will learn how you can easily get your USD/GBP/EUR bank accounts and everything else needed for successful t a Producing documents for Stealth accounts r o p r o C l i v E / i. o d e k c a r c account creation. This chapter will cover everything you need to know about producing your identity documents. First of all, you don't need to be a photoshop guru to succeed in this area and produce the documents that will get accepted. Secondly, "creative" documents are still accepted by marketplace algorithms (if done correctly). It is still a very effective method to verify accounts where only the scanned/photo versions of documents are accepted. The good news is - that's still how most of the marketplaces verify their seller accounts. Becoming a master of stealth documents consists of these elements: 1) For starters - Adobe Photoshop software 2) The right templates 3) The data which you put on the documents 4) Altering the document's metadata to make it look legit We will not go into details about downloading Adobe Photoshop; that process is self-explanatory (just get the torrent), but instead talk about the right templates. 13 The right templates 1) To make creative passports, ID cards, licenses, utility bills, statements, etc. - you need the right templates for that. By templates, we mean .psd files that you can easily alter and put the data you want to. One of the leading websites to download these templates (can be paid via BTC for anonymity) is: https://gotempl.com n io There you will find a vast majority of country passport templates, bills, bank statements, literally everything you might need to produce accounts. You can also search in google for PSD passport templates t ra will and find dozens of sites selling them. o p r o 2) Second important part of the templates are: layers. You do not want your passport scan to appear without the background or in plain white. You want it to look as realistic as possible, same as with real scanned documents: there are areas which are more dark than others, areas with glare, small dirt, etc. C il The templates you use must have the background effects of a scan. You can always ask for the template seller whether that's included into .psd file (usually they do include that, as additional PSD layers). Or v E you can download them separately from other sources. / o The data which you put on the documents i . d e 1) For the identity documents the numbers, codes, etc. is the set of data called MRZ (machine readable zone) data. For example, passport numbers have a certain sequence and length - therefore you can't k c just put random numbers into it. Now that you know how this set of data (MRZ) is called, you can find online sources to generate what you need for the documents. For example if you want to produce UK a r c passport, this is the source that will help you to generate the right MRZ: https://emvlab.org/mrz/ 2) Secondly, there is name, surname, DOB. As always, you want your stealth profile to look as realistic as possible, therefore you don't want to name your stealth identity as Donald Duck or similar. In the past chapter, we've explained your options to obtain this data, so we're confident that you will get some ideas what to do in this case. 14 Altering document's metadata to make it look legit 1) Exporting your document from .PSD to PDF straightforwardly will leave photoshop fingerprints all over the file and your documents will be easily detected as fake. If you check Properties/Get info section of your file after exporting it from .PSD to PDF you'll notice that the "content creator" section of the file is Adobe Photoshop. That's the immediate red flag which will tell the algorithm that this document is fake. And that's the last thing you want if your goal is to succeed. n io What you need to do is alter the EXIF data on your file. Real, scanned documents will never have their metadata associated with Adobe Photoshop, but with a printer it was scanned with. Its specific color t ra profile, device code, device name, etc. Using this tool you can alter all of these aspects in your files after finishing the photoshop part. o p r o One of the tools you can use: https://exiftool.org C il 2) With correctly applying EXIF data to your files, you will ensure that your metadata looks legit and coming as a real scan or photo. v E 3) When making the statements, utility bills, etc - it's possible to skip this step. Simply PRINT&SCAN / o your new creative document and it will get its EXIF data naturally and will look more real as well. i . d e This is literally everything you need to know about producing documents. If you master these variables in your document making process - it's all you need to start making stealth accounts nonstop. k c This tutorial is not a step-by-step guide to make your stealth documents. One of the reasons - it's a r c against the forum's guidelines to engage in fake documents and similar things from this area. All you need is a day or two of practicing and getting to know the subtle aspects of Photoshop and you will be able to make anything you need in your sleep. With this chapter, we've saved you a tens of hours (at least) by giving you all the variables and specifics you need to be aware of. You'll find it easily when you know exactly what to search for. 15 Operational setup There are different ways how you can manage your multiple existing stealth accounts and create new ones. We will explain the core main aspects of operational setup, what marketplaces actually track and look for and how you can alter that to your advantage. To sum up, these are your options to manage multiple stealth accounts or create new ones: 1) Different user accounts on windows laptop 2) Different users on macbook laptop 3) Remote desktop protocol (RDP) 4) Using virtual machines with Oracle VMware 5) Antidetect browsers 6) Firefox portable browsers on the same user account 7) Using VPS - virtual port server 8) New laptop for each account 9) Different Chrome/Firefox browser profiles for each account t ra n io o p r o C il / o v E Before we give you a concise explanation of each option, its important to understand the main factors i . d e how accounts can get linked and suspended. a r c k c 16 1) Cookies Cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser. Cookies are placed on the device used to access a website, and more than one cookie may be placed on a user's device during a session. t ra n io o p r o v E / o i . d e C il "value": "73091649.630089682.1565171499.1565171499.1565171499.1", a r c k c In the example above, the unique cookie "value" string was injected into the users browser and its associated with this unique account only. Meaning if you previously had an account XXX@gmail.com on eBay, associated with this string of cookie value, creating new account without cleaning your browser from this cookie value first will very likely link those 2 accounts and result in suspension. 17 The ways how being linked by cookies can be avoided: The most important part is to have a fresh browser history which is new or without any links to the previously managed account. There are just a few ways how you can easily get a new browsing history: New laptop will give you a fresh browser Uninstalling and reinstalling your browser will give you a fresh browser Cleaning your browser from all browsing history, passwords, cache, cookies will give you a fresh browser also n io Using firefox if chrome was used before will give you a fresh browsing history t ra Using free version of CCleaner and wiping out your history, cookies, etc. will give you a fresh browser o p r o Be aware that google chrome has an option for different browser profiles with individual browsing history assigned to each user. If you accidentally sync previously suspended account's browsing history C il to a new user, you can be also linked and suspended. v E Most reliable way to clean your previous cookies and completely wipe out your browser of any aspect that might link you with previously suspended account is using the program: CCleaner. Free version / o will be sufficient to achieve completely new browser profile. That makes sense considering you only i . d e want to manage 1 account on the same laptop and user as you previously did. k c 2) Browser fingerprint a r c Browser fingerprinting is a powerful method that websites use to collect information about your browser type and version, as well as your operating system, active plugins, time zone, language, screen resolution and various other active settings. Main aspects tracked by eBay while fingerprinting your browser are: 18 a) User agent. A user agent is a “string” – that is, a line of text – identifying the browser and operating system to the web server. The contents of the user agent field vary from browser to browser. Each browser has its own, distinctive user agent. Essentially, a user agent is a way for a browser to say “Hi, I’m Mozilla Firefox on Windows” or “Hi, I’m Safari on an iPhone” to a web server. BROWSER n o i WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 t (KHTML, like Gecko) ra o Chrome/100.0.4896.60 Safari/537.36 p r Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; o WOW64)C AppleWebKit/537.36 l like Gecko) i (KHTML, v Chrome/100.0.4896.60 Safari/537.36 /E Headers: JavaScript: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; i. o d e Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; win64; x64) ApplewebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/99.0.4844.84 Safari/537.36 RuxitSynthetic/1.0 v7027719053848187403 tll30491875682666471 athlfb31b7a altpriv cvcv=2 smf=0 k How to spoof c your user agent? a r c These are the options how you can differentiate your multiple accounts as much as possible with minimal efforts. For generating new versions of your browser/operating system for each account - this extension does the perfect job and was tested by creating hundreds of accounts without being linked together and being suspended. Available for both firefox and chrome browsers. This plugin gives you tens of different browser strings to choose from, enabling you to use different browser string for each stealth account. 19 Operational system can be also spoofed using this plugin. It is however less accurate in cases when your operating system is Mac OS and you're trying to appear as windows user. In cases where your home n io operating system is Windows, it does the good job providing different values each time. You should t ra always aim to pick the most popular browser and operating system combinations to avoid being "singled out" and possibly flagged. Making your browser to appear as windows XP user using Opera browser, definitely will make your profile look "odd" and possibly flag as a high-risk. You should always o p r o blend into the crowd and combine most popular browser - operating system combos. Windows 10, 8 and 7 with Firefox/Chrome browsers. C il Continuing to browser fingerprinting topic, these are the remaining aspects marketplaces track to identify you. v E Languages - your browser languages can be detected and fingerprinted. Your options are to install / o different language combinations on your different browsers used to manage accounts. For example: i . d e Account1 has US and US (British) versions installed. Account2 has US and ES (Spanish) installed. Account3 has US only. Pick the popular languages that would make sense depending on the account country you are operating from. For example adding African languages to your account and operating k c account from Germany might raise suspicion for the algorithm and assume you are actually operating account from Africa and possibly trying to fraud the platform. a r c Timezone - your timezone is matched with the one of your IP. GeoIP - Timezone match is important aspect, which may flag the account if those two are mismatching. If your IP location is showing US but timezone is Indian, you either travelled recently and did not adjust your computers timezone or are using VPN/Proxy to connect and the later one is more likely. Make sure your device timezone and location is matching the one of your IP location. There are VPN's/Residential proxies that does that automatically for you, other options being adjusting that on your computer manually. 20 Login patterns - its a pattern how you are logging in and managing your accounts which can be used to note some repeating activity between your accounts. As example: logging into multiple accounts on the same times, listing new similar products on multiple accounts at the same time with the similar details. There is no need to be paranoic about this aspect and be over cautious about every step you make, but take that into consideration and adjust your workflow so its convenient and avoids some of the patterns also. IP/DNS/WebRTC - being the most crucial part of the successful operational setup process. Identical IP's n io between different accounts will immediately link them together on most platforms such as (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc) and it should be prevented at all times. t ra Besides that IP not only has to be unique for each account, the score of your IP quality and type of provider is also crucial. Having solved IP issues might not be sufficient as there is still DNS and WebRTC o p r o aspects you need to take care of. We will have another dedicated chapter to cover these details in more depth. C il To recap this chapter, those aspects of browser fingerprinting are mostly used to track and identify your stealth accounts: 1) user agent 2) timezone 3) languages 4) IP/DNB/WebRTC / o v E How to manage multiple stealth accounts correctly i . d e Some popular myths and beliefs that we need to address first. k c Many sellers operating stealth accounts or trying to create new ones tend to overthink and think about every possible detail that can link their accounts or suspend newly created ones. Such as: canvas finger- a r c printing, webgl, their laptops being "flagged", MAC addresses being tracked or being identified as stealth user using satellites, webcams or microphones. We have tested countless of setups on all marketplaces, consulted with 3rd party operational security software developers and surfed every possible information piece available on the forums and internet. 21 So there are some popular myths that are proved to be untrue in practice. "You need to disable javascript and disable/spoof canvas fingerprinting". Reality is that the more your setup is altered/hidden/spoofed the more redflags you are placing on your account. Algorithms can identify that this particular user is spoofing or hiding some advanced aspects of the browser as canvas fingerprint, meaning that its very likely to be a stealth account as this is very unlikely for first time sellers and most users in general. None of these elements are spoofed by genuine first time sellers. n io "MAC addresses can be tracked and seen" - there is no way the marketplaces can detect your t ra MAC address. MAC addresses can only be seen by your internet service provider (ISP) during the time you connect to the internet via their modem. So the only way the marketplace (Ama- o p r o zon, eBay, Etsy, etc) can get access to your MAC address is if your ISP will disclose it. And it never happens unless serious investigations are coming your way initiated by the government, which is never the case for the people who are just trying to create and operate stealth accounts. C il Being tracked using webcams, microphones and any other external way - unless your device v E is hacked by the Etsy, Ebay or Amazon there is no way to get an access to your computer's / o hardware. i . d e To become successful in creating stealth accounts and operating multiple of them you need to go with the strategy of "blending in". You should always replicate the way a normal internet user or first-timer behaves and the setup he has. "Overdoing" your operation part by spoofing every aspect of your k c browser, using rare browser versions, devices, operational systems will make you "stand out" too much a r c from the population sample and being put under the microscope by their algorithms and security teams. As example using Linux operational system with Opera browser and disabling canva fingerprints will definitely make you look like a "hacker", bot, or at least not what 99% of the visitors would do. Creating a stealth account is all about imitating the regular user who genuinely is looking for selling and doing that for the first time. So now that you are aware of the main operational aspects of successful stealth formula, these are the options below giving you a methods to manage/create multiple accounts without being linked together. 22 9 Different options to manage your stealth account: 1-2) Different user accounts on windows/macbook laptop This is the most "noob-friendly" and effective way to manage your stealth accounts. Every new user profile will give you a fresh browser. Technically you can manage as many accounts as you want using this n io method, however there are some scalability and efficiency issues when more accounts are being managed this way. There are some pros and cons of this option: t ra Pros: o p r o • Cost effective. Does not require to buy new device or any additional software • Easy to setup, delete, add new accounts C il • Safe for few accounts Cons: v E / o • Every new user will still be under the same operational system/browser string and some i . d e hardware fingerprint values. You will need to use browser extensions to hide and differentiate those as much as possible between user accounts. • If you manage stealth accounts from different countries: your time zone settings remains the k c same for all users, and will require changing manually every time new user account is opened. a r c • Can be time consuming. You can manage only 1 account at the same time and it requires logging out/switching users every time. • Due to similar fingerprint patterns creating tens or hundreds of stealth accounts is more risky compared to other options. 23 3) Remote desktop protocol (RDP) Its a remote connection protocol to another windows desktop. Putting that simply is like managing other computer remotely through your computer. Just like you can connect to other computer using teamviewer and do any operations, RDP works in a similar way letting you to connect to remote desktop and carry out your operations here. Communication between your host device and RDP is also encrypted, making it a secure option for managing multiple accounts. You can explore the guides and resources of setting up your RDP connection here: t ra Pros n io o p r o • Extremely safe and almost impossible to be linked between different RDP's. • RDP is one of the most popular choices for internet users whose goal is to be almost untraceable on the internet. As none of the files, browsing history is stored on your device, C il but on cloud in your RDP. Cons / o v E i . d e • Not "noob-friendly" and requires significant time for first time users to set up • Time consuming. Managing different RDP's every time might be time consuming due to complicated set up process k c • Can be costly. Every RDP connection costs usually on the monthly basis, varying between few dollars upwards to $50-70 monthly for each account. a r c • Reliability concerns. It might take some time to find the high quality RDP provider. There are providers offering overused, abused or hacked RDP's which might disturb managing multiple accounts stably in a long-term. • Usually used by some more complex internet activities which requires extreme security measures. From our experience RDP is an "over-kill" and not effective for the purpose of managing and creating multiple stealth accounts. 24 4) Using virtual machine oracle VMWare This is a one of the most popular operating methods being used successfully by many. VMware is a solution which lets you create multiple virtual machines on the same computer. Simply put it’s like a having multiple computers on the same computer. Pros • Free to use • Requires minimal effort to set up and can be learned quickly t ra n io • Enables you operate multiple accounts at the same time. You can turn on multiple virtual machines and access your accounts simultaneously without being linked. o p r o • Each virtual machine represents separated environment: files, browsers, time zones, making it safer option compared to just different users on your laptop. C il Cons v E • For efficient use powerful computer is required. You should aim for at least 8GB RAM, i5 core / o CPU, 256 GB SSD device, that is being the minimum requirement. Each virtual machine i . d e requires resources to run and you want it to run smoothly. Usually 2 GB ram, 2 cores of CPU and 30-50GB hard drive space per machine is recommended. Meaning with the simple 4GB RAM laptop you can expect to manage up to 1-2 machines efficiently. k c • Worth noting that virtual machines in theory can be detected by marketplace security a r c algorithms. While its completely legal to use VM, it may flag your profile as "higher-risk". • Requires windows or linux operating systems to run smoothly. There are work-arounds for Mac OS, but it requires additional time to set up it properly and some bugs/errors will arise from time to time. • Limited scalability. Due to hard disk space allocation requirement for each separate virtual machine, you are limited to the number of machines you can operate by the capacity of your hard disk. 25 5) Antidetect browsers Antidetect browsers are a software solution enabling you to manage multiple separate browser profiles on the same laptop, same user account and at scale. Those solutions are built mainly for managing multiple accounts in an easy way. Antidetect browser solutions enables you to create different unique profiles for each account and enables you to change: operating system, browser type and string, timezones, languages and other multiple factors ensuring your fingerprints are as diverse as possible. t ra n io While there are different companies offering this solution, to sum up there are some pros and cons of using this method. o p r o Pros • Easy to use and requires minimal effort to set up accounts C il • Scalable. You can manage tens and hundreds of accounts with using only one laptop • In most cases its possible to operate multiple accounts simultaneously making it efficient tool to use / o v E • Reliable. In most cases these solutions are designed for the sole purpose of managing stealth i . d e accounts, whether its Facebook, Twitter or marketplaces such as Etsy, eBay or Amazon. Meaning developers are aware of the aspects which needs to be ensured to manage accounts safely k c • Diversity of fingerprints. There is an option to customize tens of aspects of your browser such as operating system, timezones, languages, even build custom cookies before even logging a r c in. Meaning you can manage hundreds of accounts and ensure they are highly differentiated from each other. Cons • Not free to use in most cases. Prices vary between $30-150 usually. Might be costly for managing 1-2 accounts only. • As its a 3rd party service provider, some bugs or errors might arise which you are not aware of. Therefore only the most reliable companies should be picked. 26 6) Firefox/Chrome portable apps Portable browser app is working just like any regular browser, but enabling you to have multiple copies of the same browser being isolated from each other. Each browsing history, cookies, etc. are saved in separate folders and do not leak between different accounts. In theory you can have multiple Firefox or Chrome icons on the same desktop/computer each representing different stealth account. Pros • Free to use t ra • Quite easy to set up • Technically there is no limit on the number of accounts you can manage n io o p r o Cons C il • Reliability. As its a 3rd party solution, not developed by Chrome/Firefox themselves, there is a risk that it might not work properly with other plugins or extensions. Also there can't be 100% v E guarantee that accounts will not be linked as its a 3rd party solution / o • Limited fingerprint diversity. As all browsers are operated on the same computer, they still i . d e represent the same time zone, region and hardware fingerprint values. a r c k c 27 7) Using VPS - virtual port server. A virtual private server is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service. Similarly like using Oracle VMware, VPS gives you an option to manage virtual machine which is hosted on cloud rather your own Laptop. Pros (compared to using Oracle VMware method are): n io • Unlimited scalability. Meaning you can operate unlimited number of VPS machines from one laptop t ra • Does not require powerful laptop o p r o Cons • Each VPS needs to be purchased separately which can possibly become costly C il • Reliability: as with all 3rd party providers, it might take some time to find reliable and good price/quality ratio provider. / o v E a r c i . d e k c 28 8) New laptop/device for each account Probably the simplest and most bulletproof way to separate your stealth accounts. Each laptop/device is assigned to different stealth account, ensuring different fingerprinting and reducing the risks to be linked between each to zero. (considering other aspects such as ip, account information, items, etc. are done correctly). Pros t ra • Bulletproof way to isolate different stealth accounts • Does not require any additional technical knowledge to setup or manage n io o p r o • In case your laptop is lost or damaged - only 1 account is affected. Cons C il • Requires a fixed investment for every new account depending on the device costs • Time consuming to manage multiple accounts v E • Challenging logistically - bringing multiple laptops with yourself is not convenient / o • As there are a vast of software, 3rd party and other solutions such as multiple users available, i . d e this option is generally the most costly and inefficient for multiple accounts. a r c k c 29 9) Different Chrome/Firefox browser profiles for each account This is a very solid method allowing you to manage multiple accounts simultaneously and at scale. As Chrome/Firefox allows having multiple browsing profiles with isolated environments (cookies, history, passwords, etc), you can use that functionality to your advantage. In this article its covered in depth how this method works and how you can apply it in practice. https://www.ipburger.com/docs/multiple-accounts-with-chrome-users/ t ra n io o p r o v E / o Pros a r c i . d e C il k c • Scalability. You can manage high number of accounts at the same time • Ease of use. It does not require different virtual machines, laptops, switching user accounts as everything can be done inside one user account. • Free to use. As you are utilizing the native function of Chrome/Firefox browser, using browsing profiles does not bear any additional costs. 30 Cons • Limited browser fingerprint customizations. In some cases Residential Proxy extensions are not enough to effectively spoof/hide your true timezone and region set on device itself • Works with Residential proxy/ip providers who has firefox/chrome extensions for their services. • Having multiple accounts opened on the same environment simultaneously can possibly lead to some management errors (uploading items to wrong account accidentally, copy pasting wrong tracking numbers, etc). So you'll need to be focused at all times. t ra n io These are the 9 possible options to manage and create your stealth accounts, all having different pros and cons. We personally stick to 1-2, 4, 9 options for our own account management and creation. o p r o Mastering your IP for success in C stealth accounts il v E / o i . d e The fundamental part of successful stealth account is that the platform can't notice that account is stealth. Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, has advanced tracking technologies to detect the source, location, provider and risk score of your IP. a r c k c Using the wrong IP sources will void your efforts of creating new stealth identity, setting up your operational security and getting all needed pieces such as credit cards, bank accounts and etc. Without knowing how platforms look at your IP and what needs to be done it can be very challenging to create and maintain new accounts without suspensions. 31 How IP detection works in practice? The second you are entering any domain in the destination tab, your IP is detected. And the following aspects can be seen by any website operator: 1) Your IP string. This is the most basic thing you might be already aware of. You can easily check up your IP by simply searching "what's my ip" in google search. However what you might not be aware of that this IP string reveals more information about your IP than it could seem from first sight. n io 2) Your IP provider. Your service provider can be detected by the number strings of your IP. Simi- t ra larly as each country has its code for telephone dialing, each IP provider has its specific number of IP number strings. By that platforms can identify whether your IP is coming from reputable sources such o p r o as local internet service providers: Vodafone, O2, Comcast, AT&T, etc. or whether it’s coming from private server companies or datacenters. Based on your IP source certain risk scores are automatically assigned without you even knowing that. The person whose IP source is a Vodafone, looks like a genu- C il ine, regular and non-risky internet user, meaning probably he is accessing the website simply from home or work. The ones using VPN's/proxies signal that this user is trying to mask/hide his IP and might v E represent a fraud risk. Successful stealth is all about imitating the low-risk activity patterns, and using a VPN/proxy is certainly not a one. i . d e / o 3) Your exact IP location (city or even zip code level) - based on your IP websites can identify the location of where your IP is coming from with an approximate 98% accuracy. Your country, state, region, city and usually a ZIP code can be identified by knowing your IP. a r c k c 4) Are you using Proxy/VPN/Local internet service provider - based on the number sequence of your IP, websites can accurately determine whether you are using Proxy, VPN, mobile hotspot or your home internet to access the content. 5) Your DNS address - even using VPN's or other IP anonymizers - it’s still possible that your true DNS is leaking. It can be easily detected and flagged by marketplace security algorithms as your IP and DNS address countries can be mismatching or DNS matching the previously suspended account. Even worse - multiple accounts with the matching DNS. 32 First of all you need to check for any possible DNS leaks in these sites: https://www.dnsleaktest.com https://dnsleak.com What you need to look for? a) Whether DNS leaks shows your true IP country (for example showing Vietnam while you are using US based IP) n io b) Whether it's showing your real IP (or very similar number string). Check your IP without any t ra proxy/vpn via incognito window/fresh browser and then turn on your proxy/vpn to perform DNS leak test and see if results reveal your real IP or a very similar one. o p r o If you are using your mobile hotspot/modem solely you do not need to perform this test. C il You should always choose VPN/Proxy providers which reliably mask your real DNS ip and protect you from any leaks. v E 5) WebRTC address - The problem with WebRTC is that it uses techniques to discover your IP address- / o es that are more advanced than those used in “standard” IP detection. Your WebRTC address can still i . d e leak even when you are using VPN or other anonymizer solution. Leaking your true WebRTC might disclose and suspend or link your stealth accounts. Therefore you should always check for WebRTC leaks to ensure your setup is solid. k c WebRTC leaks can be checked via www.whoer.net website. The WebRTC should never show your a r c actual IP. If IP showed in WebRTC leak is different than your actual home ip, or the same as your VPN/Proxy - you're all set. 6) Is your IP blacklisted/used for SPAM? - your IP could be already blacklisted and assigned with high fraud or spam scores. IP's used to send spam emails, malicious content or conduct fraudulent activities are blacklisted and automatically included in multiple databases. You can check whether your current IP is on the blacklist. www.whoer.net will show you whether your IP is blacklisted. Once you understand these concepts, now its time to use this knowledge to maximize your stealth success. 33 Mastering your IP for success 1) Do not use VPN's for creating new stealth accounts. The marketplace will immediately detect that you are accessing from a VPN and flag or suspend your account immediately. Why would a first time user would try to create an account while on VPN? That already indicates that you are trying to mask or hide some details of your true identity. Even though the number of people using VPN's regularly is increasing, none of the marketplaces interpret that as a safe activity and choose "better safe than sorry" n io approach and just automatically suspend that type of accounts. Not everyone using a VPN is a fraud, but almost everyone who are, are using VPN's. The worst options for creating accounts are providers assign- t ra ing same IP's for multiple users. It’s possible that IP you were assigned was already involved in fraudulent activities on the net before. Its suitable for personal protection, and additional security, but not for creating or managing stealth accounts. o p r o Creating or operating account while simply being on shared VPN connection would instantly flag the account and get it shutdown. VPN's ip sources are datacenters which uses the same IP strings, and C il service provider is simply a server company not an genuine internet service provider. Same thing is with shared or dedicated VPN's. Therefore platforms immediately identify that you are accessing using VPN v E services and that's not what usual user would do. Since what's the point of legit seller to use VPN if he has nothing to hide? So residential ip's source their IP's from real internet service providers such as / o T-Mobile, AT&T, O2, Verizon, and others depending on your country. And in terms of IP it makes you i . d e look as low-risk individual. 2) Do not use dedicated/fresh VPN's. There are services promoting fresh and dedicated VPN services k c for account management and creation. While it most cases those IP's are truly fresh and will be fixed/dedicated for as long as you pay for them, they are still coming from datacenter companies, indi- a r c cating that you are using a VPN while accessing Etsy, Amazon, Ebay or other marketplaces. 3) Do not use simple proxies. Similar to VPN, proxies are also detected based on the IP strings and can show its source being a datacenter. You can purchase a fresh (non used before) and dedicated proxy, but it will not bring any additional benefits and will be the same as using VPN. 4) Do not use same IP's for multiple accounts that you do not want to link. Might be sounding obvious for some, but still needs to be put out. Managing multiple accounts from the same IP will link them in 100% of the cases. While it might not mean an instant suspension, in case one account gets shut-down the others will follow as well due to strong association. If your goal is to diversify - different IP's for each account is your only option. 34 The best way to manage multiple stealth accounts: Answer: Residential proxies. With the residential proxies you can perfectly imitate the behavior of the genuine, low-risk internet user n io while being from anywhere in the world. Residential proxies work in a way that assigns your with an IP from a real internet service provider of that country, and will never be detected as VPN/regular server t ra proxy. This is the best way currently to manage multiple accounts and we manage our accounts using residen- o p r o tial proxies. Back 3-4 years ago, from the start of using residential proxies we immediately noticed increased account survival rate, stability and significantly less suspensions during sign-up process. C il There are reputable companies providing this service, which is completely legal. You can choose the internet service provider, country, region and even the exact city where you want your IP from. With this v E setup you can minimize your profile risk score to a complete minimum and match your stealth account / o location info with the one of your IP address. i . d e Pros of using residential proxies • Appearing as a regular internet user • Provides you a real IP's from real internet service providers • a r c • • • k c Can choose IP's from certain countries, states and cities Huge variety of countries and cities to choose from Can be used to manage 1-100 and even more accounts without any limitations Quite easy to setup, expect to invest 20min-1hour for first time users to understand how the process works • You can generate and assign unlimited number of IP's for your accounts 35 Cons of using residential proxies • There is one aspect which might seem as negative - IP's are rotating/dynamic. Meaning you will not get an IP which will stay the same for days, weeks or months. But according to our and other stealth operators experience that has never caused any suspensions directly. • Solution is not free. Expect to invest $50-200 monthly for this solution. The costs do not increase proportionally for every additional account you want to manage. Usually regular plans allows to n io manage tens of accounts. Meaning the more accounts you want to create or operate the lower the cost per account will be. Imagine you want to manage 5 stealth accounts. Dedicated VPN's t ra (which are not a recommended solution due to reasons mentioned before) usually cost $15 per IP/monthly, resulting in $75/monthly (5 accounts * $15 each). If you are managing 5 accounts o p r o with a residential proxy plan costing $70/monthly for example, resulting in $14/monthly per account ($70 divided by the number of 5 accounts) it's already more cost efficient. Managing 10 accounts with the same plan of $70, would save you around 50% monthly compared to dedicated VPN's for each account separately. C il How to make sure you can sell similar products from previously suspended accounts? v E / o i . d e You have your products, photos, titles that were performing well on previously suspended account and want to resume selling with what's already working. Or you have found a niche of well performing products and want to expand that on multiple accounts without the risk of being linked. There is everything k c you need to know about how to do that successfully. Similarly how your browser and laptop can be fingerprinted, your listings have similar elements of that. a r c If you would take any random photo with your smartphone, send it to your computer and examine its properties/details, some or all of the following information would appear: 1) Location where it was taken 2) Its dimensions/size 3) Camera/color profile 4) Device it was taken with 5) The exact time it was taken 6) Where it was downloaded from/its source 36 The combined set of this information is called EXIF data. Combination of EXIF metadata is usually unique more or less for every different photo/image. If you are taking photos of your listings using camera devices, they will contain this EXIF data which can be seen and tracked by marketplaces. Meaning if two accounts have identical metadata of their listing photos - they can be linked together and investigated. What you should do: 1) First of all removing EXIF data from your images/photos. How to remove this EXIF data? t ra There are easy and free solutions which will help you to remove all this data. n io o p r o https://www.exifpurge.com/ You can bulk upload all your photos and remove EXIF data. Whether it is photos you took or digital C il images, its still recommended to use this tool if you are planning to re-use the same listing photos. v E 2) Altering image dimensions What is the chance of two separate sellers selling identical items with identical image dimensions? Probably a very low one. i . d e / o You should resize your listing photos at least by some px points, to generate unique dimension combination of width and length. Also by doing that you will change the time stamp of "last modified" for your k c photos, making it different from previously used ones. What is the chance of two separate sellers selling identical items with identical image dimensions? By altering image dimensions and last modified time a r c stamp you will eliminate this risk to a minimum. 3) Every image is a unique combination of pixel colors, saturation and density. There are bots in the marketplaces programmed to find and detect images whose pixel combinations are overlapping between each other. In other words - to find same listing images between different sellers or same images that were previously used by suspended ones. That's why its recommend to alter your listing photos/images to at least some degree. It can be adding watermarks, logos, shop name text, changing color profiles. In cases where there is hundreds or thousands of different images, you can outsource it to virtual assistants or check for photoshop scripts which would add same elements to each image automatically. 37 New phone number for verification Understanding how phone numbers work and how to avoid getting suspended by using the wrong sources and types for numbers for verification. The main mistake when trying to get a new phone numbers for account creation is obtaining it from most popular apps/free online sources or using google voice numbers. n io The first reason being that phone numbers obtained in this way can be recycled and used previously t ra and the second reason being that those numbers are in 99% cases VOIP. o p r o There are two types of mobile numbers: VOIP and non VOIP. Similarly like there is a VPN and Residential proxy, VOIP would be the same as using VPN and VOIP the same as using residential proxy. C il 1) VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) means it’s not a real number, which uses internet to communicate instead of cellular. VOIP numbers come from online databases and are not tied to any physical sim card or mobile carrier. They can be easily detected and identified by marketplaces and any websites v E that work on stealth accounts detection. You can try creating eBay account using VOIP number / o obtained from application and you will receive an automatic error. Try verifying or creating your new i . d e Gmail account using VOIP number and you will get an instant error. By using VOIP number you are exposing yourself as probably a stealth account creator and minimizing your chances of successful account creation. k c 2) Non VOIP are real numbers from real mobile carriers, meaning there is a real sim card tied to it. a r c There are two main solutions for getting non VOIP numbers. 38 How to get real numbers for account verification? 1) Obtaining real SIM cards and using them for account verification. Depending on your physical location, obtaining SIM cards physically can be challenging, so if that's not an option you can order them online. There are may sellers on eBay offering different countries SIM cards for sale to ship worldwide. 2) Using online non VOIP number providers. During our many years of experience in managing and n io creating stealth accounts, we've found some providers who offer online SMS receiving services by using non VOIP numbers. The process is fully automatic and optimized, meaning you will only need to t ra pre-pay the amount you want (depending on the number of accounts you are planning to verify) and then choosing the platform you want to receive SMS from. o p r o Those providers usually specialize in Etsy, eBay, Amazon and other marketplace SMS receiving solutions, as well as google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. https://juicysms.com/ https://smsverify.co.uk/ C il v All you need Eto know about / i. o bank accounts getting new d e k c a r c One of the biggest challenges people creating new stealth accounts and managing multiple ones face is getting new bank accounts. And getting them legally, under your name can be even more challenging. While there are ways you can buy a hacked/stolen bank accounts, we do not recommend this approach. Also what's the point of having a bank account which have a risk to be reclaimed by the true owner in the future? We will outline all options for getting multiple bank accounts and what could be your course of action depending on the country of residence. First of all, lets clarify the fundamentals of using multiple bank accounts and provide you an answer to some of most frequent concerns or questions one might have. 39 Can different bank accounts under the same name be used? And can marketplaces see the real name/surname of the bank account I enter? 1) There is no way for any marketplace to see the real name behind the bank account. All personal and confidential information records are strictly kept by your banking service provider only. In case of any investigation coming your way, company/marketplace can send a subpoena letter coming your banking service providers way, which might reveal your true identity. But that's only in cases you are doing something extremely against the law and on a large scale. There is no such thing as unified banking n io information databases that marketplaces can have an access to. Every bank has a strict client protection policies and will not reveal your personal info to any 3rd parties (except on extreme cases of investiga- t ra tion, cyber criminal activity, etc) o p r o 2) There is no API that all banking institutions are implementing to use with payment processors such as Adyen, Stripe, etc. None of the payment processors can see your real name/surname/address from your banking number info. C il 3) Etsy uses payment processor called Adyen to verify your identity, card and check banking info. v E Upon entering your banking details those details will be crosschecked and checked. / o a) Your banking institution name: using routing number in the US, BIC numbers in the EU and Sort i . d e codes within the UK. b) Country of your bank account provider: Based on routing, BIC or sort codes your bank country can be identified. a r c k c c) Correctness of your bank account info: US account numbers do not use checksums so any random numbers can be input and they will look like real ones in the eyes of the system. Within the EU and UK, account numbers use checksums therefore if you put any random bank while creating account its correctness will be checked. How IBAN validity works can be checked here: https://www.iban.com/iban-checker How UK bank validy works can be checked here: https://www.sortcodes.co.uk/ That's all that can be checked or verified, meaning you are completely safe using multiple bank accounts under the same name. 40 But marketplaces require to input correct name/surname in the accounts holder field? They require it only to have it aligned on their end, it does not mean that you need to input REAL name/surname into accounts holders field. You can use the stealth account's info and it will work. Marketplaces can't verify and upon submitting payments are not required to have correct name/surname of the bank account holder. The only one who might care about the name/surname is your banking service provider. Some banks might decline if deposits sent to your bank account come from the different name than account is registered on. Good news are that there are only a few banks that strictly decline those kind of deposits, and 98% of them do not care or track this. t ra n io What information is actually the most important for marketplaces to understand how risky is your account? o p r o Similarly as with internet service provider whether your traffic is coming from VPN or from Residential proxy/Real ISP, banks are also divided into two main camps: C il 1) Real brick and mortar banks - those are real, solid retail banks. Such as Chase, JP Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche bank. Using these banks gives you the maximum possible safety score on your accounts fraud v E monitor, as the only way to open bank account using under these institutions is to physically visit them (or verifying your identity in online meeting), in most cases being an actual citizen of that country and / o having your background checked. Meaning marketplaces interpret those bank account numbers as a i . d e real person's. You can open multiple checking/savings account within the same banking service provider. There are k c certain limits on the number of accounts you might have, but having multiple banks with multiple providers will be enough for you at the beginning (in case you haven't reach your limits already). The pro- a r c cess of getting multiple bank accounts is either automated by initiating new openings from your clients portal or visiting bank physically to request more accounts to "expand" your business. 2) Online banks - those are banks primarily designed in a way to fit the needs of international sellers who can't open certain country accounts due to residence restrictions, not being physically in that country or some other reasons. Let’s say you live in Vietnam and want to open a US account in JP Morgan. There is no way for you to do that being in Vietnam, not having SSN of US (in most cases) and having a strong reason behind doing that (work related, etc). In cases like that you will opt to opening online bank which will give you US bank account information. In all cases, marketplaces can identify that certain banking details are coming from online banking service providers, and depending on your overall fraud/risk score act accordingly. 41 Using online banks are completely legal and normal for any person worldwide, but since most of the stealth account creators use online banks only, it presents a higher risk. Online banks are divided into two tiers, depending on their account holder verification difficulty and reputation. Tier 1 online banks Those are mainstream banks, used by people as a second alternative bank, for everyday spending, traveling ,etc. n io These are the options accepting mismatched name deposits, and giving you a bank account which t ra works with Etsy. • Revolut N26 - does not accept mismatched deposits in some cases • Wise - does not accept mismatched deposits in all cases • Monese • Monzo o p r o C il US-based options such as: • Chime • Cash-app i . d e / o v E And other similar banks. Search for mobile banking providers in the US to see the full list. k c Also the good thing about these Tier 1 online banks are that they usually issue 1 or multiple credit cards both virtual and physical that can be used for account verification. You can open these banks under a r c your name, pass the verification and get brand new bank account to use with your stealth account. The downside is that these Tier 1 banks do not issue multiple bank accounts under the same currency, usually its 1 bank account per currency, meaning you can't create multiple stealth accounts at scale. It can be a smart idea to diversify and use some of your best performing accounts with some of these solutions, but running multiple accounts (10-20 or more) with Tier 1 online banks is hardly possible or not convenient at least. Tier 1 online banks apply strict verification procedures, asking for selfies, live cam photo/video, biometric data reading and in most cases requires actual smartphone for verification. Meaning you can't simply create multiple of them with just a help of a photoshop. 42 Tier 2 online banks Those are banks mainly designed for sellers and offering solutions which will be a perfect way for you to build multiple stealth accounts. Tier 2 online banks have usually less strict verification procedures, but most importantly are able to offer multiple same currency bank accounts. You can verify your tier 2 online bank account with your real identity and proceed with creating dozens of bank accounts and enjoy the benefits of accepted mismatched deposits policy of those banks. n io Tier 2 online banks in almost all cases accept mismatching name deposits, meaning you can receive deposits from multiple stealth accounts under different names, all coming to your 1 online bank t ra account. o p r o These are the main Tier 2 online banks, giving you various numbers of multiple of bank accounts in most popular currencies GBP/EUR/USD Already tested and approved providers are: • Payoneer • Juni • Worldfirst • Pingpong v E / o i . d e C il Those providers might be totally enough for you to manage arround 100 different accounts. Once you have used all of these options you will already know what to look for while searching for new banking k c provider and will be able to setup up everything easily. Stick to these 4 ones first and they will have you covered. a r c Depending on your location and the currency of the bank accounts you need, you will find the most suitable scenario. What you need to understand about Tier 2 online bank accounts. The bank account numbers you are issued with are not exactly the same as a normal bank would do. They are virtual bank accounts, also called VBA's/VBA, that enables you to receive ACH deposits made by marketplaces. In most cases those accounts can't be used to simply receive standard Wire transfers from other banks, so do not be mistaken. They are used solely for receiving payments from marketplaces and in some cases businesses. 43 Those Tier 2 online banks partner with other banking providers, (usually those which are more shady) and receive bulk account numbers which they later distribute to marketplace sellers who sign up. These Barclay's banking details you see on Payoneer as example, do not represent a bank account actually sitting here in Barclays, but rather just a number which is managed by Payoneer. As there are only a few of banks providing account details for Tier 2 online banks, there is just a couple of main routing/branch codes used for most of them. For example Payoneer issues GBP currency account details from Barclays bank which uses the same n io sort code for all accounts. This sort code is already abused by various stealth account creators, scammers and of course some genuine sellers. Marketplaces already know that you are using Payoneer to t ra open/manage seller account, meaning there is a high chance you are "stealther". Why would a normal UK living resident use a payoneer to open his first seller account? What are the chances that this person o p r o is actually genuine? And what are the chances you are actually a person not from UK, opening multiple accounts? Math is really simple, and its more efficient for algorithms to suspend 100% of these accounts where 90% is being stealth and 10% real people. C il Same Barclays sort details can't be used on PayPal - you will get a message telling you something wrong v E with it (not actually disclosing the real reason behind), same goes with eBay - enter those UK banking details and you will receive an automatic error. Same with Etsy - they will let you open an account and / o later will just suspend it out of nowhere without any explanation. It's just how it works. i . d e Tier 2 online banks usually use Citi bank for GBP, EUR and USD bank accounts issuing. Good news are that not all virtual bank accounts are blacklisted, and you can use these accounts successfully coming k c from multiple providers. a r c 44 Understanding how credit/debit cards work for verification Getting new cards for opening your accounts can be equally challenging as finding solutions to opening multiple bank accounts. n io First lets breakdown what are the elements of credit cards that marketplaces look at to determine and assign risk/fraud scores to your stealth account. t ra These are the main types of cards: Physical cards and virtual cards, called - VCC/VCC's o p r o Physical cards can be the following types: 1) Regular Credit card - this is a type of card that is actually issued by a brick and mortar bank (JPMor- C il gan, Chase, and others worldwide), and can be possibly used to settle debt amounts owed by you even if there's no balance. That's the main card type used in the US, and also used by all countries worldwide v E just being less common. This is the highest security score card type that security algorithms detect, / o increasing your chances of successful stealth account operation. i . d e 2) Regular Debit card, Not prepaid - this is the regular card option which does not have a credit tied to it, meaning you can only spend the amount you actually have on card. Not prepaid meaning its tied to a real bank account, issued by a regular brick and mortar banks (JPMorgan, Chase, and others worldwide) a r c k c 3) Regular Debit card, Prepaid - this is a card type that’s mostly common with all online banks such as Revolut, N26, Chime, Venmo. Its debit since those online banks usually can't provide Credit cards unlike high street banks, and prepaid since you top-up a card balance using another financial instrument like your bank account, credit card, etc. 4) Gift card - those cards are mostly popular within US only. Those are the ones you can buy at retail stores such as walmart, target and others by paying by cash or card. Most popular brand being Vanilla Gift Card. These cards can be purchased by anyone and will have the fixed amount of funds on it, depending on the price you paid for them. These cards are not tied to any online bank and can only be topped up using cash or card at retail stores (in most cases). 45 Virtual cards can be the following types: 5) Virtual Credit card - card which can be used for buying online the same way as regular credit card, except it does not have any physical form and can't be used physically (ATM's, in store payments, etc). There is just a card number that you can see and use it for spending online. 6) Virtual Debit card, not prepaid - virtual card which is interpreted as being debit, usually issued by Tier 1 online banks for online shopping activities. n io 7) Virtual Debit card, prepaid - virtual card which is interpreted as being debit and prepaid, usually t ra issued by Tier 1 online banks as well, used for one-time shopping, trial account verification, etc. Example: Revolut's disposable virtual credit card. o p r o As you might have already guessed, marketplace's security algorithms track the type of card you use to settle your billing or open your stealth accounts. C il Every credit card contains BIN (bank identification number) which is the first 5-8 digits (5 digits is the most popular length). This number reveals practically everything about your card - what is the issuing v E bank, what type of card it is (credit, debit, prepaid, virtual), what is the location of the issuing bank. / o This is one of the most accurate online verification tools you can use to check your card's info: i . d e https://binlist.net Enter first 5-6 digits only and you will see the info about your card. Let's take a look at the breakdown below: a r c k c 46 5587 67 is a BIN number of JPMORGAN Chase. Its identified as Credit, coming from United states and by the JPMORGAN bank. There are some aspects also such as brand, scheme, etc. but those are being less relevant. Also Credit cards by default can't be prepaid, so in most cases this tool show the value "No" under the "Prepaid" or no value at all. t ra n io o p r o C il v E The example above is from a virtual card issued by Wise. Wise allows up to 3 active debit cards to be / o issued. This card is correctly identified as Debit, country - Belgium which is low risk EU country, and not identified as prepaid which (which is also a good thing). a r c i . d e k c 47 Example above is the card breakdown of one of the Vanilla prepaid gift cards. It is debit, prepaid, issued by a Bancorp which is not an actual bank but a banking service provider for other financial service providers. These type of cards have the least chances to pass marketplace required card format, and in cases they pass your account will be identified as higher risk from the get go. More examples: For example google AdWords will decline most online debit prepaid cards to pay for ads, Amazon will decline prepaid cards to use for your seller subscription fees, and Etsy will decline all prepaid cards such as vanilla, prepaid shopping cards, etc. when you are opening your seller account. n io Marketplaces see credit cards tied to real banks as the safest option, meaning its very likely that there is a real person behind the account and credit card number. Good news are that there are online card t ra providers which will cover that for you, by issuing a virtual credit card numbers used for account creation, which look like a card from a real bank. o p r o Physical credit cards issued by high street physical banks are the best for creating multiple accounts, but having tens of credit cards under your name can become costly, not convenient and possibly ques- C il tionable. Also depending on your country of residence you might not have access to getting such type of cards at all. v E As a rule of thumb you want your card to be: 1) Credit 2) Not prepaid 3) Issued by a real bank and 4) / o Being from the same country as your account info. If you are opening an US seller account and use i . d e Nigeria based debit card, issued by unknown bank, it will be suspended almost guaranteed and probably right after opening an account. k c There are some sources of virtual credit card providers: a r c https://www.aspkin.com/forums/account-services https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/misc.18/ - filter by keyword: VCC https://cardoshi.com/ While there quite a few service providers, what you need to do is ask for the BIN number of their cards. You need to look for the best possible option of VCC's, that are: Credit, not prepaid and issued by real banks. Getting random cards issued by non existent banks, high-risk countries (Africa for example), will most likely lead to suspensions. 48 CONCLUSION Now that you are aware of all the aspects it takes to successfully create new stealth accounts - it's time to put everything into practice. n io Apply the knowledge you got in this ebook and build your new eBay accounts empire. We wish you all the best in growing and maintaining your business! t ra o p r o v E / o a r c i . d e C il k c 49