Why did my signup fail eligibility checks?

Valid Email Checker runs two layers of checks on every signup. The first is the disposable-email check, which blocks throwaway providers outright. The second is an abuse score that looks at signals beyond just the email address. If you saw a generic "signup failed" or "signup not allowed" error and your address was not a disposable domain, this second layer is almost always the reason.

What the abuse score looks at

The score is the sum of several signals, each adding points. Past a threshold the signup is blocked outright, and slightly below it the account is put on hold pending review. Signals that add points include:

• IP on our blocked list — if your IP appears on our internal api_blocked_ips table (which we populate from prior abuse incidents), the signup is auto-blocked.
• Tor exit node or open proxy — most legitimate signups are not behind Tor. Tor exits add a significant chunk to the score.
• Datacenter or VPN IP — Vultr, DigitalOcean, AWS, and other datacenter ranges, plus commercial VPN exits, add points because almost no real users sign up from a server.
• Device fingerprint reuse — if your browser fingerprint matches a device that recently created multiple accounts, the score climbs fast.
• Gmail dot/plus-alias abuse — john.smith@gmail.com and johnsmith+1@gmail.com are the same Gmail mailbox. Patterns of repeated dotted or plus-aliased signups from the same root mailbox add points.
• Multiple signups from one IP in a short window — even legitimately, but it is a strong abuse signal in the aggregate.

How the decision lands

Score below 45: clear. Signup proceeds normally. Score 45 to 74: hold. The account is created but welcome credits are withheld pending manual review. Score 75 or higher: block. The account is not created at all.

If your signup was blocked but you are a legitimate user, the most common fix is to retry without a VPN, from a residential IP, on a device that has not been used for many recent signups. If the block persists, contact support with the email address you tried and we can review the specific signals that triggered it.