I am kind of mad right now and my husband is BEYOND mad.  I reffered him  to the club and tonight after I left the site my husband said he wanted to sign in to his account and order a book ..also to look for some. He was told he had a duplicate account. But , he doesn't. I think he lost all his credits and he mailed all his books. ....well, I mailed some for him as I am home during the day.  ....I am just stunned they would not contact  my husand and try to clear this up not just kill his account. OR contact me being I referred him and used the club referral deal to do so..Has this changed??? Does the club no longer allow two accounts per address? He wrote them.. We are waiting for a reply ..I am just so mad and I have referred other family members ..I wonder if they were kicked out too

When you referred other family members, did they sign up while AT your house? Did you have neighbors referred, that might have done it AT your house? If they see duplicate ISP addresses connected to different users, they will question whether they are living in the same house since that's where they signed up at. If you had someone else sign up at your house or perhaps even a neighbor sign up, it may have thrown a flag, and the automated system shut down his account, not a person, and until a live person can check out what the system saw and verify the facts surrounding it, they can't manually turn it back on.

I hope that explains the possibilities. Believe me, they will make every effort to try to work this out with you and see what the problem is.

Or could it be too if a friend or family member who did not sign up on our aol account but DID check his PBS account on here not too long ago...could that have set a flag too? I am just blown away....

Hey Sherry if not enough people have told you....you are awesome and thank you always for being there to help when we all freak out  :-)

Sorry to hijack the post, but Sherry are you a new grandma by chance??  :)  Congratulations!!!!  What a beautiful little one!!

Does your stepson use your address for PBS? That could be it right there.

(not your email address but your home address?)

another thing is that with the two accounts you each can only manage your own - so no logging into his account, and him not into yours.

What if you are on a proxy along with numerous other people with Wildblue Satellite?  Several people have the same isp # if they have Wildblue because they go through a proxy.  Just curious.  Noone else uses my snail mail address or phone number but I'm sure it is possible to have the same isp #.  I would freak out if I lost my credits and it not be my fault.  Surely they can't go by the isp #. 

I've also got WildBlue. I really hope nothing happens to my account.

I would think their automatic shut down is a bit trigger happy if it shuts folks down for the same ISP but different physical home addresess (especially if neither is a PO box).

Most folks have dynamic IP addresses, so anyone on the same ISP could get that IP the next time they turn on their machine.

I hope there was some other reason.

I didn't mean your ISP, I meant your IP addresss, the number assigned to you by your ISP. Every house/business/location has an idividual IP address, and within each location, if there is more than one computer, each computer gets assign an additional network address. And, yes, the dynamic IPs are reassigned often, but they are still similar, and can be similar to your neighbor if you are on the same trunk line from the same ISP. From your numbers, they can tell if you are in the same house or not as another computer.

Someone recently had a problem signing up someone in their dorm building because their addresses and IPs were so close.

ETA: Thank you, Sandy, glad I can help :)

Patricia, what gave you your first clue!?!?!?? hahaha Isn't she a doll? Just over a week now :)

I had the same ip address as another wildblue customer that lived 250 miles away from me.  The exact numbers.  I didn't understand it at all.  I still don't.   But it happens, it did to me.  I am not computer literate so from what I could study and read about it was a proxy but might have been a "dynamic ip address".  I'm just not sure. 

If you and DH both have accounts, you can't access his and he can't access yours. It's gotta stay separate. I had that problem once when DH asked me to send in a question to R&R and they saw I was in his account. That's a no-no. DH hates to type anything since he doesn't spell well at all. That was a while ago. He doesn't have an account anymore though. It's not his thing.

I'd say if all is legit, they will reinstate his account where it left off, credits and all. No reason to get upset until R&R responds. It would have been nice for them to contact you prior to shutting down the account, but its possible that the process is automated and until you contact them, no person has looked at the situation. If there was a violation of the 2 accounts per household due to some of the other people, then they will tell you that too and make it more clear.

Melanie, you are right, the process is automated when a flag is thrown implicating this type of problem in the accounts, and until a PERSON can address it, there isn't much you can do. I'm not sure if they do it by email or if they actually call, but I know I've seen others say they were "contacted" by PBS when something like this happened, and once the details were clear, all was well with the account.

C. F., there's no way anyone at PBS can tell who is at the keyboard accessing which account. I can log into my husband's account and he can log into mine. Sometimes I'm on his computer and sometimes I'm on mine, same with him, sometimes he uses one and other times the other computer. They know both computers are in the same house, but they have no way of knowing who is behind the keyboard. Unless of course, you tell them, they might have a problem with that, but I don't see why they would care who's typing at the keyboard.

WOW lol I am so lost it is not funny. I didn't know about IP addresses only ISP....I know when my husband signed up we had a different computer but the same AOLl names..He signs in on his and I sign in on mine WE NEVER went into the other persons account.......BUT and I didn't know this was PBS illegal somewhere along the time the buddy list thing happened I may have signed in for him at MY aol addy and let him check to make sure he didn't have a ton of buddies..He never really uses his account and didn't want to be buddied.... Other family members who have totaly different isp ..totally different computers, home addys  and phone numbers...so I think that would include IP  but I am lost on that....i DID I think ALSO let others check their accounts here but only once. I am not even sure of that....I didn't check them but they did ..I have even marked a friends book mailed (she gave me her password) when she lost her net service for a while, she had mailed the book but could not mark it mailed ...So I didn't mean too but I guess I didn't understand what the manage your own account meant..I though post and pick your own books. Sorry on my misunderstanding of that....

All is FIXED AND COOL ...PBS CREDITED HIM BACK  WAS VERY NICE ABOUT IT AND OPENED HIS ACCOUNT ...They explained he was flagged  due to the names and fact we (hubby and I use a PO BOX)  though I think when the looked (humans not the puter) they saw different addresses and all..... area codes. and so on...

My husband  said he is thinking of giving all his credits to a service person being he was in Nam himself and knows what it is like.  Lol we are OLDER than you folks think..

think we were just thrown by it because he has been a member for over 6 months.

SORRY if I started a panic ...and again thank you

Wow, now I know not to log on from school or work (my primary Internet access). I've seen a few other students on PBS on "public access kiosks" and in the computer lab, and that's usually where I go to print out shipping labels.

If I have to wait 3-4 days to confirm a request because I have to do it from home, oh well.

Glad things are all worked out for you Sandy!

Yeah, checking in with each other's AOL accounts (which I hadn't thought of!)  added with others logging in at your house, and marking your friend's book rec'd, and the PO addy, all could have been just enough flags for the system to lock you up until a human could look into it.

We think it sounds crazy, but I'm glad they have the flag system, better than half-dozen people signing up together, grabbing their 2 books and running. I know it happens, but it can cut down on some of it.

Glad all is well, Sandy!

Thank you all and esp Sherry ya know I HONESTLY didn't know you could not just check your  account  on someone else's addy...or sign on for a friend to mark her book mailed.. ..I am so glad the humans looked at this whole thing.  So to be clear what do I do ..say my friend (she did not sign up ON my puter) but say she loses her phone or ISP or whatever for a week....do I  write R & R for her or ??  How do  I help someone and stay within the rules?

So if you go visit someone for a weekend, they have a couple PBS accounts and you sign in to check yours-they would suspend someone?

I do not know Mary I am thinking you are not suppose to do that but I am not sure..we were mostly flagged due to names and the po box  as far as I understand it ..but when they looked I THINK they saw the snail addys and phones and all were different....but I dunno I am kinda scared and didn't mean to break any rules  when I signed on for a friend and all.so ????

I'm thinking the biggest thing was that you had other flags as well. I know my daughter-in-law has checked her account here, but when the PO addy, the same email addy, and other accounts logging in too, it was probably just too many flags. The fact that you logged out of your and he logged into his, and you were still on the same AOL account, might have caused an extra special flag? I don't know.

Yeah the names and po box and well yes I am pretty sure that one night (buddy list panic night) we stayed on my account ...can't swear to it but I think...Anyhow..it IS fixed and well let us hope I do not have a nother bunch of question or  find the sky falling for another 3 years :-)  Again everyone  thank you......♥    <--- stolen from someone  lol