myipcheck.netBanks, shops and sign-up forms often ask a risk service about your address before they let you through. The answer is a fraud score: one company’s opinion of the address, on that company’s own scale.
It rates the address, not you
The service looks at what it has seen from the address and the network around it: fraud reports, spam, attacks, whether it belongs to a data center, a VPN or a proxy. It turns that into one number so the site can write a rule like “ask for a code above 75”.
The person on the address right now may have nothing to do with that history. Mobile carriers put hundreds of phones behind one address, and home addresses get reassigned.
Six services, six scales
| Service | Scale | What its levels say |
|---|---|---|
| IPQualityScore | 0–100 | 75 and up is suspicious, block from 85 (reference) |
| MaxMind | 0.01–99 % | a chance of fraud in percent; example: review from 5, reject from 50 (MaxMind) |
| IP2Location | 0–99 | no official levels; their example: verify from 50, block from 80 (blog) |
| Scamalytics | 0–100 | low below 20, medium to 59, high to 89, very high above (Scamalytics) |
| ProxyCheck | 0–100 | four bands from allow to deny (docs) |
| IPGeolocation | 0–100 | low below 20, elevated from 45, high from 80 (docs) |
Why they disagree
Each one sees different traffic. Scamalytics learns from the sites that use it, MaxMind from payments, others from traps and attack logs. An address that scraped websites last month can be red at one service and clean at the next.
The numbers don’t mean the same thing either. A 75 is the line for “suspicious” at IPQS, already “elevated” at IPGeolocation, and at MaxMind it would mean a 75% chance of fraud, which almost never happens. Averaging them gives a number none of them said. That’s why we show each score on its own scale and compare the colours.
Why a home address can score high
- You share it. On mobile data many people leave through the same address, and one person’s abuse lands on everyone.
- Someone had it before you. Addresses get reassigned, the history stays.
- The neighbourhood. Some services spread risk over the whole network block.
- A device at home. Bandwidth-sharing apps, free VPNs and cheap TV boxes can turn your line into someone else’s proxy. The FBI warned about this in 2026.
- You are on a VPN. Data center addresses start higher at every service.
What you can do
Mostly wait: scores drop as old reports age. Check your own devices and remove apps you don’t recognise. Restarting the router may get you a new address. If a particular site blocks you, contact that site, because it chose the service and the threshold. IPQS has an unblock form.