Seasoned accounts are a positive heuristic in many domains, not just LinkedIn. For example, I some times use web.archive.org to check a company's domain to see how far back they've been on the web. Even here on HN, young accounts (green text) are more likely to be griefing, trolling, or spreading misinformation at a higher rate than someone who has been here for years.
> Seasoned accounts are a positive heuristic in many domains, not just LinkedIn.
Yep. This is how the 3 major credit bureaus is the United States to verify your identity. Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDES to fake.
I've found for the most part account age/usage is not considered at all in major online service providers.
I've straight up been told by Google, Ebay and Amazon that they do not care about account age/legitimacy/seasoning/usage at all and it is not even considered in various cases I've had with these companies.
They simply don't care about customers at all. They are only looking at various legal repercussions balanced against what makes them the most money and that is their real metric.
Ebay: Had a <30day old account make a dispute against me that I did not deliver a product that was over $200 when my account was in good standing for many years with zero disputes. Ebay told me to f-off, ebay rep said my account standing was not a consideration for judgement in the case.
Google: Corporate account in good standing for 8+ years, mid five figure monthly spending. One day locked the account for 32 days with no explanation or contact. At day 30 or so a CS rep in India told me they don't consider spending or account age in their mystery account lockout process.
Same in the UK (which is currenty a contentious issue again with Digital ID), because there is no concept of having a cryptographic signature tied to your identity in the way it is done in other EU countries.
Instead you need:
- five years of address history
- a recent utility bill or a council tax bill that has your full address
- maybe a bank statement
- passport or driving license
It just so happens that Experian, etc. have all of that, and even background checking agencies will depend on it.
> Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDEST to fake.
Only if you don’t plan ahead. I can’t remember which book/movie/show it was from, but there was a character who spent decades building identities by registering for credit cards, signing up for services, signing leases, posting to social media, etc so that they could sell them in the future. Seems like it would be trivial to automate this for digital only things.
> Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDES to fake.
When I was 18 with little to no credit trying to do things. Financial institutions would often hit me with security questions like this.
But, I was incredibly confused because many of the questions had no valid answer. Somehow these institutions got the idea that I was my stepmother or something and started asking me about address and vehicles she owned before I ever knew her.
So, just hire one of those "account aging" services?
Because if you expect people to go there keeping everything up to date, posting new stuff, tracking interactions for 3 years and only after that they can hope to get any gain from the account... That's not reasonable.
Be a real, trustable person in real life. Let your real colleagues, acquaintances and friends contact you.
Create an account and let it age.
Seasoned accounts are a positive heuristic in many domains, not just LinkedIn. For example, I some times use web.archive.org to check a company's domain to see how far back they've been on the web. Even here on HN, young accounts (green text) are more likely to be griefing, trolling, or spreading misinformation at a higher rate than someone who has been here for years.
> Seasoned accounts are a positive heuristic in many domains, not just LinkedIn.
Yep. This is how the 3 major credit bureaus is the United States to verify your identity. Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDES to fake.
>Seasoned accounts are a positive heuristic
I've found for the most part account age/usage is not considered at all in major online service providers.
I've straight up been told by Google, Ebay and Amazon that they do not care about account age/legitimacy/seasoning/usage at all and it is not even considered in various cases I've had with these companies.
They simply don't care about customers at all. They are only looking at various legal repercussions balanced against what makes them the most money and that is their real metric.
Ebay: Had a <30day old account make a dispute against me that I did not deliver a product that was over $200 when my account was in good standing for many years with zero disputes. Ebay told me to f-off, ebay rep said my account standing was not a consideration for judgement in the case.
Google: Corporate account in good standing for 8+ years, mid five figure monthly spending. One day locked the account for 32 days with no explanation or contact. At day 30 or so a CS rep in India told me they don't consider spending or account age in their mystery account lockout process.
Amazon: Do I even need to...
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But account takeover gives all these bona fides.
Same in the UK (which is currenty a contentious issue again with Digital ID), because there is no concept of having a cryptographic signature tied to your identity in the way it is done in other EU countries.
Instead you need: - five years of address history - a recent utility bill or a council tax bill that has your full address - maybe a bank statement - passport or driving license
It just so happens that Experian, etc. have all of that, and even background checking agencies will depend on it.
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> Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDEST to fake.
Only if you don’t plan ahead. I can’t remember which book/movie/show it was from, but there was a character who spent decades building identities by registering for credit cards, signing up for services, signing leases, posting to social media, etc so that they could sell them in the future. Seems like it would be trivial to automate this for digital only things.
3 replies →
> Your residence history and your presences on the distributed Internet is the HARDES to fake.
When I was 18 with little to no credit trying to do things. Financial institutions would often hit me with security questions like this.
But, I was incredibly confused because many of the questions had no valid answer. Somehow these institutions got the idea that I was my stepmother or something and started asking me about address and vehicles she owned before I ever knew her.
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That's why you don't fake it. You steal it.
sucks to be young I guess.
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That's funny.
This is why aged yet rarely used accounts are so valuable for hackers to gain control.
All of the Year 1 Facebook accounts with more than a decade of activity that have been inexplicably banned and deleted in 2025 salute you.
My 10+ year old only Reddit account where everything was retroactively removed but "this was in error, appeal granted" also salutes.
I worry about Kafkaesque black-mirror trust/reputation issues in the coming decades.
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Somehow though they can’t ban all the 1 month old accounts running real estate scams from marketplace.
> Create an account and let it age.
So, just hire one of those "account aging" services?
Because if you expect people to go there keeping everything up to date, posting new stuff, tracking interactions for 3 years and only after that they can hope to get any gain from the account... That's not reasonable.
> Because if you expect people to go there keeping everything up to date, posting new stuff, tracking interactions for 3 years
What?
You only need to create an account once.
Update it when you're searching for a new job.
You don't need to log in or post regularly. Few people do that.
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Account can be stolen