I made that account to separate work from life. My old one had too many coworkers and relatives, and every post required ten minutes of second-guessing. A clean second account sounded nice.
I bought a US number from a code-receiving service for two dollars. The code arrived, I typed it, the page said the account was created. I was pleased with myself.
That lasted about ten seconds
The next screen asked me to confirm my identity with a selfie. I uploaded a decent photo, good light, face clear. It thought for a moment and told me the review failed.
I assumed the photo was bad. Tried another. Failed. Took a third one right there with the front camera. Failed. Three rejections in under half an hour.
I kept staring at the photo. The problem was elsewhere
Later I walked back through what I had done and found a pile of mismatches.
The number was American. The IP was a datacenter in a different country. The browser language was Chinese. The timezone was my local one. The device had never appeared in that region before.
Each item alone is fine. Together, it is a person with a US number, living somewhere else, running a Chinese system, claiming to be local. Platforms are not stupid. They do that math.
The photo was never the real question. The real question was whether the details agreed with each other.
What did not help
I asked the code service for support. They said they only guarantee the code, nothing after that. Fair, but annoying at the time.
New email, same wall. Cleared cache, same. A more expensive node got me past the selfie, and then it asked for an ID, which I did not have.
In the end I signed up with my real number, my real network, no proxy, no purchased code, and my actual face. Approved first try.
What I prepare now
If I ever do this again, I align these first:
- IP country matches the phone number country.
- Browser language and timezone match that country.
- The device is clean, not logged into a dozen other accounts.
- After signup, do not add friends, post links, or change the avatar. Let it sit for two days.
I check the IP with this lookup, mostly the location and the network owner. Avoid anything that belongs to a cloud provider. New accounts are most fragile there.
Honest ending
I barely used that account anyway. Warming one up takes time I did not have. Looking back, I saved nothing by buying a code and lost three days and one account. Bad trade.
If you just want to read content, you do not need an account. If you really need one, go slow and make the environment consistent. That beats every trick I tried.