Websites show I live in one state when I live in another???

Hey,

I have something strange that is going on ever since I moved to my current residence back in October of last year (2016.) I'm hoping someone here can help me out and figure out what is going on because my ISP is of NO HELP and they try to blame the problem on me and I'm really puzzled as to what is going on.

So any website that I access that is location based (where the site shows what state I'm from to other users) for example chat sites, etc or when I visit a stores website and I go to view closest stores to my location...it always shows that I currently reside in the state of MD when in fact I DO NOT live in MD, I live in VA and am at home on my laptop, connected wirelessly via my router (LinkSys WRT1200AC) and I have my own cable modem (Arris Surfboard 6121) and my ISP is Comcast.

I have called Comcast and spoken to tech support to question this issue and they insist the issue is on my side and not theirs. How is it on my side? I don't provide internet access to myself, they do! They insist that there is a setting in my router that I don't have correct or that there is a setting in my router that I can set to select my location, etc...no there is not there is only my time zone which I obviously have set correctly. As usual they are of no help and just pass blame onto the customer.

When I moved I only moved a block way from where I previously lived, same ISP.

Does anyone have any idea on what is causing this and how to fix it? A lot of times I connect to chat services with work when I'm at home, they think I'm home (which I am) but it shows them on their end that I'm located in MD when I'm sitting in my living room in my apartment in Arlington, VA and I've been accused of lying about not being home when in fact I am at home...I even had to go live on Facetime once to prove to my employer that I was not bs'n them!

I hope someone can tell me why this is happening and how it can be fixed. It's starting to cause me a lot of problems and it's very frustrating.

Thanks!

 

You wanna hear something really confusing? I'm a moderator and I can see your IPs and while it says you have registered using different IP than the one you used to make this post both IPs lead me to Arlington, VA...

If you try to get a resolved hostname on your IP you'll see it ends with va.comcast.net as well.

 

The issue is that most sites detect location by ip address and ip addresses are not allocated by location nor intended to be used to determine location. Instead multiple companies offer location services where they look up who owns ip addresses and where they are typically used. The information these companies use is not always up to date as IP addresses are sold and turned over to other companies. For example some sites used to think my IP was from Canada. You can try to reach some of the location service companies and request that they update the IP you are on to your current location.
This site will show what several location services companies show for your ip. You can try reaching out to those companies for assistance and can try providing this information to your ISP and tell them that they need to update this information.

https://www.iplocation.net/

 

I probably was at old place when I registered, I don't remember when I registered I would have to check. Yes I know IP's renew and all of that, I just don't get why most sites show me in another state.

 

LOL when I click on that link it says I'm in MD lmao...I'm not even going to worry about it, but I've never had this issue before (not that I know of anyways.)

 

It's might be nothing but it might be a security concern, so it's wort looking into.
Due to privacy issues I have sent some information (regarding how we on NBR see his location) to the OP via PM, so as not to make it public.

If/when I get a response either confirming or denying that it is the same IP he can see from his side, we will bring the conversation public again.

 

Replied to the PM.

 

So basically there seems to be no issue - OP sees the same IP we here at nbr do and once you resolve the hostname it even points to VA (the hostname ends with va.comcast.net).

Some websites are apparently more precise other are less at locating users but seems there is no foul play here - no proxy nor man in the middle attack.

 

I've had similar behavior when my IP changed. My guess is that your current IP was previously assigned to someone at that location and now it's no longer the case. I've seen websites think that I was ~600 km from my actual location once.

 

Well, I just checked that iplocation website and out of 5 services only one got it right. I got two other major cities as results too.

For example google mapped streets for streetview and at the same time scanned wifi networks. Google Maps knows my location when I'm using WiFi on my laptop but if I switch to ethernet, it shows my location as city center.

Can you connect to internet with another connection, for example tethering to your phone? Preferably something you haven't used before. Public library, cafe?

 

So do you guys agree that this is not a problem on my end, it's from the ISP end?

When I connect to Comcast's hotspots it does the same thing, shows I'm in MD lol...

Anyway to refresh or renew my IP? I've never done that before and have no idea how to do it.

 

There is not problem. As I have told you your IP resolves to the right state.
You cannot hold your ISP responsible for the fact that some third party websites can't locate you properly.