IPQS False Positives: How a New Domain Got a 95 Risk Score

A little over two months ago, I registered a new domain for personal use. The idea was simple. I wanted a permanent, professional email address based on my last name, something like first@lastname.me . I registered the domain for ten years because I wasn’t building a disposable project, launching a marketing funnel, or testing some short-lived startup idea. I wanted an email identity I could keep for the long haul. I configured the domain properly. It has valid DNS. SPF is enabled. DMARC is enabled. It isn’t parked for sale. It isn’t sending spam. It isn’t distributing malware. It isn’t impersonating a bank, crypto exchange, social network, government agency, or anyone else. Then I checked it with IPQualityScore, also known as IPQS. The result was absurd: Phishing: true Suspicious: true Risk score: 95 Spamming: false Malware: false SPF enabled: true DMARC enabled: true DNS valid: true Parked domain: false Hosted content: false Category: N/A Domain rank: 0 Risky TLD: true In other words, IPQS acknowledged that the domain had valid DNS and email authentication, found no spam, found no malware, found no hosted content, assigned it no content category, and still labeled it as phishing with a risk score of 95 out of 100. I submitted a correction request about a month ago. I received no explanation. No evidence. No request for verification. No ticket update. No human response. As of August 29, 2026, the status is still unchanged. That isn’t a harmless technical oddity. IPQualityScore sells reputation and fraud-risk data that businesses can use to block users, reject signups, review transactions, investigate security alerts, and decide whether a domain, email address, IP address, phone number, or device should be trusted. If you’re going to sell suspicion as a service, you need to be accountable when your suspicion is wrong. IPQS, in my case, has been neither accurate nor accountable. A score of 95 is not a gentle warning IPQualityScore’s documentation describes its URL ri