What exactly can an IP address reveal about you? Is it possible that an IP address can be hacked or stolen?

The IP is just a computer address, however if someone were to look up the IP address, they could find the city in which the person lives, & the area of that city.

It depends on what site you search the IP address. If one knows the ISP, there isn't any point in calling them to find out if they'd provide anyone with the name, address, etc. of the person subscribing. That's confidential information. If the IP address has been traced to unlawful activity, then law enforcement can serve the ISP with a court order to divulge the information attached to that IP number.

If someone commits a serious online crime, the feds can use their IP to find out where they live.  

IP Addresses are like phone numbers for PCs.

they cannot hurt you or steal your ID from them.

IP addresses are public and assigned by your ISP, not Best Buy.

The BB employee that verified that it was your IP address is flapping his gluteus maximus.  The BB employee won't know your IP address.  You need to talk with your bank and a high up or fraud person in BB about the situation.  You will have to prove you are the victim at points.

You have TWO IP's.   A Public one and a Private one.

Your Public IP Address is assigned to your Modem/Router by your Internet Service Provider. IF your Public IP Address is Traced all they will find is the location of your Internet Service Provider (not your address).

Your Private IP Address is assigned to your Computer by your Router.  It looks like this: 192.168.xxx.xxx   or 10.10.xxx.xxx.

This method allows you to have has many devices as you want with their own IP address but your ISP only needs to assign ONE IP address to you.

Your IP address serves as the way that traffic on the Internet (and your local home network) is able to find your computer.  The IP address with normally have four section to it, separated by commas.  The number in each section can range from 0 to 255.  So a IP address would look like 192.168.10.215.

Think of it as been similar to a phone number.  The first three digits of a phone number are the area code.  If you know the area code, you can tell what part of the country the phone is located in.  Such as 828 in an area code in North Carolina, while 810 is an area code in Michigan.  the next three numbers will take you to an exchange (giving an area in a city) and the final four take you to your phone.

Like area codes, IP address are assigned to different regions of the world.  And ten to different Internet Service Providers within those regions.  From your IP address, a person could determine what country you are in, what regions of the country and who provides your Internet service.  They can NOT find the address or anything like that of your computer.  the closest they can get is that you are someone in southern Florida who uses Spectrum as their Internet provider.

Normally your computer will have two ip addresses.  One will be an internal address that only exist on our home network.  It is visible to the public.  And if they had it, it would be worthless to the.  ICANN (the group that controls the assigning of IP addresses) as set aside the ranges of 192.168.xxx.xxx and 10.10.xxx.xxx for local home networks.  You will have an address in one of those two ranges.  But so will everyone else in your town, state and country who has a local home network.  So that address is worthless to them.

You also have a public IP address.  But that is NOT actually the address of your computer.  It is the IP address of the modem that your ISP provides for you to use for Internet access.  Every device in your home has the same public IP address.  When you talk to the Internet, everything goes over our local network to your router using your local IP address.  The router then uses its public address to send the information out to Internet.  But it keeps track of which device on the local network sent out the information.  When the router gets a reply, it then uses your local IP to send the information to your device.

If someone has used your IP address to sign up for an account, contact your ISP.  They will be able to change your IP address.  You can not do it.  They have to do it for you.  that will prevent them from using your account and your IP together as a pair to open new accounts.

No company verifies by IP for this.   That was probably a standard excuse.  But your email, that makes sense  to create your account since it verifies using email (often).

  I (if possible) turn on 2 factor authentication on your email as soon as possible.  This requires a password+phone (or digital security device) to access your email.

How they got your credit card, that is the question.   I'd request a new card ASAP, also if your company uses virtual card numbers, better.

Best Buy probably got hacked. many companies get hacked and don't tell. remember when Experian got hacked and didn't tell until months later? now they think giving people 13 credit points is supposed to fix it. just buy Lifelock/Norton so you won't have to worry. I couldn't get my computer until I called them and gave them the okay to confirm the order. LOL!