The links between the accounts were never made. You will get the message that "such and such" created a character using your referral link regardless of any IP/email/paypal conflicts if the link is used correctly. Note, they are case sensitive.
I just did a test with my own referral link and got the confirmation message. Try making accounts again being careful to copy/paste the exact link and see if you get a confirmation of creation on the main account. The browser I used for testing was Chrome.
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Computing the probability that at least one of the following events will occur:
P(a or b ... or z) = 1 - P(!a and !b ... and !z)
Probability
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