VPN, Freenas and Transmission

Hello everyone,

I use Freenas along with Transmission to automate downloading media.

Transmission downloads torrents through a VPN (ipVanish) (which in my understanding should give me some privacy)
I have seen that many of the torrents I download and keep for seeding show 0 people downloading.
I think this will negatively affect my ratio and hence jeopardize my membership on some very good trackers.

Is this happening because I use a VPN?
Is there a solution that lets me use a VPN and still maintain a good ratio?
I don't want to stop using a VPN.

Does anyone here share a setup similar to mine? (Transmission -> VPN -> trackers)
Can you guys provide some guidance on what the best approach is?

Thanks