How Do We Verify Phone Numbers? There’s an API for That! | TeleSign

Welcome to the TeleSign API series. Over the next few articles we’ll be learning about all the ways TeleSign’s APIs can help your business combat fraud and engage customers. Let’s start with preventing fake accounts…

Fake accounts are a major nuisance to businesses because whether they are used for spam and phishing or malware and theft, they can compromise the trust between a business and its user. Thus, all users should be verified in some way. How should we do that? I’m glad you asked.

In 2018 everyone has a phone. OK, that’s not necessarily true. My two-year-old niece is off the grid and my roommate left his in a cab over the weekend. However, most users who would conceivably interact with your business have a cell phone number. If you’re trying to reduce fraud for your company and verify the identity of your users, wouldn’t it make sense to take advantage of this?

That’s why TeleSign offers a simple SMS API that can save your company a lot of headaches down the road.

How does it work?

  1. At registration, a new user is prompted for their mobile phone number
  2. They are sent a one-time code via SMS
  3. The user inputs the proper code into your platform, and they’re in!

This is effective because, let’s face it, most fraudsters are not going to give up their phone number so they can be traced to their nonsense. And bots used to mass create accounts? Well, they can’t exactly retrieve an SMS from a phone number they registered and successfully enter it back into your website or application. At least not yet.

So, it’s just that easy. Not only have you verified your user but you have established a link of communications for the future. Now, that’s a valuable asset!  Need to notify them of account changes, special offers, upcoming events? Our SMS API can be used for that!

Now, some may be asking how this verification process would work if the fraudster was using an anonymous VOIP number and to you I say, there’s an API for that! Let’s discuss it in our next article.


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