Telephone Verification

A practical means of verification ...

Telephone verification is the process of calling back a consumer at the phone number they have provided, in order to verify the phone is working and the person in possession of the phone is the one placing the order.

How Good Is It?

Typically phone verification is used in manual reviews to do one more verification of a consumer’s address and phone information when AVS is not a full match. But some merchants are using automated telephone verification services to ensure they have a valid phone number for each customer. The process is simple, and while requiring a little more user interaction, it fits easily into the online real time process.

NOTE: This has been a popular technique for businesses that are involved with paying out money.

“Gotchas” with phone verification include:

• Don't forget to do simple phone standardization and checking to prevent wasted verification attempts.
• If you don't do authentication of a phone number before you verify it, than your verification loses a lot of strength. There are two levels of authentication, phone type and phone to name/address.
• This can get expensive if you are doing international business.
• This process does require a change to the user experience.
• Don't forget to perform other redundant checks to catch unwanted behavior.

You can read more at our Fraud Practice Library: http://www.fraudpractice.com/gl-phoneverify.html