Telephone verification calls the consumer back at the number they provided, to confirm the line is real and that the person placing the order is actually the one holding the phone.
How it works
- The merchant requests verification
- An automated call goes out to the consumer
- The consumer enters the PIN they received into the website
- The merchant confirms the PIN matches and the consumer is verified
The call happens in real time while the consumer is still mid-checkout, delivering a randomly generated one-time PIN they immediately re-enter on the site.
What to evaluate
- Which countries are actually supported
- How unanswered calls get handled
- Whether verification happens inline or redirects the customer off-site
- Whether to also layer in telephone number identification (TNI)
- Whether combining name, address, and phone authentication makes sense
Drawbacks
Numbers need to be standardized before this works reliably, it adds an extra interaction the customer has to complete, international costs can climb fast, and it still needs complementary fraud checks around it — it isn't a standalone solution.
Sample vendors: TeleSign, TNSVerify — priced per-transaction, with cost varying significantly by geography.