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Ask HN: Why are so many services rejecting Google Voice numbers for signups?
I’ve noticed that more and more companies refuse to accept Google Voice numbers when creating accounts.
My company's main line is a Google Voice that forwards to my cell; I never give out my cell. But this is preventing me from using some services and products (Vercel, DocuSign, etc.)
I’m curious about the reasons behind this. Is it primarily technical (spam prevention, deliverability issues), business-driven (carriers pushing back on VoIP), or just an easy way to block disposable accounts? Is something more dystopian going on, like some kind of behind-the-scenes lookup of my "true" info if I provide my cell?
Also, if anyone has insight into how companies technically detect and filter VoIP numbers at scale, I’d love to understand that side too. E.g. what lookup info via Twilio causes a number to get rejected? I assume it is the 'type' from Twilio Line Type Intelligence (or equivalent)?
https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/line-type-intelligence
- firefax 1y agoWhat'll really grind your gears is if you have a cheap MVNO like Mintsim and that too is blocked as a "prepaid" and have no landline or office phone.
- LUmBULtERA 1y agoWow, I have Mint and have not encountered this yet. What services have you seen block it?
- firefax 1y agoI was applying for a job and they refused to let me enter the # as how to call me, then the mintsim acted up so I ended up using a relative's landline, which is not even a landline anymore because the copper got ripped out. I don't recall which job used the software, but it was some type of HR software that ingested CVs and dispenses pain and/or nothing. (Dark joke). Anyways, sorry in all seriousness but all I can say is it was HR software for a job application and that surprised me since I basically got taught it's pretty normal to list a voip # especially if you can get a cool one with some sick digits :-)
- toomuchtodo 1y agoFraud potential.
- electric_muse 1y agoof course - but aren't there valid voip users out there? or should we just consider all voip users as not worth serving?
- toomuchtodo 1y agoI run security at a fintech, we reject voip phone numbers due to proven fraud activity. The org has made the business decision based on historical fraud data, what others do is a risk management decision. Lots of customers out there, not a lot who will leave if you reject voip numbers, in my experience. The goal is not serving as many customers as possible, it’s about operating at the intersection of risk appetite and profitability. We can’t have nice things because of humans in the aggregate. My apologies. It’s certainly not personal.
- electric_muse 1y agoI have a side project that uses Twilio. Probably going to have to face this dragon at some point and go down the same risk assessment. What values for Twilio line type intel do you block? (or equivalent values if you don't use Twilio) For example, is it just `nonFixedVoip` that should get the boot? Or are `fixedVoip` also spammy?
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://risk.lexisnexis.com/products/phone-intelligence https://risk.lexisnexis.com/products/phone-intelligence https://ekata.com/solutions/phone-intelligence-api/ https://ekata.com/solutions/phone-intelligence-api/
- electric_muse 1y agoThanks! I’ll look into these. Thought it was simpler lookup of metadata, but these seem like robust offerings that make sense for even more protection.
- matttproud 1y agoThose of us who are U.S. citizens who live outside of the U.S. suffer a LOT because growing disallowances like these.
- brekkea 1y ago[dead]
- Citizen8396 1y agoSometimes you can get around this by porting a real number into Google Voice. Other companies will use APIs that will correctly identify it as a VoIP number however.