SMS Verify - Screen recipients using Verify Plus (Legacy)

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WARNING

This version is deprecated. To upgrade to the newest version of this product, reach out to our Customer Support Team. This product is available for full-service accounts only.

See this Changelog post for more information.

This page walks you step-by-step through how to screen out potentially fraud-related SMS Verify recipients using a Verify Plus risk score before sending them a verification SMS. This feature is powered by a separate product, Telesign Intelligence.

You can do this all directly through the Verify API, without using Intelligence. This is more efficient than making an additional call to Intelligence.

Keep the reference page POST /v1/verify/sms open in another window while you work through these steps.

Step 1: Enable Verify Plus

1. Ask our Customer Support Team to enable Verify Plus for your SMS Verify account.
2. Decide on a risk score threshold in advance, in consultation with Telesign. For more explanation of how to interpret Intelligence results, see Understanding your score and related details and the Intelligence 1.0 scale in the Intelligence documentation.

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NOTE:

Once this feature is enabled for your account, you do not need to include anything additional in your SMS Verify request to ensure that it is evaluated by Verify Plus.

Step 2: Send the SMS

Once our Customer Support Team notifies you that this feature is enabled, follow these steps.

1. Send a POST /verify/sms request to the Verify API.
2. The phone number of the recipient included in the phone_number parameter is passed on to Intelligence for evaluation.

SMS Verify request

POST /v1/verify/sms HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic 12345678-9ABC-DEF0-1234-56789ABCDEF0:Uak4fcLTTH/Tv8c/Q6QMwl5t4ck=
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8
Host: rest-ww.telesign.com
phone_number=1234567890
&language=en-US
&template=Your code is $$CODE$$

3. Verify Plus calculates a risk score for that number. If the score exceeds your threshold, the message is not sent. If the score is equal to or below your threshold, the message is sent.
4. Either way, SMS Verify response body includes additional packages (phone_type, risk, numbering) with information related to the number and its fraud risk, including the risk score.
5. If the verification message is not sent due to a high risk score, the property status.code in the response has a value of 233, and you are not charged for the SMS transaction. (You are charged for Intelligence).

SMS Verify response: Not blocked

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "reference_id": "ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789",
  "sub_resource": "sms",
  "errors": [],
  "status": {
    "updated_on": "2015-04-17T22:26:43.784963Z",
    "code": 290,
    "description": "Message in progress"
  },
  "verify": {
    "code_state": "UNKNOWN",
    "code_entered": ""
  },
  "phone_type": {
    "code": "2",
    "description": "MOBILE"
  },
  "risk": {
    "recommendation": "allow",
    "score": 82,
    "level": "low"
  },
  "numbering": {
    "phone_number": "1234567890",
    "min_length": 10,
    "max_length": 10,
    "country_code": "1"
  }
}

SMS Verify response: Blocked

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "reference_id": "ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF0123456789",
  "sub_resource": "sms",
  "errors": [],
  "status": {
    "updated_on": "2015-04-17T22:26:43.784963Z",
    "code": 233,
    "description": "Message blocked due to high risk score."
  },
  "verify": {
    "code_state": "UNKNOWN",
    "code_entered": ""
  },
  "phone_type": {
    "code": "2",
    "description": "MOBILE"
  },
  "risk": {
    "recommendation": "block",
    "score": 820,
    "level": "high"
  },
  "numbering": {
    "phone_number": "5552345678",
    "min_length": 10,
    "max_length": 10,
    "country_code": "1"
  }
}

Intelligence package schemas

numbering

phone_type

risk