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Introduction

Experian Phone Validation is a REST API that you can use to validate phone numbers in both real-time, or bulk, and obtain additional information about each phone number. For example, you can determine the validity and also whether the numbers are landline or cell phone numbers, or if the number is known to be disposable.

You can use the API in many different scenarios, depending on your specific needs. A frequent use case: you have a web form or a shopping cart and want to validate the information the user enters before saving it, to ensure it's accurate, and that the user didn't make a mistake.

Benefits

  • Prevent unwanted registrations - Inaccurate, fake or harmful phone numbers are not credible leads. Experian Phone Validation works in real-time to capture the right, genuine phone numbers up front that Sales and Marketing teams can trust.
  • Reduce telemarketing costs – SMS campaigns can be costly, especially if you use dead numbers or the wrong type of number. Maintain compliance and maximise cost efficiency by using accurate and contactable mobile numbers.
  • Streamline sign-up forms - The form-fill process can be time consuming for customers, leads and employees. Eliminate the need for reCAPTCHA and remove additional phone confirmation fields by integrating our real-time API.
  • Connect with customers - Accurate phone numbers are essential for customer engagement and telemarketing. The solution eliminates data errors by confirming if a number is active and contactable before you pick up a phone or send a SMS campaign.
  • Mitigate fraud risk – Phone numbers are a solid digital identifier to complement identify verification processes. Validity checks, coupled with intelligence on number type, disposable number identification, location and registration enable better risk profiling and detection of fraudulent activity.

Key Features

  • Global Coverage - over 240 countries and territories.
  • Real-time and Bulk capabilities - Send phone validation requests one at a time using our real-time API, or send up to 10,000 phone numbers in a single API call using our bulk API.
  • Ability to pass an ISO3 country code along with the phone number to allow for processing of numbers without the numeric country dialling code, or solely within a specific country.
  • Enhanced portability information - Experian Phone Validation will also allow customers to return the last known ported date for a Phone Number within a select number of countries. Phone Validation can now tell you if a number has been ported and the date that it was ported. This can be a good indicator of fraudulent activity and should be considered within risk calculation.
  • Disposable (or temporary) mobile number recognition - These numbers are used for situations in which someone doesn't want to provide their permanent/real number or for fraudulent purposes. This poses an increasing fraud risk to businesses and prevents them from contacting their customers when required. The API will identify mobile numbers that are known to be from a disposable network or have been found on websites or applications advertising disposable numbers.
  • Number metadata – Gain detailed intelligence on your customer or prospect's phone number at key transaction points without disruption. The API provides number type, network or carrier, country, ported history, registration and more.
  • Seamless integration – Integrate our intuitive REST API into your e-commerce website, digital application forms, CRM or ERP systems in a matter of minutes using the user documentation. We have pre-built integrations for Salesforce and Microsoft.
  • In-line phone validation - Phone validation takes place within the phone number field in your form, eliminating the need for a "Confirm phone number" field or double opt-in process.
  • Live Status - determines whether a mobile number is live, active and contactable, for all 240 countries and territories (including USA).

See it in action: Try out our live demo to see Phone Validation integrated into a website.

Functionality

Live status is the ability to determine whether a Phone Number is truly contactable, and influences our response confidence levels. For most countries, this comes as standard for Mobile, with limited coverage for Landline. Due to a few regional limitations, the live status for either Mobiles, or Landlines, may not be supported with the standard service, and you will need to include the request parameter supplementary_live_status to ensure the confidence level returned is as accurate as possible. Supported countries found here.

Mobile - USA

Up until recently, there has been an industry wide limitation on providing the live status for mobile numbers in USA. Experian Data Quality is one of the first Phone Validation providers to now provide the option to surface the live status of a US Phone Number. If enabled, we carry out a secondary check on the Phone Number, and provide an accurate confidence level based on live status. Without supplementary live status enabled for USA, we use the standard industry check for US Mobile numbers, which checks formatting, type and carrier level information, amongst others.

Landline – GBR

If you wish to understand whether a landline number in the UK is connected, and contactable, to enable you to reach clients or leads, then enabling supplementary live status for GBR landlines will allow you to do so. If enabled, we will carry out a secondary check on the Landline Number, and provide an accurate confidence level based on live status. Without supplementary live status enabled for GBR, we are unable to retrieve live data on the landline and will return a confidence of No coverage, alongside the metadata elements for this phone number.
Mobile live status for GBR is supported in the standard call to Experian Phone Validation.

Disposable (or temporary) mobile numbers are considered the digital version of a burner phone. People use these numbers for situations in which they don't want to give out their permanent/real numbers or for fraudulent purposes. This poses an increasing fraud risk to businesses and prevents them from contacting their customers when required. The API will identify mobile numbers that are known to be from a disposable network or have been found on websites or applications advertising disposable numbers.

The API will return a confidence level as expected (Disposable Phone Numbers tend to be verified, and technically contactable), however you will see an additional metadata item for disposable number, flagging if we know it to be disposable.

Using enhanced portability information, Experian Phone Validation allows customers to return the last known ported date for a Phone Number within a select number of countries. The API can confirm if a number has been both ported, what network it was ported to/from and the date on which it was ported. Recently ported numbers can be a good indicator of fraudulent activity and should be considered within risk calculation.

Experian Phone Validation

Overview

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