MaxMind's Telephone Number Identification (TNI) service is a tool used to identify the type of the telephone number your customers are providing. The TNI service is able to categorize customer inputted phone numbers into eight different phone types such as fixed land line, mobile, VoIP, and invalid phone numbers.

Knowing the phone type of the customer inputted number can be a helpful tool in thwarting online fraudulent purchases because purchases from some phone types may more likely to be fraudulent. For example, fraudsters from abroad can obtain US-based Voice over IP numbers like Skype which are untraceable and disposable.

The TNI service complements the Telephone Verification service, and costs $0.06 per query for US/Canadian numbers, and $0.10 for international numbers.

By determining the phone type of the customer, you can prevent unnecessary Telephone Verification calls. Telephone Verification calls are only effective for low risk phone types because they are traceable if the purchase turned out to be fraudulent. For example, if the customer inputted phone number returns as a non-fixed VoIP number, no telephone verification should be made since it cannot be traced. Either ask the customer for a different number or else block the order since non-fixed VoIP numbers are a high risk.

Ready to get started? Learn how to use the TNI service.