Documentation
API ReferenceChangelogFAQDashboard

Email and phone verification

Confirm emails and phone numbers of your applicants.

You can check the applicant phone number and email address to determine its reliability.

How it works

The email and phone verification procedure works as follows:

  1. Applicants provide their email address and/or phone number and get a one-time code (or OTP).
  2. Applicants are requested to confirm the code (or OTP) and if it is correct, the step is passed.
  3. The system checks the data and, according to the internal logic, returns the results as red, yellow, or green labels, depending on how much risk the specified email address or phone number poses.

Get started

To start using email and phone checks, do any of the following:

👍

Tip

  • Combine standard email and phone verification with email and phone risk assessment to get a detailed picture about your applicants.
  • You can test email and phone verification in Sandbox mode. Once a daily texting limit expires, use the 111111 code to test SMS sending for phone verification.

Review verification results

To view the verification results:

  1. In the Dashboard, go to the Applicants page and select a profile.
  2. Navigate to the Checks section and review the summary on the extracted and checked data.

Email check results show the following statistics:

Check Description

Confirmed via OTP

Indicates an email’s credibility and authenticity that are checked via sending an OTP code.

Suspicious email

Reveals a potential fraudulent use of a provided email address.

Blocklisted

Indicates if an email has been blocklisted (the internal Sumsub blocklist) due to misuse or suspicious activity.

Disposable

Shows whether an email address is temporary and might disappear after a short period.

Phone check results show the following statistics:

Check Description

Confirmed via OTP

Indicates a phone number’s credibility and authenticity that are checked via sending an OTP code.

Blocklisted

Indicates if a phone number has been blocklisted (the internal Sumsub blocklist) due to misuse or suspicious activity.

👍

Tip

All check results can be displayed in 3 different states depending on the found information:

  • Red indicator—an email/phone number has failed checks and might be considered risky.
  • Green indicator—an email/phone number has passed verification and it has been confirmed that they are trustworthy/genuine, etc.
  • Yellow indicator—the system couldn’t conduct verification and find information to verify a provided email/phone number.

Reduce fraud activities with email and phone risk assessment

Extend standard email and phone verification with the additional email and phone risk assessment to understand the risk profile of your applicants during onboarding and make quick decisions for a wide range of cases in advance.

How we calculate email and phone risk level

The risk calculation for a phone number and email address is based on several checks that help to assess whether they are trustworthy or potentially suspicious. Each factor contributes to an overall risk level that indicates whether the phone number or email address is safe, medium-risk, or high-risk.

Transaction monitoring also gets the additional data shown in the Risk labels section of the associated onboarding transaction.

You can use this data during onboarding of new applicants by means of the Basic onboarding rule bundle to automatically add risk labels and tags to applicant profiles once they reach the specified threshold.

Check Description

OTP verified

Indicates an email’s credibility and authenticity that are checked via sending an OTP code.

Disposable email

Shows whether an email address is temporary and might disappear after a short period.

Registered account found

Shows whether an email address has been used to register an account on social media.

Not suspicious email

Reveals a potential fraudulent use of a provided email address.

Active email

Verifies deliverability of a provided email address that identifies whether the email is valid and actively used.

Real domain

Confirms if an email's domain exists.

Blocklisted

Indicates if an email has been blocklisted (the internal Sumsub blocklist) due to misuse or suspicious activity.

Risk level

Shows an email's risk level that is calculated based on the results of the risk assessment checks.

  • Green (Low Risk): The email address is considered trustworthy and likely belongs to the applicant. It is verified, active, from a real domain, and not disposable.
  • Yellow (Medium Risk): The email has some caution flags, such as lacking web registrations or having a suspicious name mismatch. The email might still be legitimate but has some warning signs.
  • Red (High Risk): The email shows several red flags, such as being blocklisted, disposable, undeliverable, or from a non-existent domain. This indicates a high probability of the email being fraudulent or unreliable.
Check Description

OTP verified

Indicates a phone number’s credibility and authenticity that are checked via sending an OTP code.

Disposable number

Shows whether a phone number is temporary and potentially used to avoid traceability.

Registered account found

Shows whether a phone number has been used to register an account on social media.

Valid number

Reveals a phone number’s validity indicating whether it is a fake or incomplete number.

Active number

Verifies deliverability of a provided phone number that identifies whether the phone number is valid and actively used.

Not a virtual number

Checks if a provided number is virtual and used to hide a caller’s location.

Blocklisted

Indicates if a phone number has been blocklisted (the internal Sumsub blocklist) due to misuse or suspicious activity.

Risk level

Shows a phone number’s risk level calculated based on the results of the risk assessment checks.

  • Green (Low Risk): The phone number is trustworthy, likely active, not disposable or virtual, and may be linked to social media or web registrations. You can confidently consider the number credible.
  • Yellow (Medium Risk): The phone number has some minor concerns, such as lacking web registrations or being associated with unknown activity. The phone number could still be legitimate but has minor risk factors.
  • Red (High Risk): The phone number shows several red flags, such as being disposable, invalid, blocklisted, or virtual. This indicates a high likelihood of the number being fraudulent or used for suspicious purposes. Avoid relying on this number.
Check Description

Email labels

Risk labels associated with email addresses:

  • Medium risk email — a verdict made by the system according to the check results and internal logic.
  • High risk email — a verdict made by the system according to the check results and internal logic.
  • Disposable email — temporary email address that usually expires after a short period of time.
  • No registrations on Web services found — email address registration is not detected.
  • No website exist — email domain does not exist.
  • Non-deliverable — an email address to which messages cannot be delivered.
  • Invalid email address — an email address is invalid.

Phone labels

Risk labels associated with phone numbers:

  • Medium risk phone — a verdict made by the system according to the check results and internal logic.
  • High risk phone — a verdict made by the system according to the check results and internal logic.
  • Virtual — a virtual phone number is a number not associated with any physical location, allowing to make calls via internet.
  • No registrations on Web services found — phone number registration is not detected.
  • Disposable phone number — a temporary phone number that usually expires after a short period of time.

Device labels

Risk labels associated with devices:

  • VPN usage — detects whether VPN connection is used.
  • TOR usage — detects whether TOR connection is used.
  • High risk IP — indicates high risk IP addresses.
  • Multiple devices were used — informs about using multiple devices.
  • Multiple mobile devices were used - informs about using multiple mobile devices.
  • Lengthy onboarding session — the session lasts too long.
  • Failure to continue on another device — the session was interrupted.
  • Devices from distant IP locations were used — login from different and distant IP addresses (> 100 km).

Enable email and phone risk assessment

To activate the advanced email and phone risk assessment, select the Email insights and Phone insights checkboxes in the verification level settings.

📘

Note

  • Email and phone risk assessment is available at an additional cost. Contact us to learn more.
  • OTP is not required for email and phone risk assessment.

Handle risk assessment results

With email and phone risk assessment, the standard email and phone check results will be extended with the results of the checks that we conduct to calculate the risk level.

Updated 20 days ago