distinguishing between landline and VOIP

is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
people using VOIP services. help!

rob

robert

robert wrote:
> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
> landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
> landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> people using VOIP services. help!
>
> rob
>
>
>

Not exactly.

Many people are getting rid of fixed lines for VoIP.. So your company
may have no customers one day if that's how your working!

But on www.ukphoneinfo.com you can search for numbers, and see which
operators own the numbers.

But people now can port there BT numbers to VoIP.. So it's not always
going to be right

robert wrote:
> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
> landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
> landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> people using VOIP services. help!
>

You can't easily.

We had the same problem, but worked out that (a) customers ip addresses
didn't match up with the country they had their details in and (b)
things about the order were odd - e.g. name miss spellings.

You should checkout a system like http://www.maxmind.com/app/ccv_overview

peter

--
peter gradwell. gradwell dot com Ltd. http://www.gradwell.com/
-- engineering & hosting services for email, web and voip --
-- http://www.peter.me.uk/ -- http://www.voip.org.uk/ --

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:21:08 GMT, "robert" <> wrote:

>my company requires customers to provide a
>landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
>people using VOIP services.

A voip number is a landline number. The idea that a number actually
tells you where the caller is located is daft: call diversion and
presentation numbers killed that off years ago.

In what way would a phone number help prevent fraud?

In any event, everyone is moving to VOIP over the next few years. At
present it's only a few tens of thousands per month, but that will
change.

robert wrote:
> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
> landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
> landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> people using VOIP services. help!

http://www.magsys.co.uk/telecom/codelook.asp might help.

alex

>
> rob
>
>
>

Sean wrote:
> robert wrote:
>
>> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
>> landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
>> landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught
>> out by people using VOIP services. help!
>>
>> rob
>>
>>
>>
>
> Not exactly.
>
> Many people are getting rid of fixed lines for VoIP.. So your company
> may have no customers one day if that's how your working!

Indeed. Insisting on a conventional style landline sounds like a bad
idea to me (but maybe if I knew the types products/services robert was
offering it might not).

>
> But on www.ukphoneinfo.com you can search for numbers, and see which
> operators own the numbers.
>
> But people now can port there BT numbers to VoIP.. So it's not always
> going to be right
>

Fraudsters in other countries are unlikely to have a BT number to port
to an ITSP...

alex

In article <>,
writes:

> On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:21:08 GMT, "robert" <> wrote:
>
> >my company requires customers to provide a
> >landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> >people using VOIP services.
>
> A voip number is a landline number. The idea that a number actually
> tells you where the caller is located is daft: call diversion and
> presentation numbers killed that off years ago.
>
> In what way would a phone number help prevent fraud?

I don't know about fraud, but I've heard of them being used for
unsolicited advertising because a) the costs are low and b) it is in
some cases easier to be dishonest with them than with conventional
telephone numbers.

> In any event, everyone is moving to VOIP over the next few years. At
> present it's only a few tens of thousands per month, but that will
> change.

Yes, conventional telephony will go the way of the telegraph. What hath
God wrought!

"robert" <> wrote in message
news:UYCmg.255$
> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs
> to an actual landline or a VOIP service? my company
> requires customers to provide a landline number to help
> prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> people using VOIP services. help!

Yes and no. It's possible to find out who a number block was originally
registered with, but number portability is becoming more common in the
VoIP world and it's not guaranteed. It's unlikely that someone would port
a VoIP number to BT, although it's technically possible. But a BT number
can easily be ported to VoIP.

Ivor

robert wrote:
> is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
> landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
> landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
> people using VOIP services. help!

Start developing alternative anti-fraud methods checks - using a phone
number proves nothing.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:21:08 GMT, "robert" <> wrote:

>is there any way to determine if a phone number belongs to an actual
>landline or a VOIP service? my company requires customers to provide a
>landline number to help prevent fraud, but we've recently been caught out by
>people using VOIP services. help!

How bizarre. Surely a better idea is just to insist that your
customers provide both a Telex number and their inside leg
measurements?

On a serious note, if your security depends on they type of phone
service that your customers use, then you have no security and deserve
no customers.

Rgds
Jonathan