They don't have ZIP codes (thankfully all EU countries don't have), but have
AVS.
But no matter that – both eB and PP use the
TeleSign service to
"validate phone numbers, research and testing as to appropriateness of new products and services".
Demo. And after that they use
Syniverse to
"validate and apply data quality checks to phone numbers".
So generally when you click on the "Call Me" or choose to "Text PIN as SMS", they receive from
your cellphone this
phone RAW info:
• Timestamp/date of the verification;
• Phone status: Subscriber Status (Active/Disconnected) and Device Status (Reachable/Unreachable);
• Phone type (it's "metadata" - Mobile, Landline, Non-fixed VoIP, Invalid, Pre-Paid, Personal, Pager, Toll-Free and Restricted);
• Associated risk;
Geographic information:
• Location/Country/State/City;
• ZIP/Post(al) code;
• Timezone;
• UTC offset;
•
Coordinates (latitude, longitude and elevation);
[here is how to view your IP address coordinates; but for phone coordinates, to check them you might use My GPS for Android or iPhone GPS; so generally - address coordinates + phone coordinates + IP address coordinates should match or be as equal as possible, don't know on what exactly "range" can varies in order to not raise medium or high flags]
• State / Area / District;
• Phone number;
• Phone number with country code;
• Telecom carrier name (
list);
• Roaming info: Roaming Status and Roaming Country;
• Unique ID for this call/SMS.
So this is the info automatically received by both eB and PP when you "Verify" the phone OR when you call their Customer Service Reps (they know from where you call
exactly and when you tell things about you account, they verify all things pretty easy and takes
ms or so).
Yeah, phone verification is different between countries. But
phone RAW info is still placed in their database with columns and rows. They know everything with just a "simple" phone call/SMS PIN.
Also if someone tested, if you choose when registering on eB to be from country "Y", but you're from country "X" having "X" phone number for this country as well, you
won't ever receive neither the call, nor the SMS. You must manually change the country to be "X", then do the verification, pass it, and then turn back to the "Y" country. Telling this just in case, might help to someone.
And that's not everything. eB and PP use
MaxMind service to detect fraud. Now you know how they detect the location again, all type of proxies (risk level, open, corporate, anonymous, TOR, etc.), "high risk" IP addresses, BIN to country (cards) matching, all kind of pre-paid and gift cards info,
distance between IP and billing locations
and much more. Then look-up at this
table to see which phone type are detected as "what" and which one raises flags ("
Risk-Level" is increased, which combined with something else, like too much sellings, or previously used almost the same "latitude and longitude" (grabbed from the address OR from the IP, OR from the phone), or some other factor(s)/triggers/algorithms = limitation/suspension/asking for docs).
Hope that this
in-depth info was
valued not just for you but for everyone else (who haven't read it yet
anywhere on this, neither other forums, e.g. this is "something new"
).