Is that for every country and via an api?
Phone verification?
- Thread starter rds100
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- phone verification
that's canada/us/uk rates.
for germany, russia it's 4 cents per 2 texts, 10 cents per minute.
Other countries it gets a bit more expensive, the most expensive is 45 cents a minute
That's what I'm using for the backend. I am going to be adding more functionality than they offer though.
Nexmo is a great service - the only other recommendation in a similar price range I'd give is Plivo.
Both provide a similar service, and it never hurts to have a backup option in place - or to split your load between the two of them based on which performs best for the individual needs.
I've had a working version of something similar in our panel for a while, using both as a failover, but it's not built with any API or thought for WHMCS - though if you run into any problems, I'd be more than happy to have a look
Anyway, I'll leave you to develop; just wanted to offer a reasonable backup option for the gateway.
Both provide a similar service, and it never hurts to have a backup option in place - or to split your load between the two of them based on which performs best for the individual needs.
I've had a working version of something similar in our panel for a while, using both as a failover, but it's not built with any API or thought for WHMCS - though if you run into any problems, I'd be more than happy to have a look
Anyway, I'll leave you to develop; just wanted to offer a reasonable backup option for the gateway.
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EnveraHost
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Would you also be able to offer SMS verification as a cheaper alternative to calling?
Defaults to SMS if available otherwise it calls. Same cost.
We would be a customer if a service could do this properly - we ran into a lot of trouble with tying ours in whmcs to external api's becasue we could not get a 1-size fits all solution that would be user friendly.
The big challenge with WHMCS at least is/was that there is no way to process a new order, pause to do this fraud check (where it interacts with a user to check for a PIN code, and re-direct to re-try if say their phone didn't get the text and they want to enter a new number to verify) then once completed go back to the completed order process and process the payment/provisioning.
We spoke to WHMCS directly on it and couldn't come up with any way to make user interaction (enter pin, or retry something else) within the payment processing process of a new order.
RTGHM would be very intersted to see what you did on WHMCS, we've been considering outsourcing for a module on this but if you invented the wheel already or the start of it, maybe w can chat for more features!
my 2 cents - for us, its not about the cost - 25 cents vs 50cents per verification is perfectly fine. The cost of a charge back, or worse a spammer/bot-net person on your network causing abuse far outweighs the added cost and saves the billing dept manual time. I realize every host is different, but for us it would be invaluable to have it do everyting we wanted. We were sad to see maxmind depart this arena, it only tells me that their isn't a business case of success in the model they ran it at (which is suprising as they had built in support with whmcs and other billing systems world wide, but stil couldn't make money with their fraud verifier / phone verifier to the point they shut down the phone options even now that the main product requires payment
The big challenge with WHMCS at least is/was that there is no way to process a new order, pause to do this fraud check (where it interacts with a user to check for a PIN code, and re-direct to re-try if say their phone didn't get the text and they want to enter a new number to verify) then once completed go back to the completed order process and process the payment/provisioning.
We spoke to WHMCS directly on it and couldn't come up with any way to make user interaction (enter pin, or retry something else) within the payment processing process of a new order.
RTGHM would be very intersted to see what you did on WHMCS, we've been considering outsourcing for a module on this but if you invented the wheel already or the start of it, maybe w can chat for more features!
my 2 cents - for us, its not about the cost - 25 cents vs 50cents per verification is perfectly fine. The cost of a charge back, or worse a spammer/bot-net person on your network causing abuse far outweighs the added cost and saves the billing dept manual time. I realize every host is different, but for us it would be invaluable to have it do everyting we wanted. We were sad to see maxmind depart this arena, it only tells me that their isn't a business case of success in the model they ran it at (which is suprising as they had built in support with whmcs and other billing systems world wide, but stil couldn't make money with their fraud verifier / phone verifier to the point they shut down the phone options even now that the main product requires payment
Honestly I've been so busy over the last week I haven't had much time. Festive period and all, I'll set some time aside this weekend and get a working version going.
In all honesty, it is much easier to have an employee make the call. For us, we have assigned one of our night system monitors to verify accounts via phone call or verification documentation. It only costs us about $35 for the phone line per month with pretty reasonable rates for out of country calling. At most, its about $0.75 /minute and most calls only take a minute or two. With one provider of the phone verification service leaving, its only a matter of time before another rises.
@trewq for the whmcs part i was thinking of a modification of the viewinvoice.tpl template and add additional check when the customer goes to pay the invoice - if he has a "phone verified flag" (add hidden custom field for this) - the normal payment options are there and he can pay the invoice. If he has not been verified previously - replace the "pay" button with a custom link which sends him to the verification page. And that verification page should call some API (GET / POST doesn't matter) to make the call with random generated 4 digit code, then have a form the input the code that the customer received. If the code matches - set the "phone verified" flag and redirect to the invoices list. If the code doesn't match... tell the customer he failed the verification.
{if $status eq "Unpaid"}
<font class="unpaid">{$LANG.invoicesunpaid}</font><br />
{if $clientsdetails.customfields6 ne "passed"}
<form method="post" action="phoneverify.php">
<input type="submit" value="Pay now" />
</form>
{else}
{if $allowchangegateway}
<form method="post" action="{$smarty.server.PHP_SELF}?id={$invoiceid}">{$gatewaydropdown}</form>
{else}
{$paymentmethod}<br />
{/if}
{$paymentbutton}
{/if}
But there is a little problem - viewinvoice.tpl doesn't have the custom fields by name, hence the "$clientsdetails.customfields6" above, which would be different for someone with different custom client fields. You could probably use a mysql query to find the right custom field but meh.
{if $status eq "Unpaid"}
<font class="unpaid">{$LANG.invoicesunpaid}</font><br />
{if $clientsdetails.customfields6 ne "passed"}
<form method="post" action="phoneverify.php">
<input type="submit" value="Pay now" />
</form>
{else}
{if $allowchangegateway}
<form method="post" action="{$smarty.server.PHP_SELF}?id={$invoiceid}">{$gatewaydropdown}</form>
{else}
{$paymentmethod}<br />
{/if}
{$paymentbutton}
{/if}
But there is a little problem - viewinvoice.tpl doesn't have the custom fields by name, hence the "$clientsdetails.customfields6" above, which would be different for someone with different custom client fields. You could probably use a mysql query to find the right custom field but meh.
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Weird, my post disappeared.
I was going to just create a basic hook that checked certain criteria and redirected the client to a verification page based on that criteria. @rds100's solution is nice, but I try to avoid changing template files if at all possible because some people use custom templates and such.
I was going to just create a basic hook that checked certain criteria and redirected the client to a verification page based on that criteria. @rds100's solution is nice, but I try to avoid changing template files if at all possible because some people use custom templates and such.
Nah, the phoneverify.php must be local to the WHMCS installation since it must have access to the client details (country and phone number). It can then use an API to an external service to actually make the call. But first it should display the full phone number (with country code). The country dialing prefix should be added automatically in front of the phone number (so the customer can't specify a phone in a different country. It should display something like "We phone verify all orders. We will an automated make a call to +123456789 to give you a verification code. If this is not your correct phone number please go to your client details and edit it" with a link to the client details. And there should also be a "call me now" button.
Looking at the WHMCS hooks documentation perhaps one could really use a hook instead of a modification to a template file to invoke the custom phone verification. This should be a good starting point - http://docs.whmcs.com/Hooks:AfterFraudCheck
I ended up coding something myself (using an invoicetemplate.tpl edit to hook it). Still very early code, but seems to work from the client side - can send SMS or make a call and complete the verification. Need to write something for the admin side to make it easier to use, but it's a good start.