service area validation

[znet]

We have been getting a lot of phony online signups with stolen credit cards. I have seen in the forums that other people are getting them too. Since we service a limited area, I was wondering if there would be a way to validate the new online signup account against the area codes in our dialup access areas?

Say someone tries to sign up with a phone number in New York. At the time of online signup, the software would look at the area codes in our dialup lookup and see if it is in our service area. If it is not, a message would pop up "We are sorry, but we do not offer service in your area" and delete the account.

Since we do have accounts that have billing addresses outside of our service area, this would only be checked with the online signups.

Would something like this be possible?

[digitalpoint]

To be honest, it might be even better to do geotargetting based on the user's IP address. That way it's not dependent on something the user enters...

[znet]

Is this something like that can be done? I can see it would only work if the ARIN records are up to date, which they should be. The only problem I can see if the person has a nation wide ISP, the ARIN records may not be accurate enough to show our region. I may be wrong, but do you have any ideas?

So far the fraud accounts information have all been out of our region and have been easy to spot.

[kirby009]

none of that stuff is good. the best way is to call the buyer and get info.