Generally pleased with SIMple service. On this occasion I’m encountering an issue. Does anybody know why Paypal won’t send SMS 2FA to my SIMple mobile number? I keep getting “This type of phone number isn’t supported. Check your number and try again.” Thanks.
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That seems a bit odd, considering AweSIM is supposedly an MVNO that uses AT&T’s network… unless the network is somehow being handled by a VOIP provider instead of a mobile service provider.
Check your number on this lookup tool to see which network it identifies as: https://freecarrierlookup.com/
And for @JCS , any insight?
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Identified as Bellsouth. Is wireless: y. Thanks
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Interesting. PayPal must think it’s a landline.
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Have you asked Paypal what precisely they are checking, how they are checking it, and why the check is failing? If contacting Paypal Support, you can obviously in theory have them text you and then text them back in order to prove to them that, yeah, it really is a mobile number.
We, outside of Paypal, can only speculate wildly, but perhaps Paypal is using an internal database and that database hasn’t been updated for a while.
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…assuming OP can get through to an actual person… Those creatures are apparently an endangered species in Big Tech firms these days.
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True but in theory what I asked for can be done non-interactively or even by a bot.
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Personally, I’ve never been able to bend a bot to my will. 
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SMS ought to be wham-bam. I can inquire with paypal but I won’t expect much insight. Is it something that happens with other carriers?
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My Ting number identifies correctly as T-mobile/wireless.
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Regardless of being able to use it or not. I find it funny that a service that is advertises to be with “no contracts” can used to verify who you are! (If there is no contract, how do they know it’s really you?)
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Payment methods, hardware identifiers (IMEI/IMSI), PINs, recovery email addresses, two-factor authentication via SMS/(automated) phone calls, SINs, credit bureau soft checks, etc.
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Eh, eh, eh, strike out, two-factor authentication. Don’t forget this subject line!
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They send an SMS with, say, a 6 digit number AND an email with a link to a URL. When you go to the URL in the email it will prompt for the number.
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One could probably spoof that with a shallow identity of a phone and an email. Yes it presupposes one set up the same Paypal account (of this topic) with the same email and phone. That someone doesn’t have to be a real person. Just an entity, not necessarily “you”. The hypothetical “you” could transfer it to third party.
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I see it as a defense against account hijacking rather than ID verification when an account is opened. And, of course, it should be done reasonably close to account creation because of the risk of email account hijacking followed by hijacker associating their own phone number with your paypal (or other) account.
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Seems unusual my number would be categorized as Bellsouth. Does Bellsouth even exist. I hadn’t thought of it before, but this could explain a number of other issues I’ve seen with the service.
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BellSouth has been defunct since 2006, so I suspect AT&T still internally uses that brand name for the southeastern USA.
I live the Rocky Mountain West and my AweSim # is labeled as Bellsouth. My Dad’s number is an actual AT&T phone number and it is also labeled as Bellsouth.
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It is like those who don’t take their garage sale signs down for weeks afterward.
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