This is an interesting concept. I had talked to Telesign about including their initial PhoneID offering into the CRM product I was working on. At the time it was simply a reverse lookup with a bit of metadata, such as wireless or landline, etc.
As a consumer though, the risk score makes me a bit weary. These mechanisms are notoriously opaque and when they misfire, they do so spectacularly. I would hate to have the type of the phone number I use be tied to my credit worthiness or something...
I've had a few issues lately with my Bank Simple card being flagged as a prepaid card because of companies using "old" databases (as far as I can tell).
My account at Western Union was literally banned. I spent 2 hours on the phone with the American Express fraud department after linking my Simple debit card and getting flagged.
This sort of reputation system usually works 98%+ of the time, but when you get a false positive, there is literally no recourse.
I hope they are forced to provide profile information and "correction" services to consumers in the same way credit reporting agencies have to.
As a consumer though, the risk score makes me a bit weary. These mechanisms are notoriously opaque and when they misfire, they do so spectacularly. I would hate to have the type of the phone number I use be tied to my credit worthiness or something...