: Is it possible to confirm a person's name without a creditcard number? Looking for a way to confirm user supplied names without asking for a creditcard number. Requirements: Method must be automated,

@Becky754

One other item to note is that you can't verify a name via credit card number either! My credit card lets me add authorized users by entering the desired name as free text, and they send it out immediately without any further verification.

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@Mendez628

There is no way to do it for free. There are non-free ways of doing it but they aren't cheap, in the US they require birth date and SSN, and outside the US you get a hodge podge of solutions.

If you decide you want to spend the money check out Lexis Nexis, they are one of the premier online identification services and they have solutions for a number of countries outside of the US but it gets very complex.

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@Mendez628

In general, on the web with an international audience I think it can't be done, I'm not even sure you can do with a credit card number.

As I see it, you have two choices (and because you didn't give any background information I have no idea if they are relevant for you):


Limit your potential audience to a small group you have information on (example: if you're only targeting students of one college and you have good relationship with the college administration they can give you the student list to compere to).
Restructure you project so you don't need to verify the person's name, (example: use phone number as your verified id instead - send text message with code that the user has to enter into the site to prove access to the phone).


Also, verifying the name may fail because a name has several possible spellings (my name does) or for all sort of strange reasons You should really read this for some good examples

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