If you’re like me, odds are you’ve been contacted at some point in time by a Nigerian Prince asking for help to get out of a jam. Hopefully you recognized this email as spam and didn’t fall for the trap! Unfortunately scams like these are being run by the forces of evil every day. They often lead to emptied bank accounts, ruined credit, and stolen identities. At Bluehost, we fight spam every way we can. To ensure we are never unwittingly helping these scammers we employ a process called “verification”.

Stopping Spam & Scam at the Door

Verification is a fraud prevention procedure we require of all customers before full account access is granted. We do this to ensure our new customers are:

a) actually real people
b) fully aware of their recent purchase

We make a simple phone call to the contact number provided during sign up to ask a few security questions. Once we confirm the account as legitimate we unlock the new hosting account to give full access to additional features, domains, and upgrades.

The goal of this verification procedure is to protect both customers and those who might have been scammed. Every day we receive phone calls from confused individuals responding to our voice mails asking for them to verify a recent hosting purchase. If we discover a purchase was not authorized we can then more easily reverse any illegitimate charges. This also empowers individuals to proactively address the possibility that their information is compromised. They can contact financial institutions to prevent further abuse and avoid potential fees and headaches.

I hope this helps to explain a bit about why our verification procedure exists. Thanks for your cooperation and help in combating spam, scams, and evil everywhere!

Morgan
Senior Fraud Specialist

p.s. Customers preferring to verify their account through other means than a phone call can utilize alternate verification methods. Refer to this article in our help center.

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