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The First Step
November 11, 2020
Solved

Using a RingCentral phone number, can I receive 2FA codes from Google?

Title says it all...

My company manages a lot of client accounts -- login credentials for web portals, emails accounts, and etc. And a lot of these accounts have 2FA (two factor authentication) enabled.

Rather than have our employees use their own personal phone numbers as the 2FA registered number for our client's accounts, we'd much rather have them use their RingCentral phone number. It's more secure and easier to manage.

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So, if I'm using RingCentral's SMS API, can I use a RingCentral phone number to receive 2FA codes (SMS messages) from Google and other security code providers?

Does this violate any terms of service? I don't want to get banned from RingCentral over trying to use our phone numbers in this way...

I know that there have been problems in the past with VoIP providers and SMS gateway service providers receiving SMS security codes... Does RingCentral suffer from this same limitation?

Google likes to only send 2FA codes to "real" phone numbers. This prevents some abuse cases, but it also limits how a virtual phone number can be used.

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Small update:

I tested out the SMS API in a dev environment, using both the RingCentral app and Glip. It was a success -- I was able to receive 2FA codes that were sent to the RingCentral number from Google and other providers.

Now my only question is: is this allowed? Am I violating any terms of service?

Because my use-case is for account management purposes, and not abuse, I think I'm okay. What I'm doing is allowed...

    PhongVu
    PhongVuAnswer
    Community Manager
    November 11, 2020

    Surely you are allowed to use the phone number for receiving 2FA code via SMS that way.

    4 replies

    PhongVu
    Community Manager
    PhongVuAnswer
    Community Manager
    November 11, 2020

    Surely you are allowed to use the phone number for receiving 2FA code via SMS that way.

    The First Step
    November 12, 2020

    Thanks for the response.

    As long as RingCentral and Google don't have a problem with it, then yeah -- I don't think there is a problem using the platform in this way.

    The First Step
    April 3, 2021

    Hi Cody, how exactly were you able to do this w/ RC and Glip? Reason I ask is because we're attempting to do the same thing with our team. Thanks.

    The First Step
    July 9, 2021

    Few days back I tried testing this with google and got success. Right now this is working