You guys(and potentially consumers) are probably losing money on erroneous Indian phone authentications

[onkkno]

I work for a US company that’s got an R&D center in India and we use Duo for 2 factor auth.

Recently I was switching phones quite frequently and hence I used the “On call 2nd factor auth” feature until I got my new device rebonded.

I noticed that every time I have to use on call otp, the Indian numbers cannot take the press of number X(used for confirmation/authentication).
Hence the call times out and I have to redo the authentication.

Then for the second/third time Duo falls back to a US phone number and that can take the input and finish the authentication.

Points to remember:

1. I don’t think my cellular operator is at fault here because the US call does take the DTMF code.

2. Luckily i had free incoming ISD, otherwise i might have ended up paying fees for every authentication call.

3. Every phone auth costs YOU an Indian Call plus an ISD call for a successful authentication.

4. Most other indian IVR systems work fine, and hence,

5. Your vendor has probably screwed up their India IVR, DTMF handling.

I just felt that I should let you folks know so that you may be able to address this potential money waster.

[Amy2]

Hi @onkkno,
Thank you for sharing that feedback with us. I saw that you contacted our support team as well. This sounds like a DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) issue we encounter pretty regularly. These issues are temporary and come and go at times. Most commonly, this is due to a provider’s anti-fraud measures blocking one of the numbers we use to call from. Particular locations seem to encounter this issue more than others, unfortunately, India being one of them. We will look into this and stay alert for any other reports of issues with phone call authentications. Thank you again for your diligence with reporting this and your patience!