Phone now required for purchases?

[Manxome]

I tried to purchase a game on Steam today, and was puzzled that Steam prompted me to enter credit card info instead of using the saved info that I've used many times before, but I entered my info again.

However, Steam won't let me submit my payment info without including a phone number.

Is this some sort of recent policy change on Steam? Why would they need a phone number to bill my credit card?

[Matt]

Not sure that they "need" it but it can be used as additional info to verify with the credit card company. Same reason for "needing" billing address, zip code, name on the card, etc. Do you shop online anywhere else? I'm surprised that you're surprised because requiring the billing phone number on file with the card company is extremely common.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

I'm not sure if it was always required to add in the phone number when adding money to your wallet but I always added it in since it's a basic requirement when buying anything online now a days and even at some store (but I don't give it to them, since it's worthless there).

[Jerry]

Rather asking out of curiosity, as I'm not planning to ever switch to credit card payment, but if a phone number is required, does it have to be a mobile one, like for advanced Steam Guard, or do regular numbers work too?

[Snapjak]

Originally posted by Jerry:

Rather asking out of curiosity, as I'm not planning to ever switch to credit card payment, but if a phone number is required, does it have to be a mobile one, like for advanced Steam Guard, or do regular numbers work too?

A number that's associated with the bank/CC account. That's an extra point for verification.

[Manxome]

Originally posted by Matt:

Not sure that they "need" it but it can be used as additional info to verify with the credit card company. Same reason for "needing" billing address, zip code, name on the card, etc.

Can you cite your source?

I did some Googling and found Card Acceptance Guidelines for Visa Merchants here:

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/card-acceptance-guidelines-visa-merchants.pdf

The card-absent guidelines include instructions for verifying security code and billing address, but no instructions for verifying phone numbers.

They do recommend noting "a contact phone number", but there's no suggestion that it has to match anything the card issuer has on record. The words "a" and "contact" suggest this is not for verification at all, but only so the merchant can contact the customer. Steam already has my email address, so that purpose is already fulfilled. (And frankly that sounds kinda unreasonable anyway; if physical stores don't need my contact phone, why should online merchants?)

Originally posted by Matt:

requiring the billing phone number on file with the card company is extremely common.

Doesn't seem to be a field in billing info at Amazon, Humble, or GOG. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't in Steam until very recently. What are some examples of stores that require it?

[J4MESOX4D]

I remember vaguely a similar situation a few years ago where a user who had a pre-paid card that had no phone number attached to it, was required to enter a phone number on the Steam billing screen. I don't know how they rectified it but you could probably just enter in either your mobile number or house phone and it wont have to go through any back-end verification.

I don't think any banks take mobile numbers as any form of billing verification because a phone number is not an exclusive or fixed form of personal information that can identify a user. Typically phone numbers are only used to verify and confirm the ownership of a user attributed to an online account.

Has to be an issue Steam's end. Certainly not documented or a problem that's widely prominent.

[Manxome]

As suspected, Steam does NOT use the phone number to verify the credit card's authenticity; they will accept a phone number that has never been associated with the card in any way. They're just greedy for PII, apparently.