Carrier Best way to get an american phone # for verification purposes while living overseas?

[212rikanmofo]

I currently have an iPhone Xs Max and live in Vietnam. My cell provider is Mobiphone and I have a vietnamese phone number and would like to know if there is any way to also have a US phone number for verification purposes without giving up my cell service in vietnam?

Sometimes when I am purchasing things or if a website needs to send me a verification code, I am unable to receive it because unfortunately they can't send the code through sms/mms to an international number. Only US numbers. So I have to contact my family and friends in America for the code to be sent to their numbers, and once they receive it they would then contact me. But because of the time difference, this makes the entire process more complicated then it needs to be.

I was wondering if there was an easier way?

 

[Bichon]

The easiest solution would probably be to get a US phone number from Google Voice. (A VPN endpoint in the US, or your US-based family and friends should be able to help you with the signup if needed). You won't be able to link it with your Vietnamese cell phone, but you should be able to access it with the Google Voice web client.

 

[212rikanmofo]

I didn't know there was a google voice web client. Could you explain to me how to do this. Yes the sim card I have is registered to a vietnamese number and I know that in order to get a google voice number, you need to have a US cell phone.

 

[Bichon]

The Google voice web client is at https://voice.google.com. Once you have a Google Voice account, you can login to that site to send and receive texts. The hurdle, though, is getting a Google Voice number without a US phone. Hopefully I'm not leading you down a path that won't work, but I believe you should be able to use your US friend's phone number for verification, and once verified, delete their number from your GV account. (I also mentioned VPN, just in case the GV website doesn't let you do it from Vietnam; not sure if that would be necessary)