Question posted in 
I’m trying to figure out what SMS API Service many of the major online services are using for 2 factor authentication (Dropbox, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, Blizzard, Steam etc…)
SMS Messages are coming from +44 7781 470659.
I’ve spent several hours googling for the answer, to no avail. Anyone with experience using SMS APIs happen to recognise it?
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Answers
Seems like legit SMS “broker” who sends out large-scale text messages on behalf of many companies. Microsoft, eBay, Google, Yahoo, the list goes on. However, it’s very easy to spoof the sending number, and while the real number is legit, there are reports of scammers spoofing it for nefarious reasons, asking for info, trying to scam you.
This phone number was discussed here as used for ebay: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/2dr4sl/received_text_from_microsoft_about_a_singleuse/
Also here this number was used for google:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail-es/c7UUBpkgTSA/Y3Shun9SeNkJ
UPD. Guys from Microsoft say that it is Sure (Guernsey) network.
I believe the actual SMS service provider is SMS Gateway (Europe) from CM Telecom, The Netherlands. Microsoft, Facebook, Ikea, AirBnB, McDonald’s, WhatsApp, DHL, and BMW are listed as their customers. They have SMS Gateway service in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. Pretty global.
https://www.smsgateway.to/en/europe
It supposedly belongs to Sure as stated above, but Microsoft officials don’t appear to have said that. It seems that regular users of the forum said that.
According to this http://www.scamnumbers.info/shownumber.php?number=447781470659 the number has bounced around and has been used by scammers as recently as July 2016!!! I have texts from Adobe, Microsoft, and ebay dating back to December 2015 from this number, though. It supposedly now belongs to Sure, though. Who knows. It is very disconcerting!