Verify Service

If you are a PCI-compliant merchant you can use our API to check that the payment card details that your customer supplied to you is valid and in good standing.

Our verify service allows you to pre-validate a payment card issued by Visa, Mastercard or American Express (AMEX) as part of your risk management process.

Why use the verify service?

You may want to check that the payment card data supplied to you is valid and that you will be able to apply a charge to the payment card when you need to do so.

For example, you may want to use the verify service where you collect payment card data, but where you do not want to apply a charge to the payment card at the time that your customer supplied their payment card data to you.

Note that executing a logical check that validates the 16-digit card number and the expiry date on the card will not verify that the card details you received is associated with a live payment card issued by a banking institution.

Instead, Amazon Payment Services offers you the ability to verify that a payment card is both valid and linked to a financial institution.

What does the verify service do?

Use our verify service to ensure a seamless transaction flow by checking that the payment card details that your customer provided to you is linked to a live account.

When using the verify command you send your customer's payment card details to the Amazon Payment Services server. In turn, our server contacts your customer's issuing bank to verify that the payment card number provided is an active account.

While your customer's circumstances may always change, the verify service helps you to ensure that your customer only signs up with live payment card details that you can apply a charge to.

Note that this service command can only be used across the trusted channel. Read more about the trusted channel here.

Go to the full API reference

We've given you an overview of how the verify service works. Developers will find more complete details in our API reference, including relevant endpoints.

Need further help?

If you get stuck with the verify service feel free to get in touch with the Amazon Payment Services team. Just message our support team at merchantsupport-ps@amazon.com.