For anyone who has experienced SMS (text message) verification failure in the mql5.com Market, I’ll explain how I solved that problem. Generally, this problem is caused by a cell phone carrier that doesn’t support international text messaging. Metaquotes Ltd. has offices in a few countries around the world, and its headquarters are in Cyprus. I am not located in any of those countries, so I need international text messaging in order to receive SMS verification texts from the mql5.com Market.
International cell carrier plans are expensive, so I looked into free VOIP (voice over internet protocol) services that support international text messaging. The 2 that I discovered are Google Voice and WhatsApp Messenger. The former has good free terms for U.S. residents while the latter likely has better free terms universally around the world. For my purposes in the U.S., I chose Google Voice. Here is how to switch over to Google Voice:
- Sign up for the Google Voice service.
- Make a note the virtual phone number that Google Voice assigns to you.
- Use your cell phone to take a close-up, high resolution, and legible picture of your government issued photo ID.
- Take a close-up picture of your face while holding that ID next to your face.
- Open a Support Ticket at the Service Desk by clicking on “Service Desk” in the left menu of your mql5.com Profile page.
- Take a picture of your face while standing or sitting with the open Ticket on a screen in the background.
- Type your request to switch to your new Google Voice number (digits included) into the Ticket.
- Upload all of your pictures into the Ticket.
- Submit the Ticket to the Service Desk.
- Read the automated reply.
- Expect a human reply in about 3 business days (or within the timeframe quoted by the Service Desk).
- Reply immediately to any follow-up questions or concerns of the Service Desk. The Service Desk is likely buried in Tickets–much of it being outside the scope of their work, hence the Service Desk bot as an automated filter. If you fail to reply for about 48 hours, your Ticket will almost definitely be closed for inactivity. Personally, I wouldn’t even wait 48 minutes to reply.
