"Phone verification failed" or number rejected before any code is sent
Proton's anti-abuse filter rejected the number range as VoIP or known-shared. This happens at the submission step, before an SMS is even attempted. Affects VoIP numbers and some shared ranges — real SIMs from clean carriers don't trigger this.
Cancel the activation on VirtualSMS for a full refund — no SMS was sent, so no charge applies. Select a Tier 1 EU country (Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic) and retry. If you're using a free shared inbox and seeing this error, that's expected — free shared numbers are mostly VoIP-ranged and Proton blocks them.


