Acceptable Use Policy

Why this policy exists

Messages sent through ChatVendor arrive on people's phones from your SIM card. That has two consequences. Recipients cannot tell the difference between you and any other sender, so abuse damages trust in SMS generally. And the mobile operator whose SIM you use will hold you responsible — a blocked number is a real and common outcome of ignoring these rules.

1. Consent

Possession of a phone number is not permission to message it. Before you send, you must have consent from the recipient that is valid where they are.

• Consent must be specific enough that the person would recognise your messages as something they agreed to.
• Keep a record of when and how consent was given. If we receive a complaint, we may ask for it.
• Consent to transactional messages (an order update, a login code) is not consent to marketing.
• Bought, scraped, or "opted-in elsewhere" lists are not consent.

2. Opt-out

• Honour a request to stop promptly, and in any case within 24 hours.
• Marketing messages should say how to stop, in the language of the message.
• An opt-out from marketing does not have to stop essential transactional messages, but treat an unambiguous "stop contacting me" as covering everything.

3. Identify yourself

Recipients should be able to tell who is messaging them. Do not impersonate another person, business, or public body, and do not use a sender identity you are not entitled to use.

4. Prohibited content and conduct

Do not use the Service to send or facilitate:

• Fraud or deception — phishing, fake delivery or bank notices, advance-fee scams, fake prize or lottery claims, anything designed to trick someone into giving up money, credentials, or one-time codes.
• Malware or hostile links — including link shorteners used to disguise a destination.
• Unsolicited bulk messaging to recipients who did not consent.
• Harassment — threats, intimidation, or repeated unwanted contact with an individual.
• Illegal goods and services, or content unlawful where the recipient is.
• Child sexual abuse material, or anything sexualising a minor. We report this to the authorities.
• Content targeting people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or similar characteristics.
• Election or public-health disinformation designed to mislead about voting or endanger health.

Also prohibited, because they attack the Service or the networks it depends on:

• Evading rate limits, entitlements, or a suspension — including by creating additional accounts.
• Pairing phones or using SIM cards you are not authorised to use.
• Using the Service to test or probe systems you do not own.
• Bypassing or attempting to bypass mobile operator restrictions or filtering.

5. One-time passcodes

OTP traffic deserves particular care, because it is what fraudsters most want to intercept or trigger.

• Send a code only in response to an action the recipient actually took.
• Set expires_in so a delayed code is dropped rather than delivered late. A code arriving twenty minutes after it stopped being valid is a support burden at best, and a security signal people learn to ignore at worst.
• Rate-limit code requests on your side. Our per-SIM limit is a backstop, not your first line of defence.
• Never send a code to a number you did not verify belongs to the account holder.

6. Volume and quality

Send at a rate the receiving network can reasonably accept. Sustained high volume from a single consumer SIM is what triggers operator blocking, and no configuration on our side can prevent that.

A sharp rise in failures, or in complaints, is a signal that something is wrong with a campaign. We may throttle or pause an account showing those signals while we ask you about it.

7. How this is enforced

Depending on severity, we may:

1. Contact you and ask you to correct the problem.
2. Throttle sending, or disable a specific device or API key.
3. Suspend the workspace.
4. Terminate the account and, where required, report the conduct.

We will normally warn first. For fraud, CSAM, or anything causing ongoing harm, we will act immediately and explain afterwards.

8. Reporting abuse

If you received a message you should not have, or you believe an account is being misused, write to info@chatvendor.net. Include the sending number, the time, and the message text if you can — that is what lets us identify the account.

We investigate every report. We cannot always tell you the outcome, but we do read them.

9. This policy is not the whole of the law

Meeting this policy does not guarantee you are complying with the rules that apply to you. Telecommunications and marketing law differs by country, and the operator whose SIM you use has its own terms. Those obligations are yours to check.