WASPA - The Industry Body

BulkSMS.com is a member of the Wireless Application Service Provider Association (WASPA). WASPA is the South African body that regulates all SMS messages sent from its members.

This means that BulkSMS.com adheres to WASPA’s code of conduct and will do its utmost to promote responsible messaging. Should BulkSMS.com receive any complaints about a customer, BulkSMS.com will do a full investigation into the account and should a customer not be adhering to the WASPA code of conduct, BulkSMS.com reserves the right to close the account immediately and without notice.

Please see below for an excerpt from the WASPA code of conduct:

5.1.11. Upon request of the recipient of a direct marketing message, the message originator must, within a reasonable period of time, identify the source from which the recipient's personal information was obtained, and provide proof that the organisation supplying the originator with the recipient's contact information has the recipient's explicit consent to do so.

and

5.2.1. Any direct marketing message is considered unsolicited (and hence spam) unless:

  • The recipient has requested the message
  • The message recipient has a prior commercial relationship with the message originator and has been given a reasonable opportunity to object to direct marketing communications:
    • At the time when the information was collected and
    • On the occasion of each communication with the recipient.
  • The organisation supplying the originator with the recipient's contact information has the recipient's explicit consent to do so.

For individuals or organisations sending direct marketing message via SMS:

There are three steps to follow when sending out SMS messages for promotional campaigns:

Consent

You should only be sending out SMS messages to customers who have consented to receive marketing messages from you. There are two types of consent:

  • Express consent – the message recipient has specifically requested messages from you/your company or organisation.
  • Inferred consent – there may not be a clear indication of consent, but due to an existing relationship with the customer, it is expected that you/your company will contact said customer.

Identify

Your messages need to clearly indicate the person, company or organisation that is sending the message.

Unsubscribe

You should always offer the recipient the option to stop receiving your communications, allowing them to indicate that they no longer wish to receive SMS messages from you/your company or organisation.

For consumers receiving unwanted SMS messages

If you have received an unwanted text/SMS message from BulkSMS.com, the quickest way to block someone from sending messages to you via BulkSMS is to reply to the sender's SMS with the word STOP.

If you would like to know more about who is messaging you, visit our Stop Unwanted Messages page. This facility enables you to find out who messaged you via our gateway and block the offending user from messaging you via our online facility. We will show you all recent messages sent to your mobile via our gateway. You can then block individual users of BulkSMS.com from messaging you, as well as obtain contact details of the sender.