10 DLC Brand Vetting

What is Vetting?

Vetting is a background check processed by an independent company. When you create a brand through the Vonage API Dashboard, your entity will be assigned a limitation of throughput per second / minute / day for the number of messages you can send to your customers. The brand verification allows your brand to create low volume mixed campaigns. Sole Proprietor brands cannot go through vetting.

When is Vetting Required?

An external vetting (standard or Enhanced) is required for the creation of all campaign use types except:

• Low volume mixed campaigns (doesn't require vetting)
• Political campaigns (may require a political vetting)
• External vetting is required for all non-US customers

A political vetting may be required for political campaigns:

• For non-profit brands: Political vets at any level are accepted (Tribal, Local, State and Federal)

Standard Vetting

The standard vetting is the first level of vetting available to 10DLC Brands

Political Vetting

Non-Profit brands with a 501c(3/4/5/6) or a section527 tag are allowed to register political use case campaigns. For all other non-profit brands, a Political vet will be required.

There are several additional details to provide when requesting a political vet. Political vets are available either via Aegis or via Campaign Verify (where you need to request the vetting independently and then import the vet into your brand, for more information please check this document).

Note:

• Campaign Verify vets can only be imported into a brand once
• Political vets only unlock the political use case campaign (with the highest possible throughput)
  • If you need to register other campaign use cases, you will still be required to have a standard or enhanced vet, which will assign a vetting score to your brand

Enhanced Vetting

The Aegis vetting provider offers the option to request an enhanced vetting. This vet will automatically involve manual verification of your brand information, as well as investigations towards financial and judicial information related to the brand and company owning the brand. A in-depth PDF report is produced as a result, alongside a vetting score.

Cost of the external vetting

Applying for external vetting is a review of your application by an external company. The Campaign Registry directly works with a set of vetting companies approved for 10DLC.

Porting vetting

If you want to migrate from one supplier to another, you will be required to register and verify your brand(s) again. It is unfortunately not possible to transfer existing brands, vets or campaigns from one supplier to another.

Note:

• If you are likely to use several supplier or might want to switch suppliers often, we recommend you to become a "CSP" with TCR (The Campaign Registry), allowing you to register your brand(s) and campaign(s) directly with TCR, and then share the campaign(s) with the specific supplier you wish to use at that point in time. See this article for more.

Importing vetting

If you have gone through vetting directly via Campaign Verify and wish to import that vetting into your brand, you are able to do so via our Public API.

T-Mobile Special Business Review

T-Mobile will assign a rating to your 10DLC brand, which will have a designated daily limit of throughput. If you require additional throughput, you can apply for a special business review process with T-mobile.

Please make sure you complete the $40 external vetting that is available through the customer dashboard first before applying for a special business review request.

Cost: $5000 (this fee is currently waived by T-mobile during their grace period)

If you wish to apply for brand vetting with T-Mobile, please submit a support request.

How to Apply for Vetting:

Navigate to Brands and Campaigns and click on the Brand:

Click on Apply for external vetting:

Failed Vetting

A vetting may fail for several reasons:

• The information provided on the brand do not match the official records that were checked by the vetting agency
• There was not sufficient evidence or records found by the vetting agency to determine the brand vetting score
• The vetting agency found evidence of misconduct from that company in the past

What to do to fix it?

• The first step is to double check that all the information provided is correct and correspond to the information stored on the official records of the country where the entity is headquartered
• If the information is known to be valid, reach out to customer support or your account manager to appeal the decision, you need to provide supporting evidence.
• You may try to request an Enhanced vetting for a deeper investigation process to acquire the vetting (it will check court report, tax declarations etc.) - Coming soon

Vetting Appeals

When you apply for a vetting, you need to select the vetting agency, as well as the type of vetting you require. The vetting agencies will try to find corroborating evidence to the information you provided during your brand application, but sometimes, they are not able to access the information they need or not able to verify your brand information. It can result in a lower vetting score than you were expecting.

Do not panic, when this happens, please just open a new ticket to our support team, providing them with the following information:

• 10DLC brand ID
• Vonage (nexmo) customer API KEY
• Vetting score you expected & the vetting score you received
• Expected or Needed throughput
• Reason
• Official documentation to verify the information provided for the brand

Understand your Vetting Status

When proceeding to an external vetting of a brand for 10DLC, an external vetting provider will review the records of the entity being vetted to assign a vetting score which will help determine the throughputs of message you may send for the different carriers providing service to your subscribers.

This is the list of the possible vetting statuses and their description:

• Pending
  Your vetting request is being processed by the vetting provider
• Unscore
  Still pending, your request requires a manual review by the vetting provider
• Active
  Your vetting has been approved, the vetting score has been applied to your brand
• Failed
  The information provided could not be verified. You can check the reason provided for the failed vetting. Please check the "Failed Vetting" section for more information on how to proceed
• Expired
  Your vetting has expired; please proceed to a new vetting request to continue using your existing 10DLC campaigns or register a new 10DLC campaign