Quick access:

• Basic verification
• Brand vetting
• T-Mobile Special Business Reviews (SBR)
• Specific verification requirements

 

The 10DLC regulation requires all brands registered to be verified before they can apply for a 10DLC campaign. There are three levels of verification for 10DLC brands.

 

 

Basic verification

The verification takes place at the brand registration. A vetting provider checks against the information provided against the official records to confirm that the company exists and is officially registered. The cost of your brand verification is part of the brand registration fee of $4.

 

In recent months, the vetting provider that The Campaign Registry (TCR) uses to perform the basic verification of your 10DLC brands has been experiencing regular downtimes. In order to reduce errors and simplify the registration process, we have uncoupled the brand creation and the brand verification phases. This means that newly created brands will now show a new “pending” status until the vetting provider has been able to assess the brand and determine its identity status as either “verified” or “unverified”.

 

This table outlines the different campaign use cases you can register depending on your brand identity status and brand entity type:

 

Brand Identity Status	Brand Entity Type	Definition	Allowed Use Cases
Pending	Sole Proprietor Private Profit Public Profit Non-Profit Government	The brand has been created and the information provided is being verified by TCR's vetting provider partner	None
Unverified	Sole Proprietor Private Profit Public Profit Non-Profit Government	The brand information could not be verified. Please request an external vetting for a more in-depth investigation to verify your brand	None
Verified	Sole Proprietor	Your brand information is valid and you completed the OTP verification	Sole Proprietor
Verified	Private Profit Public Profit Non-Profit Government	Your brand information has been verified	Low Volume Mixed
Vetted Verified	Private Profit Public Profit Non-Profit Government	Your brand has successfully been vetted. Your brand has been assigned a vetting score	All (additional approvals may be required)

 

Note:

• Updating your 10DLC brand details may cause the brand identity status to revert to "unverified" and require you to re-verify the brand ($4 fee). Typically, changes to your brand entity type, EIN number, EIN issuing country and brand legal name, if allowed, will require you to re-verify the brand.
• Sole Proprietor brands require to complete an OTP verification to be verified

 

U.S. brands

If you have registered a private or public profit company, the EIN provided and the legal company name must match the official records that will be used to verify the information.

Ensure the following:

• For Non-Profit brands: The EIN must be tax-exempt, as confirmed by the IRS
• For Governmental brands: The EIN must match a government entity (US governmental agencies) 
• For international brands: Use the brand's home country information (Business number, VAT number or DUNS) alongside the address listed on the home country's official records

 

Canadian brands

Breaking Change:

On July 27th, The Campaign Registry (TCR) will switch to only accepting the Business Number (BN) rather than the Corporation/Incorporation/Registry ID numbers for Canadian Brand Registration. Until that time we will accept either the BN or the Corporation/Incorporation/Registry ID numbers. We will only accept the first 9 numeric digits of the BN (BN-9). Here is an example of the format of a BN where the bolded part is the part we will collect in the Canadian Brand.

 Tax/Corporation ID field: 123456789RT0001

All existing Canadian brands that did not complete their verification will be automatically re-assessed by The Campaign Registry (TCR) and their vetting provider partner at no additional cost to you.

 

 

Please use your provincial corporation number as your tax ID/EIN:

• Alberta corporation number
• Ontario corporation number (enter only the numbers after the first two leading zeros)
• British Columbia corporation number (make sure the 'BC' prefix is part of the number)
• Saskatchewan corporation number
• Nova Scotia corporation number
• Quebec corporation number
• Manitoba corporation number

If the verification fails with these IDs, you may alternatively use your federally-issued Canadian corporation number. Do not use your business number or federal tax ID number.

The address you enter should also match the address you registered with Corporations Canada.

 

Other brands (international)

The vetting provider uses information collected from different official registries in order to verify the brands. Unfortunately, many countries do not offer sufficient technological capabilities. This means that brands registered in those countries cannot automatically verify, and an external vetting will be required to register 10DLC campaigns.

 

The following countries are part of an "optimized approval list". Meaning that entities registered in those countries can benefit from an automated VAT identification. 

 

Use the numeric portion of your VAT ID. If you don't have a VAT ID, provide the primary corporation registration number or tax ID for your country. Here are some examples of correct tax numbers:

 

For any other country, TCR recommends using the primary corporation registration number or tax ID number for the country, and vetting will likely be required to verify the brand.

 

Failed verification

What should you do if your brand cannot be verified? The very first step is to double check all your brand details and ensure that they correspond to the public records available from the registry of your brand's country. We recommend to register 10DLC brands using the details of their headquarters (home country).

If your brand still cannot be verified, it is possible that the country of residence of your legal entity does not provide ways to automatically verify the information for the vetting providers. You must therefore request an external vetting.

 

Brand vetting

For most campaign use cases, your brand will be required to apply for an external vetting. Once a vetting score has been applied to the brand, the campaign use cases will be unlocked.

Vetting requests are processed by a vetting provider, currently The Campaign Registry (TCR) accepts vets from three vetting providers: Aegis, WMC and Campaign Verify (CV).

For Campaign Verify vets, you must reach out directly to CV to request the vetting. Once the vetting has been completed, you can import your vet into the 10DLC brand using our dashboard or public API.

 

Vetting classes

Standard vetting

A standard vet is the most common form of vetting that unlocks most campaign use cases.

 

Enhanced vetting

If you would like a more in-depth investigation of your brand that includes court records, legal disputes, tax declarations and other elements; you can request an enhanced vet. This vet will result in a PDF detailed report of the findings and explanation for the vetting score assigned. This vetting class involves manual work and will usually take longer to complete. This vetting class does not guarantee a higher vetting score.

 

Political vetting

If you are a non-profit, political organization based in the U.S., you may be required to request a political vet to register political campaigns. Additional information is required for a political vet application:

• First & last name of the candidate
• Locale (tribal, state or federal campaign)
• FEC committee type code, committee ID
• Candidate type
• State local committee type
• Local committee state (US for president), local committee municipality, tribal location
• Filing URL, filing record URL instruction, filing email
• Election date
• Pin preference

Note: The pin preference will determine the vetting cost for this vetting class

 

Vetting costs

Vetting Class	Validity	Vetting Provider	Delivery Method	Cost* ($/€)
Standard	No expiration	Aegis		40
		WMC		40
Enhanced	No expiration	Aegis		95
Political	12 months	Aegis	Standard post, Email	64
		Aegis	Priority post	91.95
		Campaign Verify		95

* All prices are expressed both in US Dollars or Euros, disregarding of conversion rates

 

Vetting status

When requesting an external vetting through our service, you can see the progression of your request via the vetting status

Vetting Status	Description
Pending	A temporary state, indicates the vetting request is pending
Unscore	A temporary state, indicates the vetting request is under review by the vetting provider. The vetting request is still pending
Active	A final state, indicates the vetting request is successfully processed
Failed	A final state, indicates the vetting request processing is failed
Expired	A final state, indicates the vetting request is expired. You will need to request a new vet to continue using your current campaigns or register new campaigns.

 

Improving the vetting score

If you are not happy with the vetting score assigned to your brand; we recommend that you make sure the information provided during the brand registration matches the official records for the home country of your business.

Typically, businesses and organizations that have been officially registered less than a year ago will be assigned a low vetting score. This will allow the entity to use 10DLC whilst giving more time for the industry to gather evidence that the brand is acting in good faith and behaves appropriately. 

10DLC brands may request a new vet 6-12 months after the last vetting to try and increase their vetting score. Please note that our partners recommend that brands wait at least a year between vetting requests, and do not guarantee that the new vetting score will be higher than the previous one.

 

Vetting appeals & failed vetting

A vetting request can fail for several reasons:

• The information provided on your brand could not be matched with any of the records available
• There was not sufficient evidence or records found to determine a vetting score
• The vetting provider found evidence of past misconduct

What to do to fix it?

First, ensure the brand details provided match the official records of the brand's country. If you know the information to be correct, you can reach out to your account manager or open a support request, providing the following information:

• Your 10DLC brand ID
• Your Vonage account API key
• The vetting score you expected as well as the vetting score your brand was assigned
• The reason you would like to appeal the decision
• Attach any official documentation you possess, to verify your brand information

We will reach out to the vetting provider on your behalf and make an appeal to the vetting result.

 

Coming in October on the API:

From October 2023, customers will be able to submit vetting appeals for:

• Failed vets
• Successful vets with a vetting score too low

Submitting an vetting appeal is currently only possible via the API endpoint, we are working to add the feature to the Dashboard in 2024.

 

Notes: 

• Appeals can only be submitted for standard vets processed by Aegis for now
• Appeals can only be submitted within 45 days of the vetting request being completed by Aegis
• All appeals are charged a flat $10 fee, disregarding of the outcome of the appeal

Please check our 10DLC API description for details on how to make submit the appeal. - Coming soon

 

Importing vetting records

If you have requested a vetting with Campaign Verify (CV) and wish to import the vetting records into your 10DLC brand, you can use our dashboard or public API.

 

T-Mobile Special Business Reviews (SBR)

If you would like to request higher daily throughput limitations for subscribers terminating to T-Mobile, you can apply for a special business review. This review process requires your 10DLC brand to be vetted (all the vetting classes are compatible). If you would like to proceed, please reach out to your account manager or submit a support request.

Note: T-Mobile aims to charge $5000 for this review. This fee is currently waived

 

 

Specific verification requirements

Non-profit brands

A non-profit brand is required to register a charity campaign.

In order to register a political campaign, your brand must be a non-profit organization registered in the United States. In many cases, an external political vet will be required.

 

Sole proprietor brands (U.S. & Canada only)

Sole proprietor brands need to be verified to be able to apply for a sole proprietor campaign. 

Please check this article to verify your sole proprietor brand.

 

Others

For some campaign use cases, additional approvals from Vonage and the carriers will be required after the registration of the campaign:

Carrier exemptions, Agents & franchise, Proxy, Emergency, Social, Sweepstakes

 

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