Anti-Spam & Responsible Messaging Policy

1. At a glance

• Send only to people you have a lawful basis or permission to contact. Never use purchased, rented or scraped lists.
• Before every bulk campaign you must confirm that you have that authorisation or lawful basis. The confirmation is recorded.
• Label every campaign honestly as promotional or transactional. Promotional campaigns are not sent during quiet hours.
• Identify yourself clearly, keep content accurate, and give recipients an easy way to stop promotional messages.
• Opt-outs, abuse reports, network blocks and regulatory restrictions are suppressed across the platform, and you cannot override them.
• Keep records of consent and provide them when asked.

2. Purpose and scope

People in Bangladesh receive a large number of unwanted and fraudulent SMS. Every unwanted message makes it harder for genuine businesses to be trusted, and it increases complaints, operator blocks and regulatory pressure on everyone who sends SMS.

This policy sets out the rules and good practice for sending messages through SMSGELY. It applies to all messages sent from your account, whether through the dashboard, the API or any integration. It forms part of our Terms of Service and should be read together with the Acceptable Use Policy, the Prohibited Content Policy and the Sender ID Policy.

Requirements in this policy are written as "must". Items marked as "recommended" are good practice that we strongly encourage. Telecom providers, mobile operators and regulators may impose stricter rules, and where they do, those rules apply.

3. Consent and lawful basis

You must have a lawful basis or permission to contact every recipient. In practice:

• Transactional messages — the recipient must have given you their number in connection with the transaction, service or relationship the message is about. For example, a customer who placed an order can receive delivery updates.
• Promotional messages — the recipient should have clearly agreed to receive marketing messages from you, after being told what kind of messages they will receive. Examples include ticking an unticked box on a form, signing up at your shop counter, or sending you a keyword.

Consent is specific to your business. It cannot be bought, sold, rented, shared or transferred to another business. Consent to receive transactional messages is not consent to receive promotional messages.

4. Building and keeping a good list

You must not use purchased, rented, scraped, harvested or randomly generated contact lists, or lists that were otherwise obtained unlawfully or are used where prohibited. Numbers collected for one purpose must not be reused for an unrelated purpose without a lawful basis.

To build a list properly:

• collect numbers directly from the people concerned, through your website, app, shop, events or customer service;
• tell people, at the point of collection, who you are, what messages they will receive and roughly how often;
• record when, where and how each number was collected and what the person agreed to;
• import only numbers for which you hold that record.

To keep your list healthy:

• remove numbers that repeatedly fail, or that people tell you are wrong or no longer in use;
• remove duplicates and test with a small group before a large campaign;
• add opt-outs you receive outside SMSGELY to your block list as soon as possible;
• recommended: stop sending promotional messages to people who have not engaged with you for a long time.

5. The campaign confirmation

Before every bulk campaign, you must confirm the following statement:

"I confirm that I have the necessary authorization or lawful basis to send these messages to the selected recipients and that my campaign complies with SMSGELY's messaging policies and applicable requirements."

This confirmation is recorded together with the time, the policy version, the language shown and your IP address. It forms part of the campaign record and cannot be deleted by you. For bulk sending through the API, the equivalent commitment is given when the API key is created, under the Acceptable Use Policy.

Please read the statement carefully each time. Confirming it when it is not true is a serious breach of this policy.

6. Promotional and transactional messages

Every campaign must be labelled as promotional or transactional.

If a message mixes transactional and promotional content, treat it as promotional. Labelling a promotional campaign as transactional — for example to avoid quiet hours, DND preferences or review — is prohibited and may lead to suspension.

7. Quiet hours and sending frequency

7.1 Quiet hours

Promotional campaigns are not sent during quiet hours. By default, quiet hours run from 00:00 to 06:00 Bangladesh time (Asia/Dhaka). A promotional campaign cannot be scheduled inside this window, and promotional messages that fall due inside it are held until the window ends. SMSGELY may change the window, for example to reflect regulatory or provider requirements.

Time-critical transactional messages that the recipient is waiting for, such as OTPs, security alerts and delivery updates, may be sent at any time.

Recommended: send promotional messages between 09:00 and 20:00 Bangladesh time, and take local events, prayer times and holidays into account. Messages that arrive late at night are far more likely to cause complaints.

7.2 Frequency

Be considerate about how often you contact people:

• send only as often as recipients were told to expect when they signed up;
• recommended: avoid sending more than one promotional message to the same person on the same day;
• watch for rising opt-outs and complaints, and reduce frequency if they increase.

Operators and regulators may set limits on the number of promotional messages a person receives. Where such a limit applies to your traffic, you must follow it, and we may enforce it through review or sending limits.

8. Identification and honesty

Recipients must be able to tell who a message is from. You must:

• identify your business clearly, through your approved Sender ID or by name in the message;
• use only Sender IDs and brand names you are authorised to use (see the Sender ID Policy);
• keep content accurate — no false claims, hidden charges or misleading prices;
• never create false urgency, such as invented deadlines, fake threats of account closure or false legal warnings;
• never ask recipients to reply with passwords, PINs, OTPs or card details.

9. Opt-outs and suppression

9.1 Your obligations

• Honour opt-out requests promptly, however they reach you — a reply, a phone call, an email, a message on social media or a request in person.
• Recommended, and required where applicable law or provider rules demand it: include a simple way to opt out in every promotional message, for example "To stop these messages, call 09XXXXXXXXX", or a short instruction to reply where replies are supported.
• Add opt-outs you receive outside SMSGELY to your block list in the dashboard.
• Never re-add a person who has opted out without fresh, documented consent.

9.2 Platform suppression

SMSGELY keeps a platform-wide suppression list and a suppression list for each account. They include:

• opt-outs;
• numbers reported for abuse;
• network and provider blocks; and
• regulatory restrictions.

These numbers are skipped on every sending path, including the dashboard, scheduled campaigns and the API. You cannot remove numbers from platform suppression. You can manage only your own block list.

10. Do Not Disturb (DND)

Mobile operators in Bangladesh offer a Do Not Disturb (DND) service that lets subscribers choose not to receive promotional messages. You must respect it:

• promotional SMS must not be used to get around a subscriber's DND preference;
• transactional labels must not be misused to reach DND subscribers with promotional content;
• operators may block or filter messages to DND subscribers, and SMSGELY cannot override this.

We do not offer, and you must not attempt, any way to reach DND subscribers with promotional messages.

11. Content standards

• Write clearly and plainly, and make the purpose of the message obvious.
• When a message is in the Bangla language, write it in Bangla script rather than Bangla written in English letters. Some message types, such as OTPs and brand names, may contain English.
• Do not use misleading urgency, threats or alarming language to pressure recipients.
• Do not use obfuscated text, look-alike characters or deliberate misspellings to get past content checks.
• Political and election messaging requires prior written approval from SMSGELY and any approval required by law. See the Prohibited Content Policy.
• Content must also comply with the Prohibited Content Policy.

Note that Bangla text uses Unicode encoding, so each SMS part holds fewer characters than English text. Check the number of parts before sending a large campaign.

12. Links

• Use your own recognisable domain that recipients can associate with your business.
• Make sure the link goes where the message says it goes, and that the destination is safe and lawful.
• Avoid link shorteners and redirects that hide the destination. Messages with shortened links, look-alike domains, raw IP addresses or hidden destinations may be flagged, held for review or blocked.
• Do not rotate links or domains to get around checks.

13. Record keeping

You must keep records that show you are sending responsibly, and provide them promptly if we, a provider, an operator or an authority asks. These include:

• records of consent: the date, source, the wording shown to the person and what they agreed to;
• opt-out requests and the date you actioned them;
• the content and recipient lists of your campaigns.

Keep these records for as long as applicable law requires and for as long as you may need to show compliance. SMSGELY keeps delivery reports, message logs and campaign confirmations for the periods described in our Privacy Policy, but these do not replace your own consent records.

14. Complaints and abuse reports

Recipients can report unwanted or abusive messages at /report-abuse. We review reports and may add reported numbers to our suppression list. A pattern of complaints is one of the signals we use to assess an account.

If we receive a complaint about your messages, we may ask you to explain how the recipient's number was obtained and to provide your consent records. Please respond promptly. See the Abuse Reporting Policy for how reports are handled.

15. Enforcement

We use layered controls, including campaign review, content and link checks, rate and daily limits, suppression lists and risk monitoring based on a combination of signals. No single keyword on its own leads to a ban, and no automated check catches every problem, so your own care remains essential.

If this policy is breached, we may hold or reject campaigns, block messages, require proof of consent, issue warnings, restrict features or limits, suspend Sender IDs, or suspend or terminate the account, as described in the Acceptable Use Policy and the Account Suspension Policy. Where a held campaign is not approved, nothing is sent and the reserved funds are returned to your wallet.

16. Changes and language

We may update this policy to reflect changes in law, regulation or provider requirements, or new risks. The current version and its effective date are always shown on this page.

This policy is published in English and Bangla. If the two versions conflict, the version designated by SMSGELY after legal review applies.

17. Important notice

SMSGELY provides messaging infrastructure and related technology services. Customers remain responsible for message content, recipient lists, recipient consent, sender identity and authorisation, the legality of their campaigns, applicable marketing, telecom and data-protection obligations, and compliance with all applicable laws.

SMSGELY does not authorise unlawful use of the platform. SMSGELY operates subject to applicable laws, regulations, telecom-provider requirements and contractual restrictions. Delivery of any message depends on operators and providers and is not guaranteed.

Questions about this policy can be sent through our contact page.