How to Stop Text Messages
October 11, 2021
If you are a veteran who has received food assistance through Soldiers’ Angels Veteran Food Distributions in the past, than you may already be aware that our text messaging platform was recently down. This is the platform we use to send texts to veterans letting them know when registration is open to receive food, texts to remind them of upcoming events, and texts to call those registered on the waitlist.
The reason our system was down was totally preventable— too many people marked our messages as SPAM instead of asking to be removed from our list.
If you receive text messages from Soldiers’ Angels, please continue reading as this is incredibly important for all veterans we serve.
How to Get Removed Without Reporting Spam
- In the most recent text message you received from Soldiers’ Angels, reply with the word STOP. This will automatically unsubscribe you from our lists.
- Call or email us and let us know to remove you from the text message list. It may take a couple of business days for our team to get your number off the list, so you may receive one or two messages in the meantime, but we will get you removed. Call: 210-629-0020 or email: [email protected].
Why Our System Was Not Working
Commercial text messages, or mass text messaging, is monitored by the FCC through the CAN-SPAM Act. This means that our messages must meet regulations and restrictions in order to be delivered from our texting platform, through the carriers (ie., AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc.), to your phone.
Just like with reporting spam emails in your inbox will damage the email reputation of the sender, when you report text messages as spam texts, you are damaging the reputation of the sender. When too many spam complaints are filed against the sender of text messages, the carriers issue a block on the sender and do not allow messages to deliver to the consumers phone– in other words, your phone.
Last week, even though we send the same amount of text messages to the same growing list of veterans who registered to receive text message notifications about food assistance from Soldiers’ Angels, a block was put on Soldiers’ Angels texts due to too many spam complaints.
As you can imagine… this is a huge hurdle for the organization. We had to provide documents stating how we use text messages, provide details about how your names/numbers get on our list, and then wait for the carriers to review everything and lift the block. In total, our system was blocked for 6 days. In that time, we had two registrations for food distributions that were not able to go out via text, reminders for another food distribution that were unable to be sent, and a waitlist for one distribution that is in risk of not being able to be sent.
This hurts all of you and all of your brothers and sisters in arms that are also in need of food.
We understand that there could be any number of reasons why you may no longer wish to receive our text messages. Perhaps you moved or you no longer need the support. If that ever becomes the case, please use the two very simple methods outlined at the beginning of this blog to let us know to remove you from the text list without reporting the texts as spam on your phone.
We have also written more detailed resources about our text messaging which you can review here:
