My contacts are getting a pop-up warning about charges when interacting with an SMS short code, what can I do?

My contacts are getting a pop-up warning about charges when interacting with an SMS short code, what can I do?

As you begin engaging with your target audience or contacts utilizing SMS short-codes, at one point in time the contacts may receive a pop up warning them about possible charges that they may incur.



This pop up message is a phone manufacturer's settings and is meant to warn the mobile phone owner that they are interacting with a premium service, that is, short code and this may result in a cost.

What can I do about it?

Ask Your Contacts to Allow Messaging with your SMS Short-code Service

As this is a phone manufacturer's setting, we have no control over that message as it comes up from the phone device itself. You could prompt your contacts to select "remember my choice" and proceed to send the message. This means that any time the contact receives a message from a short-code and attempts to reply, the phone recognizes that the contact had opted to send the message the last time and the alert will not pop up




Reassure Your Contacts on the Charges They Should Expect

  1. If you are working with a Toll free SMS Short-code,  you reiterate to your customers in the first messages that goes out to them that all messaging is free.
  2. If you are working with an SMS Short-code services that charges your contacts when they engage with your organization, clearly communicate this as well. This can be done through the first messages that goes out to them.
  3. If you have in person enrollment process for your SMS engagements, this reassurance of SMS charges can be more in-person or have a personal touch from employees within your organization or by members of your team.
Have another question? Send us an email at support@echomobile.org or for a quick connection to us, click on the support chat box if you are logged into your account!

    • Related Articles

    • Getting Started with SMS Channel

      The Echo platform is a cloud-based software system that enables organizations to engage their most important stakeholders through scalable SMS, USSD, and voice communication.  The platform’s web interface generates actionable data and analytics from ...
    • My contacts cannot send SMS messages to the short code

      When interacting with your target audience via mobile communications through surveys and quizzes, notice or inbox conversations: ultimately the goal is for an SMS message to get delivered, and for contacts to respond to the SMS message in order to ...
    • Can an SMS from a short-code display a name instead of the short code number?

      It is possible to get a short code that displays a company name (called an alphanumeric number or a sender ID) with an option known as MASKED SMS.  It is important to note that this can only work for one way messaging which are notices. Contacts will ...
    • What is the difference between a SMS Shared Short-Code vs SMS Private Short-Code?

      20788(Kenya) and 6116(Uganda) are our toll-free shared short-codes. These are common short codes shared among many of our clients. These short codes are used by several organizations, each with up to five keywords that they can use to associate their ...
    • Getting Started with Groups and Contacts

      Groups Begin using Echo by setting up a contact group. By grouping contacts  you can easily send to a predefined set, such as participants of different projects, clients in different regions, or owners of different projects.Creating groups is ...