Acceptable use policy

1 What the service is for #

The ordinary reasons people rent a number, all of which are fine:

• Keeping a personal number off marketplaces, delivery apps and classified ads.
• Separating work accounts from personal ones without carrying two phones.
• Registering with a service that requires a local number in a country where you do not have one.
• Testing your own sign-up flow, including checking that your SMS actually arrives in the countries you sell to.

2 What is not allowed #

These end an account, and where the law requires it we cooperate with a valid request from an authority.

• Fraud of any kind, including obtaining money, credit, goods or accounts by deception.
• Impersonating a real person or organisation, or holding yourself out as someone you are not.
• Gaining access to an account that is not yours, or helping anyone else do so.
• Harassment, threats, stalking, or contacting someone who has asked not to be contacted.
• Anything involving minors, non-consensual material, or human trafficking.
• Bulk registration intended to manipulate a platform: fake reviews, vote rigging, spam networks, artificial engagement.
• Evading a ban, suspension or legal order imposed on you by a service or a court.
• Reselling access in a way that hides these rules from the people you resell to.

3 Where the line actually sits #

The distinction is not whether the number is virtual. It is whether anyone is being deceived about who they are dealing with.

Signing up to a marketplace with a number that is not your personal line deceives nobody: the marketplace wanted a contactable number and it has one. Opening fifty accounts to post fifty reviews deceives everyone who reads them. The first is fine. The second is not.

4 A service’s own rules are its own #

Some services permit virtual numbers and some prohibit them in their terms. Breaking such a clause is not a crime and we do not police it, but it can cost you the account — and that loss is yours, not ours.

We cannot promise any service will accept any number, as set out in the terms.

5 Technical limits #

• The API is limited to 600 requests a minute per account. Working around that limit with multiple accounts is a breach of this policy.
• Automated ordering is fine at any volume the catalogue supports; deliberately exhausting stock to deny it to others is not.
• Do not attempt to probe, scan or disrupt the site or its infrastructure. Responsible reports of a genuine security issue are welcome through live chat and will not be held against you.

6 How we enforce it #

We act on what we can see: patterns of ordering, payment behaviour, and reports we receive. We do not read the accounts you verify, because we have no access to them.

Consequences run from a warning to immediate closure, depending on what happened. A balance on an account closed for fraud is not refunded.

If you think we have got it wrong, say so through live chat. We would rather correct a mistake than defend one.