Acceptable Use Policy

1. Purpose & Scope

eSMS Africa operates direct and partner messaging routes across the African continent. Access to these routes is a privilege extended to businesses that send legitimate, consented traffic to the recipients they serve. This policy applies to every customer, reseller, sub-account, API key and SMPP bind on the platform, and to every message submitted through them, regardless of destination.

By onboarding, testing traffic or sending a single message through eSMS Africa, you agree to this AUP on behalf of yourself and every downstream user of your account.

2. Onboarding, Traffic Declaration & Testing

Customers are onboarded against a declared traffic type and use case (for example: one-time passwords, transactional alerts, or opted-in marketing). During onboarding, traffic is tested and approved against that declaration. Approval of a test does not authorise a change in traffic type, volume profile, content category or destination mix afterwards.

You must send only the type of traffic you were approved for. Materially changing your traffic after approval - in content, pattern, sender identity or destination - without our written agreement is a violation of this policy, even if your earlier tests were approved.

3. Consent & Opt-out

You are solely responsible for obtaining and retaining a lawful basis to message every recipient, and for honouring opt-out requests promptly. You must not message recipients who have not consented where consent is required, must not purchase or scrape recipient lists, and must include a working opt-out mechanism where the law or the traffic type requires one.

4. Prohibited Traffic & Content

The following is prohibited on eSMS Africa routes regardless of destination, sender or account tier:

• Spam - unsolicited bulk or commercial messaging to recipients without a lawful basis or consent.
• Phishing and smishing - messages designed to deceive recipients into revealing credentials, OTPs, card or banking details, or into visiting fraudulent sites.
• Fraud and scams - advance-fee fraud, fake prizes and lotteries, impersonation of banks, operators, government or other brands, investment and crypto scams, and social-engineering attacks.
• Malware and malicious links - links or attachments that distribute malware, or that lead to credential-harvesting or fraudulent destinations.
• Illegal content - anything unlawful in the sender's or recipient's jurisdiction, including child sexual abuse material, incitement to violence, and messaging that breaches sanctions.
• Prohibited categories - traffic promoting content that is restricted or barred by the destination operator or regulator (for example certain gambling, adult, political or high-risk financial promotions) unless expressly pre-approved in writing.
• Deceptive sender identity - spoofed, misleading or unregistered sender IDs, or sender IDs that impersonate a third party.

5. Prohibited Technical Practices

Independent of content, the following practices are prohibited because they harm operators, subscribers or the wider ecosystem:

• Routing traffic over grey routes, SIM boxes or any unauthorised interconnect to bypass an operator's official A2P channel or pricing.
• Artificial or artificially-inflated traffic (AIT) - generating OTP or verification traffic to phone numbers for the purpose of inflating message volumes and fees.
• Sender ID or originator spoofing, header manipulation, or disguising the true origin or nature of traffic.
• Attempting to circumvent our filters, throttles, monitoring or content controls, or probing the platform for weaknesses without authorisation.
• Reselling or sharing access in a way that hides the true originator of traffic from us or from operators.

6. Sender IDs

Where a destination country or operator requires sender ID pre-registration, you must use only registered, approved sender IDs and must not send under an identity you are not authorised to use. Using another organisation's brand, or an unregistered alphanumeric where registration is mandatory, is a violation of this policy and of operator rules.

7. Monitoring

We monitor traffic against the agreed traffic type and this policy using automated systems and manual review, including content and pattern analysis, complaint signals and operator feedback. Monitoring is a protective measure for the ecosystem; it does not transfer responsibility for your content to us. You remain solely responsible for every message sent through your account.

8. Enforcement & Immediate Action

When we identify traffic that violates this policy, we act to protect subscribers, operators and the platform. Depending on the severity, this may include any of the following, with or without prior notice:

• Real-time filtering, throttling or blocking of the offending traffic.
• Immediate suspension of the affected API keys, SMPP connections and sender IDs.
• Permanent termination of the affected credentials and account.

For spam, phishing, fraud or any traffic that puts our operator relationships or African subscribers at risk, suspension or termination may be immediate and without prior notice. We do not owe advance warning before protecting the network from abuse.

9. Account Balances & Refunds on Violation

Pre-paid credits are consumed to deliver messages and are non-refundable except where required by law or where eSMS Africa fails to deliver contracted services (see مدة الخدمة). Termination for a policy violation is a consequence of the customer's own breach; it is not a failure by eSMS Africa to provide services. Accordingly, a balance is not refunded simply because an account was terminated for sending prohibited traffic. This is a documented condition of using the platform, not a penalty imposed after the fact.

10. Operator Fines, Penalties & Liability

Abusive traffic can trigger fines, penalties, route suspensions or the loss of operator relationships that affect every customer on the platform. Where your traffic causes eSMS Africa to incur fines, penalties, charges or remediation costs from a mobile network operator, aggregator, regulator or other third party, you are liable for those amounts and agree to indemnify eSMS Africa for them, in addition to any forfeited balance. This is consistent with the indemnity in our مدة الخدمة.

11. Reinstatement

Termination for abuse is intended to be final. In limited cases we may, entirely at our discretion, consider reinstating an account after a documented review, additional verification and written undertakings about future traffic. Reinstatement is never guaranteed and does not restore a forfeited balance.

12. Reporting Abuse

If you have received a suspicious, fraudulent or unwanted message that appears to originate from our network, or you believe an account is abusing our routes, please report it to abuse@esmsafrica.io with the sender ID, message content and timestamp. We investigate every credible report and act quickly to protect subscribers.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may update this AUP to reflect new abuse patterns, operator requirements or legal obligations. Material changes will be posted on this page with a revised version and date. Continued use of the services after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

14. Contact