Acceptable use policy

Purpose of this policy

This Acceptable Use Policy explains what you can and can't do with Talkwish. It's part of our Terms of Service, so by using Talkwish you agree to follow it. In this policy, "Talkwish," "we," "us" and "our" mean Nactus Technologies Pvt Ltd, and "you" means anyone who uses a Talkwish account, and for a business account, also the business.

Talkwish is for real conversations between people. Phone carriers hold providers like us responsible for the calls and texts we send to their networks, and they block numbers, and sometimes whole providers, that send spam or fraud. These rules keep Talkwish numbers working for everyone and protect the people you call and text.

This policy covers everything you do with the service, including calls, texts, picture messages, voicemail and call recordings. You're responsible for all activity on your account. If this policy and the Terms of Service ever conflict, the Terms of Service control.

Personal and business accounts

The Free plan is for personal use by one person. You can use it to call and text your own friends, family and other contacts, one conversation at a time. It isn't for businesses, teams or organizations, or for calls and texts made on their behalf.

Paid plans are for businesses. A business's users can call and text for the business: talking with customers, suppliers and coworkers, and sending account notices or reminders written by a person. The business is responsible for what its users do.

One person per login. A Free account is used only by its owner. On a business account, each seat is used by one person, signed in as themselves.
No bulk or automated messaging. Every message must be written and sent by a person, apart from auto-replies you set up for yourself (see texting rules).
Our apps only. You can use Talkwish only through our own apps and any developer tools we offer for your plan.
No reselling. You can't resell, rent or share the service or your numbers with anyone outside your account.

Prohibited uses

You may not use Talkwish, or let anyone else use your account, to do any of the following. The examples in each group aren't a complete list.

Commercial misuse

use a Free account for a business or organization, including sales, marketing, customer service, surveys or fundraising;
send automated notifications, alerts or verification codes from any account, or texts sent by software rather than a person;
run a call center, telemarketing campaign, debt collection or lead generation operation; or
resell, rent or share the service or your numbers, or provide them to anyone outside your account.

Spam and unwanted contact

send spam or marketing or promotional texts of any kind, or make marketing calls from a Free account;
make robocalls, or use autodialers, prerecorded or artificial voice messages (including voices made with AI), or software that places calls or sends texts automatically;
send bulk messages, or send the same or a similar message to many people;
leave ringless voicemails, or drop messages into voicemail without the phone ringing;
call or text numbers from lists that were bought, rented, scraped or collected without consent; or
keep calling or texting someone who has asked you to stop.

Fraud and deception

spoof caller ID, send false or misleading caller ID or sender information, or rotate through numbers to get around blocking, limits or a person's request to stop;
impersonate any person, business or government agency, or pretend to be Talkwish, including with your username or display name;
commit fraud, run scams or phishing by call or text, or trick people into handing over money, passwords, codes or personal information; or
ask people for one-time passcodes or account recovery codes for accounts that aren't yours.

Harmful or illegal content

harass, threaten, stalk, bully or intimidate anyone;
send or store illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, which we report to the authorities as the law requires;
send content that threatens or promotes violence against people or groups, or that promotes terrorism;
send sexually explicit content to anyone who hasn't agreed to receive it, or to anyone under 18;
send content that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights; or
send malware, viruses, or links to harmful or deceptive websites.

Misusing numbers and the network

verify accounts on other services in bulk, or create accounts elsewhere with Talkwish numbers to get around their rules or limits;
use Talkwish numbers to get around a ban, block or suspension, on Talkwish or any other service, including signing up again after we've closed your account;
take part in traffic pumping or toll fraud, such as calls or texts made to generate fees or inflate traffic, calls to premium or high-cost numbers to earn a share of the charges, or one-ring calls meant to trick people into calling back expensive numbers;
reach Talkwish through scripts, bots or other automated tools, or interfere with or disrupt our network, systems or other users;
probe or test our security, or try to get around our usage limits, blocking or other protections; or
break any law or regulation, or help or allow anyone else to do any of these things.

Texting rules

You can text other Talkwish users in the app, and picture messages work only in the app, between Talkwish users. Texting regular phone numbers, including business texting with customers, is coming soon. These rules apply to every text you send with Talkwish, and when texting phone numbers becomes available, they apply to those texts too.

Carriers in the US and Canada check the texts that reach their networks, and they filter or block texts that break their rules. Texts that break these rules may not be delivered, and carriers, not just Talkwish, may block the number that sent them.

Write your own messages

Every text must be typed and sent by you, to people you know or are in a conversation with.
No auto-texting. Software, scripts, bots and scheduled or repetitive mass messages aren't allowed.
The only automatic messages allowed are auto-replies you set up for yourself, such as "Driving, can't talk," once Talkwish offers them.
Send texts at a human pace. Large numbers of texts in a short time, or the same text to many people, look like spam to carriers and may be blocked. They can also trigger the safety limits on your account.

Text only people who want to hear from you

Replying to someone, or texting a person who gave you their number, is fine.
No marketing or promotional texts, even with the recipient's consent. That includes sales offers, coupons and announcements sent to customers.
On a business account, text only people who have agreed to hear from your business or who texted you first. Before your first text to a new number, you'll be asked to confirm the person agreed, and we keep a record of that.
Link only to your own website, never through a free public link shortener.
Don't text numbers from lists that were bought, rented, scraped or collected without consent.

Honor opt-outs

When someone replies STOP, or asks you to stop in any other way, such as "unsubscribe," "cancel," "quit" or "don't text me," stop texting them right away.
Don't text them again unless they clearly opt back in, for example by replying START. If someone replies HELP, answer them yourself and tell them who you are.
Carriers or our providers may automatically block your texts to anyone who has replied STOP.
On a business account, a STOP reply stops texts from all of the business's numbers to that person, and HELP gets an automatic reply with the business's name and how to reach it.

Texting 911

Texting 911 isn't supported. If you text 911 from Talkwish, the text won't reach emergency services. Call 911 from a phone that can reach it.

Content carriers block

Don't send SHAFT content. Carriers filter texts that promote or sell sex, hate, alcohol, firearms or tobacco (including vaping), known as SHAFT content. They also filter promotions for cannabis and CBD, gambling, high-risk loans, debt relief and get-rich-quick offers. Don't send any of these with Talkwish. Use full links to websites rather than free public link shorteners, which carriers often block.

Calling rules

Free accounts are for personal calls only. On a business account, your users can make calls for your business, including sales calls placed by a person, but call centers, dialing campaigns and other high-volume outbound calling aren't allowed on any plan. Every call must also follow the law, including:

In the US: the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the FCC's rules under it, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the Truth in Caller ID Act, and state telemarketing and calling laws.
In Canada: the CRTC Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules, which include the National Do Not Call List (DNCL) rules and limits on automatic dialing and announcing devices.

In practice, that means:

Respect do-not-call rules. Never make marketing calls from a Free account. On a business account, your business is responsible for following telemarketing rules: check the US National Do Not Call Registry and Canada's National DNCL before sales calls, keep your own do-not-call list, call only at permitted times, and say who you are and who you're calling for. If someone asks you not to call them again, stop.
No robocalls and no autodialers. Calls with prerecorded or artificial voices, including AI-generated voices, and calls placed by an autodialer or any other software that dials numbers automatically aren't allowed on Talkwish, even where the law would allow them with consent.
Use your real caller ID. Your calls to regular phone numbers show your Talkwish number. Don't try to make them show a different number, and don't switch between numbers to get around blocking or limits. Forwarded calls arrive on your other phone from your Talkwish number, so you can tell them apart from your regular calls.

Fair use

The Free plan is for normal personal conversations by one person, and paid plans are for normal business calling by the people using each seat. Our pricing page shows what each plan includes.

Paid plans include a fair-use allowance of 1,200 minutes per user a month on Standard and 2,000 on Pro for calls with regular phone numbers, shared across the business's account. Every leg of a call over the phone network counts, including calls you answer, so a forwarded call counts twice. Calls between Talkwish users don't count. Beyond the allowance, usage is charged from prepaid credit at the rates on our pricing page, or we may limit it.
Every account has daily usage and safety limits that help prevent fraud and abuse. We don't publish the exact limits. If one gets in the way of normal use, email support@talkwish.com.

These are not allowed on any plan:

business use of a Free account;
autodialers, robocalls, prerecorded or artificial voice messages, or ringless voicemail;
high-volume outbound calling, such as call centers, dialing campaigns or lead generation;
reselling the service or providing it to anyone outside your account;
bulk or automated messaging, including texts sent by software or scripts;
using the service as a permanent conference bridge, or keeping lines open around the clock; and
unusual patterns that indicate abuse, such as large numbers of very short calls or messages to many different numbers.

If your use is far above what's typical for our customers, or looks like one of the uses above, we may contact you about it, move you to a plan that fits your use, or limit or suspend your account. The fair use section of our Terms says the same.

Call recording laws

Call recording is a setting on each Talkwish number, called Record calls. When it's on, every call on that number is recorded. There's no button to start or stop a recording during a call, and Talkwish doesn't play a recording announcement. Telling people and getting their consent is up to you: you're responsible for following all recording and wiretap laws that apply to your calls, as our Terms explain.

Some US states require everyone on the call to agree before it's recorded. Others allow recording when one person on the call agrees.
In Canada, privacy laws may require you to tell people and get their consent.
When the people on a call are in different places, the stricter law may apply.
Get consent wherever it's required. If someone doesn't want to be recorded, end the call, or turn off Record calls before you call them again.
Don't share recordings in ways that break the law or someone's privacy, or use them to harass or embarrass anyone.
On a business account, the business must also tell its employees when their calls are recorded or transcribed, and, once AI call summaries are offered, when summaries are made, wherever the law requires it.

We can't give you legal advice. If you're not sure which laws apply to you, check with a lawyer.

How we enforce this policy

We use automated limits, reports from people and carriers, and our own reviews to spot spam, fraud and other abuse. When we look into a possible violation, we may review your account details and your call and message records, as our Privacy Policy describes.

Depending on how serious the problem is, we may:

warn you and ask you to change what you're doing;
block specific calls or messages;
limit your calling or texting, for example by lowering your daily limits or pausing texting;
ask for more information about how you use your account;
suspend or close your account;
reclaim your number; and
report what happened to carriers, industry groups that trace illegal calls, regulators or law enforcement, where the law requires it or where we believe it's needed to protect people.

Where it's reasonable, we'll tell you before we act and give you a chance to fix the problem. We may act right away when there's a risk of serious harm, such as fraud, spam or a threat to someone's safety, or when the law or a carrier requires it.

If we suspend or close your account for breaking this policy, we don't refund your plan or prepaid credit, except where the law requires. If a carrier or regulator fines us or charges us a penalty because of how you used your account, you may be responsible for it under the indemnity section of our Terms.

If you think we've made a mistake, email support@talkwish.com and we'll take another look.

Reporting abuse

If you get spam, a scam, threats or other unwanted calls or messages from a Talkwish user or a Talkwish number, please tell us. Email support@talkwish.com with:

the Talkwish username or number that called or messaged you;
the date and time it happened, and your time zone;
your username, or the number that received the call or text; and
what happened, including a copy or screenshot of any message.

We'll look into it. For privacy reasons, we may not be able to tell you what action we took.

If you're in danger, call 911 from a mobile phone or landline. If you've been the victim of a crime, such as fraud or threats, you can also report it to your local police. In the US, you can report unwanted calls to the FTC or the FCC. In Canada, you can report them to the National Do Not Call List.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the law, carrier rules or Talkwish change. When we do, we'll post the new version on this page and update the version and effective date at the top. Significant changes follow the notice rules in Changes to these terms.

Questions about this policy? Email support@talkwish.com.