[VoiceOps] SMS Confirmation Messages just... Stopped

Peter Beckman beckman at angryox.com
Wed Feb 17 01:41:27 EST 2016


After a customer came to us asking "Hey, we used to get SMS confirmations
from our bank, but now we don't" we looked into things a bit.

Turns out SMS messages came from this set of Canadian DIDs, a mix of Fido
Communications and Rogers Wireless numbers:

 	DID              SMSes since Oct 10, 2015
 	+1 416-831-8764     17
 	+1 416-832-0534     22
 	+1 416-832-9571     10
 	+1 416-833-0513     11
 	+1 514-549-6142     20
 	+1 514-562-4790     14
 	+1 613-219-5798     17
 	+1 613-252-8695     13
 	+1 613-255-6723     16
 	+1 613-255-6948     16
 	+1 613-255-8743     11
 	+1 613-262-1558      7
 	+1 613-262-5338     12
 	+1 613-262-5944     10
 	+1 613-262-8114     11
 	+1 613-291-3026     17
 	+1 613-614-1453     13
 	+1 613-697-8730     13
 	+1 613-890-6922     19
 	+1 647-686-2308     11
 	+1 647-818-2312     18

24 customers receive SMS messages from one or more of these entities to
either log into their account (Two Factor Authentication) or get important
notifications about their business with these companies. The SMS
Confirmation Messages seem to have came from multiple sources across these
numbers:

     * GrubHub
     * PayPal
     * Singapore Airlines
     * Citibank
     * Healthcare.Gov
     * KrisFlyer
     * Facebook
     * TicketMaster
     * Square
     * Thumbtack

They came in every now and then as one might expect. But then, after
January 16, 2016, they stopped.

I assume that since there were multiple entities sending outbound SMS
messages from Canada numbers that there was a single service/entity behind
all of those confirmation messages.

I have two theories --

     1. They moved to Short Codes, which our non-wireless numbers cannot
        receive (thank you Incumbent wireless carriers - sarcasm dripping
        thank you)

     2. Their DIDs got shut down for use outside of the Terms & Conditions

Does anyone know anything about such a service? Why all of the SMS messages
stopped on that one day?

Beckman
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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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