# BRD-121 — The support contact must be the end customer's, not the agency's

> The brand contact email must reach the business being registered, not the ISV, agency or reseller that filed the registration.

- **Rule ID:** BRD-121
- **Layer:** Brand (`BRAND`)
- **Checks:** `brand.email vs the registering tenant`
- **Severity:** HIGH — Rejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the submitted form
- **Fix type:** Fix the field — a better value in the form clears it
- **Required by:** Twilio
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-121/

## Why this rule exists

The contact address is where a carrier investigation and a consumer complaint land, so an agency address puts a middleman between the regulator and the business that owns the consent. It also drives a specific failure the agency never sees: the verification mail goes to the agency, the customer never learns their brand needs action, and the registration stalls while both sides wait for the other.

## How to fix it

Put the end customer's own support mailbox in the brand email field — the one printed on their website. Your own address belongs on the CSP or reseller record, where it will still receive the API notifications. Done when the brand email is on the customer's domain.

## Example of a compliant value

```text
brand email: support@acmecoffee.com — not support@northstarplatform.io on a brand registered for Acme Coffee
```

## Common mistakes

- A shared mailbox you monitor on the customer's behalf still has to be on their domain. Forwarding is fine; the address is what is compared.

## Provider rejection codes

| Provider | Code | Resubmission allowed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Twilio | `30881` | yes |
| Twilio | `30894` | yes |