# CON-150 — A toll-free number must belong to one business

> A single toll-free number must be associated with exactly one business.

- **Rule ID:** CON-150
- **Layer:** Consent flow (`CONSENT_FLOW`)
- **Checks:** `toll-free number to brand mapping`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the submitted form; Human check — only someone holding the document can settle it
- **Fix type:** Wait on an external system or a required interval
- **Required by:** AWS
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/consent-flow/con-150/

## Why this rule exists

A number shared across businesses makes every consent on it ambiguous — the consumer agreed to hear from one of them and cannot tell which is texting, and neither can a reviewer tracing a complaint. It is a common shape in franchise groups and agencies, where one number is provisioned centrally and used by several trading entities because that is how the phone system was set up years earlier.

## How to fix it

Provision a separate toll-free number per business and register each against its own brand. Where a number is already shared, move the other businesses off it before submitting — a verification approved against one brand does not extend to the others using the number.

## Check this yourself

**Is exactly one business sending from the toll-free number on this registration?**

1. Ask your carrier or messaging platform for the list of accounts and sub-accounts provisioned against this number.
2. Read the list as a consumer would: every distinct trading entity on it is a separate business claiming the same number.
3. Common in franchise groups and agencies, where one number was provisioned centrally years earlier.

*What wrong looks like:* Three franchisees share the number their head office bought. A verification approved for one of them does not extend to the other two, and a complaint against any of them lands on all three.

## Notes

NOT VISIBLE TO US. The registry holds no number inventory, so we cannot see which numbers a brand has or who else is sending from them. Surfaced as a warning with the check the user must run themselves: list every business currently sending from the toll-free number on this registration, and confirm the answer is one. Their carrier or messaging platform can produce that list; we cannot.