Silence after a scope question revokes everything

The requirementstatement

Where a scope-clarification message is sent and the consumer does not reply, the revocation must be treated as covering all robocalls and robotexts from the sender.

Severityseverity: HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
When it bitesphase: After you are livepostFalls due once you are sending: STOP handling, quiet hours, suppression, record retention.
What is checkedobject: scope-clarification timeout handling
Where it liveslayer: OperationalOPERATIONAL
How Ekas settles itdetectability: Post-submissionUNDETECTABLE_PRE_SUBMISSION; The subject does not exist yet at submission time: a reply window, an expiring PIN, a queue position. Reported with its deadline.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: FCC
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

Asking which messages to stop is permitted, but it cannot be a way of keeping somebody subscribed by default. A consumer who said stop and then ignored a follow-up question has not narrowed anything — and a system that treats no reply as "carry on with the rest" has converted a revocation into a menu the consumer never answered.

How to fix itremediation

Suppress everything at the moment the revocation arrives, and treat any reply to the scope question as a request to re-subscribe to a subset. Done when no reply leaves the consumer receiving nothing.

A compliant exampleexample

STOP → suppress all → "You have been unsubscribed from all Acme Coffee texts. Reply ORDERS if you would still like order updates."

Common mistakespitfalls

Suppressing only after a timeout expires leaves a window in which the programme is still sending to somebody who revoked — suppress first, ask second.

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

If a consumer sends STOP and never replies to your scope question, do they receive nothing?

1Confirm the handler suppresses everything the moment the revocation arrives, before the question is sent.
2Treat any reply to the scope question as a request to re-subscribe to a subset, not as permission to continue.
3Test it: send STOP, ignore the follow-up, and check nothing else arrives.

What wrong looks like: Suppressing only after a timeout leaves a window in which the programme is still sending to someone who revoked, and a system that reads no reply as "carry on with the rest" has converted a revocation into a menu nobody answered.

Notesnotes

Only reachable once a scope question has been sent, which is a design choice the registration does not record. OPS-051 is the registration-side twin: it checks that the declared confirmation only asks a scope question where the consent covered several categories.

Rules you will hit next

Other operational rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

OPS-034A programme in another language still owes the English keywordHighHIGH OPS-035The mandatory keywords must work over MMS tooHighHIGH OPS-044Suppression is brand-wide, not per numberHighHIGH OPS-047A state may give you less time than the federal limitHighHIGH OPS-053A STOP answering a scope question must not be answered with anotherHighHIGH OPS-054Revoking against an exempt message stops everything else tooHighHIGH

All operational rules

OPS-052 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.