Text messages

How someone opts in

• They sign in to their own PaddleLens account and open Settings → Notifications. There is no other route in: no coach, administrator or import can add a number to an account. If they type a number while creating an account, their browser may prefill it on that Notifications page, but signup does not send or store it and the browser discards the handoff from its history as soon as the page opens.
• They type their mobile number, read the consent text, and tick a box that is not ticked for them. The button stays disabled until they do.
• We text a one-time code to that number. Nothing else is ever sent to a number until the code comes back — so a number nobody holds is never messaged.
• They enter the code. One welcome message follows. It names PaddleLens and their club, lists what they may receive, and says that message frequency varies, that message and data rates may apply, and how to get help or stop — so they know what a real message from us looks like. It is the only message we send that can be longer than one standard text; PaddleLens pays for it, never the club.

What the form says

Reproduced below word for word, including the small print. This is what is on the screen at the moment a number is typed.

A copy, not the form — it collects nothing. The working one is inside a member's account.

Every message we send

Every text is built from a fixed template. Three things in them are your club's own words, not ours: your club's name, which texts about your club carry; the name a coach gives a session, which RSVP questions and lineup notices show (shortened to fit); and the body of an urgent announcement, which your own coach types (at most 95 characters). Before any of them is texted, we take out links, amounts and requests to pay. The examples use a made-up club, Riverside DBC. STOP, START and HELP may also receive a provider confirmation.

About your club

The code goes out when you ask for it, and the welcome once you confirm your number. The rest go out the moment a coach sends them, at any hour; only seat texts (below) wait for 07:00.

Seat texts, if you turn them on

For sessions with a seat limit. They are club texts: your club pays for each one with its text credits, like a cancellation, and sends them only if it has turned seat texts on. When it does, a seat-text switch appears under Seats & waitlist in Settings → Notifications, and you get them only while it is on. If you confirmed your number before this page named seat texts, that switch starts off and stays off until you turn it on yourself. None is sent between 22:00 and 07:00 in your club's time zone; one that falls in those hours waits until 07:00.

Replies when you answer by text

If you answer an RSVP question by text, we may send one short reply straight away saying what happened to your answer — for example that the session is full and you are on its waitlist, that RSVPs for it are not open yet, that you gave up your seat, that the session was cancelled, or that the code has expired. A text with a code we don't recognize gets no reply. We never send more than one reply to a text, and a reply never contains a link. When your answer simply counts, there is no reply.

Frequency, and what it costs you

Message frequency varies — it depends entirely on how often your own club cancels a session, posts something urgent, posts a lineup or asks unanswered members about a practice, plus at most one reply to each RSVP text you send us. With seat texts on, a session with a seat limit can also text you when a seat opens for you, when you move up, or when no seat came free. For most clubs that is a handful of messages a year; a club that trains through a bad winter may send more, and so may a busy waitlist. There is a daily ceiling per club, so a fault at our end cannot turn into a flood at yours. Message and data rates may apply: those are your carrier's, between you and them. We never charge a member anything to receive a message — clubs pay for their own texts, seat texts included. Replies to your own RSVP texts are paid by PaddleLens and never use your club's credits.

The number our texts come from

Club texts now come from +1 833 419 7997, our toll-free number, replacing +1 844 981 3733. Members with a verified mobile number see a one-time notice when they next sign in. Your SMS preferences and opt-out status stay the same. The one-time code that confirms your number is the exception: Twilio Verify sends it from its own senders. And a reply to a text you send us, HELP included, always comes back from the number you sent it to. If the number our texts come from changes, we will show a notice in the app when you next sign in, and this page will name it.

Seat texts, and the replies above about a full session, a waitlist, RSVPs not yet open or a seat you gave up, are never sent from +1 844 981 3733; they start only on a number whose approval lists them. The reply to a Y for a session with an entry fee is the exception: like HELP, it comes back from the number you texted.

Stopping, restarting, and getting help

Y, N and M plus a practice code are attendance answers, not SMS opt-in keywords. Initial SMS consent is given in Settings → Notifications using the form shown above. You can also simply delete the number in Settings → Notifications, which stops everything without recording an opt-out. Either way, nothing else about your account changes: email keeps working exactly as before.

What we never do

• We never put a link in a text. Not a login link, not a report, not a password reset. Text messages have no sender authentication — anyone can send one claiming to be us — so the one defence we can actually give you is that a real message from us never asks you to tap anything. A text that claims to be PaddleLens and contains a link is not from us.
• We never ask for a free-form reply. A text only ever asks for Y, N, or M (Maybe) with the session's six-character code; STOP and HELP keep their ordinary meanings.
• We never ask for money by text. No text PaddleLens composes carries a price, a fee or a request to pay; anything to pay is shown in the app. The words your club writes — its name, a session's name, an urgent announcement — reach you without any link, amount or request to pay: we take those out before texting them, and the app shows them in full.
• No marketing, no promotions, no fundraising, no third-party content, and never another club's messages.
• Nothing about your paddling travels by text — no report, score, measurement, photo or video. A message carries a club name, a date, and either what a coach typed or a fixed sentence about your own answer or seat.
• We never use a text message to reset a password or approve anything, because phone numbers can be stolen from their owner by the phone company itself.
• No mobile information will be sold or shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties. Only our messaging providers and the phone companies carrying the message receive your number, to deliver it — see below.

Who else sees the number

Twilio Inc. verifies your number. Twilio Inc. or Telnyx LLC (both in the United States) carries club texts, depending on our configured provider. That provider receives the number and message, passes replies to us, and reports delivery details. During a provider change we may keep the former number receiving replies to earlier texts. The six-character code selects the practice; we never choose one from the phone number alone. These providers process this information to deliver the service, not for their own marketing. The named messaging providers are listed on the subprocessors page with everything else that touches our data. Privacy §2, §6 and §7 cover what we store and for how long, and Terms §8a is the agreement itself.