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The Five-Digit Desk

Short codes, explainedFind a sender

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The pages dated 2016 describe that year. A lease price, the wording of a carrier requirement or the company using a given code is reported as it stood then and may have changed since. Pieces added later carry the date they were finished.

The same pages, sorted by subject, fill the three sections: Questions, Rules and compliance and Code notes.

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  1. Two office workers walk through a lobby while talking on their phones

    01Code notes

    Short code 80810

    The number behind a political text program follows the same carrier rules as a retailer's coupon code, and federal law adds a consent requirement of its own.

  2. Three colleagues sit outside an office with a laptop and a phone

    02Questions

    How much does an SMS short code cost?

    The registry price is the simple part. A code costs $500 or $1,000 a month to lease, and the bill for actually sending texts through it arrives separately.

  3. A businesswoman takes a call on her mobile phone in an office lobby

    03Questions

    What is the Short Code Registry?

    Every five- and six-digit texting number in the United States comes out of one database. The wireless industry owns it, and since January a new contractor has kept it running.

  4. A woman smiles at the screen of the mobile phone in her hand

    04Questions

    What is an SMS keyword?

    Every short code program listens for words. Some of them sign a phone up, some fetch a single answer, and a handful are reserved by the industry for the subscriber's protection.

  5. A courier with a parcel smiles at a woman opening her front door

    05Questions

    What is an SMS short code?

    The five- and six-digit numbers behind bank alerts, delivery updates and text donations are leased, approved by every carrier, and built for volume that an ordinary phone line is not.

  7. A young woman on a sofa looks at the screen of her tablet

    07Questions

    Why can't I receive short code messages?

    When a verification code or alert never shows up, the fault sits in one of three places: the phone, the phone account, or the program sending the texts. A few minutes of testing tells them apart.

  8. Close-up of a phone keypad with a SIM card resting on the keys

    08Code notes

    A lookup of well-known U.S. short codes

    A short code carries no name of its own. The quickest way to learn who runs one is to ask the code itself, then check the answer against the sender's own website.

  9. A group of young friends stand outside, each using a mobile phone

    09Code notes

    Short code 86753: Venmo

    Venmo's verification and sign-in codes come from one five-digit number. Knowing that number is the simplest defense against texts that only pretend to be Venmo.