Why Do Opt-in Stats Differ In AlertManager vs. "See Opt-in Stats" Page?

There are two ways of counting Opt-ins that are used by the TextPower system:

1. The Message Data | See Opt-in Stats on the portal counts the physical OptIns that are on your account.
2. The Alert Manager page shows you the number of Opt-ins that you can actually send to.

So why the difference?

TextPower processes disconnect records that we retrieve daily from the major carriers. This is part of our TCPA protection feature. All carriers except Verizon send us a list of numbers that have been disconnected. Verizon sends us both the record of disconnects and a list of suspended numbers.  

Suspended numbers are basically numbers who have not contacted Verizon asking to be disconnected but have simply stopped paying their bill. These late payers will have their accounts resumed if they pay their bill.  So if a number is in the suspended state, we do not physically remove the opt-in because there is the possibility that it will come back. We simply put it into a state where it will be excluded from sending. This is why AlertManager does not count these numbers.

The discrepancy in some numbers is usually explained by Verizon suspensions.

As we gain experience with this disconnect and suspend process, it is apparent that there are a lot of suspended numbers on the Verizon service that never get moved to a disconnected state or get resumed. They just stay there. Why that is, we are left to theorize.

Here are some theories:

1. The easy theory is the "deadbeat". Some people run out of money in a particular month and get suspended. Most of these people likely get resumed later.
2. The next category is the "switcher" category. People are always being bombarded with ads to switch their carrier.  If you go into many mid-priced stores like Walmart, Target, etc. you often find a booth from some second-level carrier where you will be pitched on switching. Many people simply may stop paying the old carrier and switch even though it means that they get a new number. This might be attractive if you are in the middle of a contract.
3. Sometimes people simply pass away and their heirs just stop paying.

We continue to learn from the carriers and fine-tune our system.  The most important part, though, is that this is all done with the intention of protecting you from TCPA violations.  We err on the side of caution and occasionally a number that is legitimately suspended and then is re-opted-in may not appear as an opt-in on our system.  This is as unique as lightning striking twice in the exact same location at the exact same time of time on two separate days but it's possible.