Who gets a text, and from what number
Vasthaul is a transportation management system used by trucking carriers in the United States and Canada. The people it texts are drivers — the employees and contractors of the carrier that opened the account — about the loads they are running for that carrier and the pay they are owed for them.
Messages come from (833) 805-7199. That number belongs to [legal entity], and it is the number a driver replies to.
- Who is texted
- Drivers who have agreed to it, at a carrier that has turned texts on. Nobody else.
- Who is never texted
- Anyone who has not agreed. We do not text a driver because their carrier entered their number, and we do not text a broker, a customer or a shipper at all.
- Where the number comes from
- The driver’s own file at their carrier, which the carrier keeps because it employs or contracts them.
- Marketing
- None. There is no promotional text, no offer and no newsletter on this number, to anybody, ever.
If a carrier’s customers are ever texted — an appointment reminder to a receiver, say — it is on the same terms as everything else here: an explicit agreement from the person holding the phone, recorded with the date, and STOP works.
What the messages say
There are five, and there is no sixth. Each one names the carrier first, because a text from a number you do not recognise is a text you should not act on. These are the templates the product actually sends, filled in with an example load:
- A dispatcher assigns a load to this driver.
- Northaul Transport: Load LD-2026-0104 is yours. Pick up Windsor ON Tue 06:00, deliver Columbus OH. Full details in the driver app.
- A stop with an appointment time is due, at the offset the carrier set.
- Northaul Transport: Reminder — delivery at Kroger DC 412, Columbus OH, today 14:00. Load LD-2026-0104.
- A dispatcher asks where a load is and the driver has not tapped a status.
- Northaul Transport: Dispatch needs a status on load LD-2026-0104. Tap where you are in the driver app, or reply here.
- A load is delivered and its proof of delivery has not been photographed.
- Northaul Transport: Load LD-2026-0104 is delivered and the POD is not in yet. Photograph it in the driver app when you can.
- An owner approves this driver’s settlement.
- Northaul Transport: Your settlement for Aug 24–30 is approved, $1,842.16 net. Every line is in the driver app under Pay.
The first message a number ever receives, and one message a month after that, carries the way out on the end of it: “Reply STOP to stop, HELP for help. Msg&data rates may apply.”
How a driver opts in
Consent is given by the driver, in the driver app, on their own phone, signed in as themselves. It is not given by their carrier on their behalf, it is not a box that arrives already ticked, and it is not a condition of being dispatched or of being hired.
Under Account in the driver app there is a control marked Text messages. It is off. Turning it on shows this sentence, and turning it on is agreeing to it:
- I agree that [the carrier’s name] may text me about my work: loads I am assigned, appointment reminders, requests for a status, missing paperwork and my pay statements. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. I can reply STOP at any time to stop, or HELP for help. Consent is not a condition of employment or of being dispatched.
When a driver turns it on, the product writes down a record of that consent: the carrier, the driver, the mobile number, the exact sentence above with their carrier’s name in it, the version of that wording, and the moment they agreed. That record is kept for as long as the number is on file and is what any question about consent is answered from.
There are two other ways a consent can be recorded, and both are marked in that record as what they are, so nobody has to guess later:
- In the driver app
- The driver taps it themselves. This is the normal way, and the record says so.
- Recorded by the office
- A driver who signed a consent form at hire, or said yes across the desk, can have that recorded by their carrier. The record names the office user who wrote it down, and it says the driver did not tap it. A consent recorded this way cannot be used to override a STOP.
- By text
- Someone who has already stopped can text START back to the number to turn messages on again.
How to stop them
Reply STOP to (833) 805-7199. That is the whole procedure, it works from the phone, and it needs nobody’s help.
- STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, REVOKE and OPT OUT all stop the messages. The mobile carrier stops them at their end immediately, and our own record is updated within minutes.
- The same control in the driver app that turned texts on turns them off, with the same effect.
- A carrier’s office can stop a driver’s texts at any time, and can never start them again on that driver’s behalf. Only the person holding the phone can undo a STOP.
- Stopping texts changes nothing else. Loads, statements and pay stay in the driver app exactly as before, and no part of the job depends on receiving a text.
To start again, reply START, or turn the control back on in the app.
Getting help
Reply HELP to (833) 805-7199 and you will get a message back saying who is texting you, which carrier the messages are about, and how to stop them.
You can also write to us at [email protected], or ask your carrier’s office — they can see whether texts are on for your number and can turn them off for you.
How often, and what it costs
Message frequency varies. It follows the work: a driver running two loads a week receives a handful of messages that week, and a driver on the yard receives none. There is no schedule and no minimum, because every message is caused by something happening to a load.
Message and data rates may apply. Whatever your mobile plan charges for a received text is what these cost you; we do not charge a driver anything, and neither does their carrier.
Carriers supported: the United States and Canada. Messages are sent to mobile numbers only.
If you are the carrier
Texting your drivers is optional and off until somebody turns it on. What the product asks of you in return is short, and it is the part a regulator would ask about:
- Do not tell a driver they have to agree. Consent is not a condition of employment or of dispatch, and the wording the driver reads says so.
- Only record a consent that was actually given. The record names you as the person who wrote it down.
- Keep the numbers on your driver files current. A number that has been reassigned to somebody else is the most common way a stranger gets a text about a load, and the product cannot know it has happened.
- Stop texting a driver who has left. Making a driver inactive stops them at once.