A text when the email goes quiet

Most of our replies to an offer go out by email, and most of them arrive. Some do not: a typo in the address, a spam folder, a work inbox nobody checks on a Friday. Until now a counter that landed in one of those places just sat there, and the deal died of silence.

What changes

The phone number on the offer form has always been optional, and it still is. What is new is what it is for, and a box under it: "Text me about this offer at this number." The box is unticked until you tick it, and a phone number on its own is not a yes — we text only a number whose owner asked for it. If you give a number, we check it once — that it is a real number, and whether it can receive texts — and if you ticked the box:

• A day after we send a reply that bounced, or that shows no sign of having been opened, we send one text: there is a reply waiting, please check your email. One, ever, per offer. No link in it; the email has the links. And none at all if the seller has already texted you, or you have already texted us — a conversation that is happening does not need a nudge.
• The seller can text you directly about your offer — a short message, the kind you would answer from your phone.
• You can text back. Replies reach the seller the same way an email does.

Expect at most one automatic text per offer, plus any the seller writes to you while you negotiate — all about that offer. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text and that is the end of it for that number; reply HELP for help.

What we keep

The result of the number check, the texts we send, the replies you send, and whether each text was delivered — all with the offer, under the same retention as the offer itself. The details are in the privacy policy, which has a new version today for exactly this.

Landlines never get a text: the check tells us the line type, and a number that cannot receive SMS is simply shown to the seller as such.

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