Privacy Policy
Last updated 27 September 2026.
DispatchSAM is operated by DESIGNFLARE LLC ("we", "us"). This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with, and how long we keep it.
Two different groups of people are covered here. Contractors are our customers — the businesses who hire us to answer their phone. Callers are the homeowners and property managers who ring a contractor's number and speak to our system. We handle information about both.
Information we collect from callers
When someone calls a number we answer, we collect:
- Their phone number, and the name they give us
- The service address and ZIP code for the job
- A description of the problem, in their own words
- An email address, if they choose to give one
- Whether they consented to receive text messages
- An audio recording of the call and a written transcript of it
We collect this to qualify the job, book the appointment, and pass the details to the contractor. We do not ask for, and Sam is instructed never to request, payment card numbers, bank details, or government identification numbers.
Call recording
Every call begins with a spoken notice telling the caller the call may be recorded and that they may hang up if they do not consent. Recordings and transcripts are used to confirm what was agreed, resolve disputes, and improve accuracy.
We keep the written transcript of a call, and we do not delete it on a schedule. We used to delete transcripts automatically after thirty days and we no longer do. Keeping them is what lets a contractor see what a customer actually said last month, and lets us answer a question or a dispute raised well after the call. If the contractor stops being our customer we stop answering their phone, and we keep the record rather than deleting it, so that a question or a dispute is still answerable afterwards. Either way, you can ask us to delete what we hold about you.
The audio recording is held by our telephony provider, not by us. We store a link to it rather than the file. That means we cannot promise how long any particular recording stays available, and older ones may not be. The written transcript is the record we keep.
You can ask us to delete what we hold about you at any time — see Your choices below. The appointment and contact details captured during the call are retained separately for the contractor, as described below.
Calls to our demo line
We publish a demo number so that businesses can try DispatchSAM by ringing it as if they were a customer. A call to the demo line is answered the same way a contractor's line is, and we collect:
- The number you call from, and when and for how long you called
- An audio recording of the call and a written transcript of it
- Anything you tell us during the call, such as your name, your business, the trades you work in and an email address
- Whether you said yes when asked if we may text you about setting up the service
We use this to run the demo, to improve how our system handles calls, and, if you are a business that might use DispatchSAM, to follow up with you about it.
- The demo line sends no text messages. If you book an appointment and give an email address, the confirmation goes by email. Demo bookings are not real appointments and are removed from the calendar at the end of each day.
- We text you about setting up the service only if you said yes on the call, and you can reply STOP at any time.
- We may email you about DispatchSAM. Every such email has a link to stop them.
- We do not place automated or pre-recorded sales calls to people who have called the demo line.
- Calls to the demo line are limited in number per day and in length, and we tell you on the call when a limit is reached.
You can ask us to delete what we hold about you at any time — see Your choices below.
Information we collect from contractors
- Business name, owner name, business email and phone number
- The trades served, service-area ZIP codes, and business hours
- The phone number that calls are forwarded from
- Billing details for the invoice we email — the business name and address it is made out to, and how the contractor chose to settle it. We do not take card payments and we hold no card numbers. Invoices are settled by bank transfer, Zelle or cheque, so there is no payment processor in the middle
- Authorisation to access the contractor's Google Calendar, described next
Google user data
With the contractor's explicit consent, DispatchSAM connects to their Google Calendar. This is the only Google data we access.
| What we access | Why |
|---|---|
| Free/busy times on the connected calendar | To find genuinely open appointment slots before offering a time to a caller |
| Creating and deleting calendar events | To book the appointment, and to remove it if it is cancelled |
We do not read the contents of unrelated calendar events beyond the busy times needed to avoid double-booking, and we do not access Gmail, Drive, Contacts, or any other Google service.
Limited Use. DispatchSAM's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google user data to serve advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to train generalised artificial intelligence models.
A contractor can disconnect our access at any time from their Google Account permissions page, or by asking us to remove it. Doing so stops us booking new appointments; it does not delete events already created.
Text messages
We send text messages for a small number of purposes, on behalf of the contractor you called: replying when we miss your call, confirming an appointment you booked, reminding you before that appointment, asking after the visit whether the job got sorted, following up on an enquiry that did not book, and answering a message you send us.
Messages about an appointment you booked are sent either way — the confirmation, the reminders and the missed-call reply are part of the job you rang about. Everything beyond the booking is sent only to people who agreed to it on the call, and that is enforced in our software rather than as policy. Reply STOP to any message to opt out immediately; we record the opt-out and stop sending, whatever the message was. Reply HELP for help. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Our text message page sets all of this out in full.
Mobile information is never shared for marketing. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent are not shared with any third parties, and are excluded from every category of sharing described elsewhere in this policy.
Mobile numbers and consent records are used solely to deliver the messages described above on behalf of the contractor you contacted or, if you are a business that called us and agreed to it, messages from us about our own service. We do not sell, rent, or licence mobile numbers, and we do not use them for third-party advertising.
Visits to this website
This website uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages and links people use — for example, which page someone arrived on, or whether they tapped our phone number. Google sets a cookie to tell one visit from another. We do not send Google anything you type into a form, and we have turned off Google's advertising features for this site. Google explains what it does with this information in How Google uses information from sites that use its services, and you can opt out with Google's opt-out browser add-on.
Who we share information with
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only with the contractor whose number was called, and with service providers who process it on our behalf under contract and only on our instructions.
| Category of recipient | What they receive, and why |
|---|---|
| The contractor you called | Name, phone number, service address, and job details — passing these on is the point of the service |
| Telephone and messaging providers | Call audio and message content, in order to connect calls and deliver texts |
| Speech and language processing providers | Call audio and transcripts, in order to understand the caller and respond in real time |
| Calendar and scheduling providers | Appointment time, name, address, and job description, in order to create the booking. Where the contractor uses Google Calendar, this is Google — see the section above |
| Hosting and email providers | Records stored on our behalf, and the notifications we send |
| Website analytics provider | The pages visited on this website, the links used, and the browser, device and approximate location of the visit, in order to count visits — see the section above |
We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to protect someone's safety.
If you need to know the specific companies behind these categories — for example to complete your own vendor review — email us and we will tell you.
How long we keep information
| Information | Retention |
|---|---|
| Call transcripts (the written record) | Kept — we do not delete them on a schedule. Deleted on request |
| Call recordings (the audio) | Held by our telephony provider, not by us. We cannot guarantee how long a recording remains available |
| Lead and appointment records | Kept for the contractor, including after they leave us, so an export or a dispute is still answerable. Deleted on request |
| Demo line calls and the details you gave us on them | Kept, like the other call records above. Deleted on request |
| Opt-out records | Kept indefinitely, because we need them to honour the opt-out |
| Contractor account and billing records | As required for tax and accounting purposes |
Security
Data is transmitted over encrypted connections and access to production systems is restricted. Personal details are redacted from our operational logs before they are written. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise.
Your choices
You can ask us what information we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask us to delete it. Email privacy@dispatchsam.com and we will respond within 30 days. If you are a caller rather than a contractor, note that the contractor you called also holds your details independently of us, and you may need to contact them as well.
Depending on where you live you may have additional rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. We apply the choices above to everyone regardless of location.
Children
DispatchSAM is a service for businesses and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page. Material changes affecting contractors will be sent by email.
Contact
DESIGNFLARE LLC, PO Box 8192, 2250 Double Creek Drive, Round Rock, TX 78664, United States
privacy@dispatchsam.com