INTRODUCTION

Welcome and thank you for choosing ScamGuard.com as your resource for reporting suspicious business practices and resolving business-related complaints. These Terms of Use (TOU) including all provisions contained herein govern the manner in which you (the User) may access our website and use any of the services or functions which it provides. These TOU together with our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference into these TOU and may be found here https://www.ScamGuard.com/privacy-policy/ , affect your legal rights and obligations. Please review these TOU carefully; if there is any portion with which you do not agree or refuse to comply, do not access or use our Site or any of its services.

PART I

Description of ScamGuard.com

1. The General Site and Service

ScamGuard.com provides a website-based forum for reporting suspicious or dishonest business practices and for submitting and resolving business related complaints. ScamGuard.com encourages and facilitates open and honest communication between parties posting reports and complaints and the businesses to which those reports and/or complaints pertain, and is also intended to provide any parties accessing the website (“Users” as defined hereunder) with some general information related to the businesses which appear there. ScamGuard.com is a ‘free-to-use’ site and service, and no material, statements or content of any kind appearing on the website or any linked or related webpage or other available medium is an opinion or representation of ScamGuard.com, or any of its members, managers or agents (including any heirs or assigns) unless the same is represented as such or directly produced by a source which we wholly own and control.

PART II

Definitions

2.1 ScamGuard.com Website

The ScamGuard.com Website (the Site) is the online vehicle, including any Content (as defined hereunder), through which ScamGuard.com operates its Service and System, as well provides User access and functionality to both reporting/posting individuals and responding business parties.

2.2 ScamGuard.com Service

The ScamGuard.com Service (the Service) is the functional portion of our Site which allows Users to:

I. post information related to direct experiences with businesses either as a report on business practices or as a complaint;
II. respond to such posts on behalf of a business to which a given post pertains;
III. view the posts/responses of other Users;
IV. view and access user accounts
V. and/or view limited public profile information of other Users, namely other businesses.

The Service also encompasses any facilitation of communication between Users which are party to any post which ScamGuard.com may, at its own discretion, provide, such as an email communication platform available and accessed through the Site.

2.3 ScamGuard.com System

The ScamGuard.com System (the System) is the functional portion of our Site which provides a Star Rating (discussed at Section 3) for every business which has a post submitted about it on our Site. The System is also our general notation of any complaint as being either resolved or unresolved (as discussed in these TOU) and the general process and mechanisms of facilitation which we may provide to our Users for initiating, updating and resolving reports and complaints where applicable.

2.4 Users

A User (You) is any person or entity who accesses any portion of our Site, irrespective of any status as an individual, a business representative, an Account Holder or otherwise. As a User, you are subject to these TOU and our Privacy Policy and agree to abide by all terms and conditions contained herein unless some portion of the same is designated as applying to a specific type of User which you do not qualify as (such as a provision specifically and only applicable to a responding party/business representative where the concerned User is only a reporting individual).

2.5 Account Holder

All Account Holders are deemed to be Users of our Site. Registration as an Account Holder is required for the posting and/or transmission of any reports, complaints, responses or the like. Further, account verification (as discussed below at the section entitled “Accounts”) is required for any Account Holder to modify postings and/or communicate with any other Account Holder or for any party to provide any response or to be qualified on our Site as a Business Representative (defined hereunder). As an Account Holder there are certain terms and conditions contained in these TOU that you must abide by, which in some cases may apply above and beyond the general terms and conditions applying to all Users. Without limitation such provisions may include: Restrictions upon Age, Password and User Name Requirements, Account Information Submission Requirements, Posting and Response Regulations, User-to-User Communication Policies, Report/Complaint Status Management, Account Termination, and various other rules as may apply. It is important that you read the entirety of these TOU before creating an account because upon creating an account you will be accepting all provisions in these TOU that apply to you.

2.6 Reporting Parties

A Reporting Party is any User who utilizes our Site to submit a report upon or complaint about any business. Any party doing so is considered to be a Reporting Party, but unless specifically discussed as otherwise in these TOU, references to a Reporting Party shall be considered a reference to a verified Account Holder. Notwithstanding the forgoing, any provision in these TOU regulating the rights, responsibilities, conduct or the like of a Reporting Party shall apply to any party acting as such, regardless of whether or not that Reporting Party is a verified Account Holder, an unverified Account Holder or not an Account Holder. As a Reporting Party you will be subject to certain terms and conditions set forth in these TOU which exceed the terms and conditions applicable to Users generally. Terms which are specific to Account Holders in these TOU are set forth in various sections below; all terms and conditions in these TOU still apply to you as a Reporting Party unless otherwise specified. It is important that you read the entirety of these TOU before submitting any report or complaint or otherwise acting or allowing action as a Reporting Party because upon so doing you will be accepting all provisions in these TOU that apply to you, whether or not such terms exceed the terms generally applicable to all Users.

2.7 Business Representative/Responding Party

A Business Representative/Responding Party is any party who contacts ScamGuard.com representing him/her/itself as a representative of any business (whether or not that business is the subject of a report or complaint). To utilize any functional portions of the Site and to submit and have reviewed and/or posted any response of any kind to a report or complaint or posting generally, a Business Representative/Responding Party must go through a process of account registration and verification of authority to communicate on behalf of the concerned business (account registration and verification processes are discussed hereunder). Unless specifically discussed as otherwise in these TOU, references to a Responding Party shall be considered a reference to a verified account holding Business Representative. Notwithstanding the forgoing, any provision in these TOU regulating the rights, responsibilities, conduct or the like of a Responding Party shall apply to any party acting as such, regardless of whether or not that Responding Party is a verified Account Holder, an unverified Account Holder, not an Account Holder, a verified Business Representative, an unverified Business Representative or not a Business Representative.

2.8 Submissions/Posts

A submission is any information provided to us by any User with the apparent intent or purpose (determinable solely at our discretion) of providing content amounting to a report or complaint. Once a submission is reviewed by us and approved and/or otherwise posted to the publically accessible/viewable portions of our Site, it shall be considered a post. Once a post exists, it may have a status of either “Unresolved” or “Resolved.” Post status designation is further discussed hereunder.

2.9 Report

A report is any submission/post from a Reporting Party which is submitted with the apparent intent or purpose (determinable solely at our discretion) of providing information concerning suspicious, dishonest or otherwise questionable business practices and which accordingly we may cause to be posted in the “Scams” section of our Site.

2.10 Complaint

A complaint is any submission/post from a Reporting Party which is submitted with the apparent intent or purpose (determinable solely at our discretion) of providing information and feedback concerning an unsatisfactory experience which that concerned Reporting Party had at a business, and which accordingly we may cause to be posted in the “Complaints” section of our Site.

2.11 Content

Content is any material, existing or having existed on our Site in any fashion consistent with these TOU from any origin and in any form whether digital, electronic, posted, deleted, archived, embedded, linked or contained in any subpage of our Site or existing as data, designs, text, images, graphics or code whether object, source or otherwise, and without limitation may generally be considered material which we have provided on or as part of our Site or which Users have provided, posted or uploaded to it. Where specifically referenced, Third Party Content shall be considered any of the same as described immediately above and which is specifically provided, posted, uploaded or otherwise submitted by a User of our Site.

PART III

Terms for All Users

The terms and conditions in this Section apply to your use of our Site, Service and System as do all other provisions in these TOU unless specifically designated otherwise. As a User, if you subsequently act as or become a Reporting Party, Responding Party and/or an Account Holder (verified or not), you will still be subject to these and all other terms in these TOU unless we specifically give written indication to the contrary.

3.1 General Standards for Use of Site

ScamGuard.com hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to access and use our Site in the intended manner(s) described herein and in accordance with these TOU in all and each case(s) and/or to the extent permitted under all applicable laws and regulations (foreign and domestic). Notwithstanding the foregoing, you shall not, and shall not permit anyone else to, directly or indirectly access or use our Site or any account or feature of it in any fashion which violates these TOU or the rights of any Third Parties and specifically but without limitation you may not and may not permit any other party to:

modify, reproduce, rebroadcast, retransmit, reperform, or otherwise create derivatives of any part of our System, Service(s) or Site Content; reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile or otherwise attempt to discover the source code or structure, sequence and organization of all or any part of our Site (except where not applicable to certain limited extents where restrictions on reverse engineering are prohibited by jurisdictionally proper local law); otherwise violate any of our intellectual property, or the intellectual property or rights to publicity or privacy of others (whether now know or unknown) remove or alter any proprietary notices or labels on or in our System, Services or Site Content; engage in any activity that interferes with or disrupts our System, Services or Site; or engage in any fraudulent activity, activity for which our Site, Services or System is not intended or is forbidden (expressly or impliedly), or any activity that facilitates fraud or illegal activity of any kind.

3.2 User Conduct Restrictions

All Users are subject to full and sole responsibility (to our absolute exclusion) for their actions while using our Site and for any content provisions or submissions made to our Site by them or their agents or allowed parties, and agree that in no case shall they engage in activity which is or may be viewed as malicious or harmful including without limitation: upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content, including the making of any offers or statements, that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, false, misleading, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of privacy, fraudulent, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; harm or discriminate against any minors or any persons of any suspect classes or engage in any activities which are or may be viewed as attacking, infringing or denying the Civil or Constitutional rights of any person or party; stalk, harass, or threaten any person or party; facilitate gambling, gaming, lotteries, raffles, contests, sweepstakes and/or any other activity featuring the award of any prize, discount, fee, pay-off, bribe or monetary agreement (other than a bona fide business credit or return as would normally be provided in the regular course of a concerned business’ operations to resolve an unsatisfactory customer experience in good faith) in relation to the status of any submission, post, report or complaint, or Content otherwise offered in accordance with the provisions in these TOU; impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a ScamGuard.com representative, a Business Representative or a customer/consumer, falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation or experience with a person or entity, or violate any right of publicity or privacy right; attempt to disguise the origin of any Content posted to our Site or offered/provided through our Services or System; upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships; upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual property or proprietary rights of any party; upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment or to otherwise interact with our Site, Services or System in a manner not consistent with these TOU; undertake any other action or activity which does or is intended to interfere with our Site, Services, System or servers or networks connected to the same, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of such servers or networks; or violate any applicable law or regulation (foreign or domestic), including without limitation any laws and regulations (foreign or domestic) regarding the creation of consumer reviews/reports.

3.3 Content

I.ScamGuard.com and Site Content

All content existing on our Site which exists in accordance with these TOU may either be owned by us or subject to a license held by us, but in no case, unless specifically designated as such, is any User submitted Content to be considered endorsed by us or expressive of our own statements or opinions.

Content accessible through a link provided on our Site by any party other than ScamGuard.com or our authorized agent(s), or otherwise located in any place or fashion which is not controlled by us, including the websites of any third parties, is content which is not held or owned by us, or for which we are responsible in any fashion, and any such content is accessed by you at your sole risk and discretion.

You agree that absent the express written permission of ScamGuard.com, you shall not, nor shall you attempt to, appropriate, falsely claim authorship or ownership of, repost, copy, derive, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, broadcast, rent, lease, offer or sell, reverse engineer, decompile, associate with in a false, diluting or confusing manner, repost to another website or make available in any linked computer system or otherwise infringe or use in an illegal manner, any content on our site which is owned by us, by a party other than yourself, or for which you do not have the explicit legal right to do so.

II.Your Content

Any content which you submit, post to or otherwise transmit or make available to our Site or to ScamGuard.com generally shall result in you granting to us a non-exclusive, non-transferrable, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license for the use of such content for our own internal purposes including but not limited to metric or analytic undertakings consistent with our Privacy Policy, the posting or display of such content on our Site at our own sole discretion, and the use of such content by us for purposes which without limitation may include or be similar to advertising, promotion, training, reference, comparison, copying, adaptation, derivative creation, redisplay, reproduction, retransmission, reperformance, rebroadcast, dissemination and/or attribution.

You agree, represent and warrant that no content which you submit, post to or otherwise transmit or make available to or through our Site or ScamGuard.com generally shall be, or shall be viewable as infringing upon the rights of ScamGuard.com or of any third parties including any violation of any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, moral right where applicable, right of publicity, right of privacy, right claimable under any international treaty or convention, libelous, defamatory, false, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, threatening, pornographic, hateful, illegal, or otherwise inconsistent with any rights held by you, ScamGuard.com, or any third party in accordance with any applicable law, either foreign or domestic. If any content posted or provided by you violates these restrictions or any other provision of these TOU, you shall be viewed as being in violation of these TOU and may be subject to immediate suspension or termination of your privileges of use of our Site including any access to or use of your ScamGuard.com, as well as the indemnification and defense of ScamGuard.com as discussed in detail hereunder.

You also understand and agree that any content existing on our Site and/or posted/provided/submitted by you may be subject to the review of ScamGuard.com personnel or independently contracted parties (without any obligation on the part of ScamGuard.com to do so) and that such content may be required to be transmitted through various systems and/or presented in a slightly altered or otherwise not original state in order to be compatible with our Site, Service, System and Software.

III. Content Disclosure and Removal Generally

You understand and agree that irrespective of any ownership or license status, any content existing on our Site or otherwise held by ScamGuard.com may be disclosed by ScamGuard.com in accordance with any legal requirement, investigation by any state, federal or regulatory or legal agency, bureau or body otherwise having jurisdiction, any judicial order or lawful discovery request, any legally enforceable request (such as those under the Freedom of Information Act), and that upon such disclosure ScamGuard.com is in no way required to inform you of or work with you to limit the amount, form or timing of the disclosure unless ScamGuard.com has otherwise expressly agreed with you to do so in writing. You also understand and agree that irrespective of any ownership or license status, ScamGuard.com may remove and/or delete any content from the Site at any time without prior notice to or authorization from you and may not be compelled to repost any such content under any circumstances.

Without limitation or obligation you are hereby notified that ScamGuard.com may, in its sole discretion, refuse to post, reject and/or remove any content of any kind at any time (including any submissions/posts) if we deem such content to:

a) be defamatory, false, vindictive, harassing, fraudulent, misleading, exploitative, intentionally harmful, subject of a legal dispute, in bad faith or if we deem such to be contrary to the purpose and spirit of ScamGuard.com which is honest reporting on suspicious business practices or bona fide business experience-related complaints; or

b) in violation of any provision of these TOU including but not limited to Section 3.1, 3.2 or any provision herein which regulates the nature of content and/or sets-forth the requirements and regulations for submissions, posts, reports, responses and the like.

3.4 Passwords and Account Security

When registering your account with us, you will create an account name (your email) and a password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account name and password, and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your account, including, without limitation, all actions by any other parties whom you authorize or allow to use your account, either directly or indirectly. In the event of any unauthorized use of your password or account or other breach of security or attempt thereof, you agree to immediately notify ScamGuard.com; further you agree to ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session in which you use it. ScamGuard.com cannot and will not be liable for any loss, damage or other liability arising from your failure to comply with this Section or from any unauthorized access to or use of your account. In the event of any dispute between two or more parties as to account ownership, you agree to notify ScamGuard.com of the dispute and that ScamGuard.com may, in its sole discretion, be the sole arbiter of such dispute and that ScamGuard.com’s decision (which may include termination or suspension of any account subject to dispute and/or report to any other bodies having competent jurisdiction over the issue) shall be final and binding on all parties.

3.5 Account Termination

Your account(s) with SCAMGUARD.COM and your status as a User, Reporting Party or Responding Party as the case may be, is, in so far as our Site, Service and System are concerned, a privilege provided to you by us and exists and is maintained entirely at our discretion. At any time, with or without cause, we may terminate/suspend your account(s) and/or terminate/suspend any pending submissions, posts, reports, responses, communications or other Content associated with it. You agree that you release us now and forever from any liability incurred by you as a result of our termination/suspension of your account(s) and that you shall indemnify, defend and otherwise hold us harmless for any liability, claims, damages, liens, penalties, fines or fees (including attorney’s fees and/or accounting fees) which we incur or are brought against us by any party as a result, either directly or indirectly of our decision to terminate your account(s). You acknowledge that without limitation, grounds for termination of your account(s) may include any violation by you or any user of your account of any guideline, restriction or regulation concerning Content, submissions, posts, reports, complaints, responses or the like as set forth by these TOU or any other violation of these TOU otherwise, by the order/request of any regulatory, investigatory, law enforcement, government or judicial agency/entity, or otherwise upon our discretion if we deem any aspect of your conduct as a User to be counter to the purpose, mission and standards of ScamGuard.com. You understand and acknowledge that our termination/suspension of your account(s) do not require prior notice to you. In any event in which your account is terminated either by us or by your own cancellation, any submissions/posts by you and/or any responses or profile information if you are a business/Responding Party, may remain on our Site within our sole discretion. If you choose to cancel your account you may request that any of the aforementioned be removed but we shall be under no obligation to comply with such request.

3.6 Resolution Status

Whenever a new submission/post in the form of a report/complaint comes to exist on our Site, its initial and default designation shall be as “Unresolved.” The Reporting Party responsible for the concerned submission/post may change its status to “Resolved” at any time and may also change it back. Responding Parties may not alter the resolution status of any submission/post.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, we may review and alter any resolution status at any time either at our own discretion or upon the request of any concerned party, but we shall not be under any obligation to do so. Further we may lock any resolution status so that it may not be further altered and/or unlock any resolution status as well.

3.7 Star Rating System

Whenever a new submission/post in the form of a report/complaint comes to exist on our Site it shall either establish a Star Rating and resolution record for a concerned business or it shall contribute to ones which already exists. Any newly established Star Rating shall begin at 5 Stars, which is the maximum rating. Thereafter, if any report/complaint remains in “Unresolved” status for a period of 7 days or more, the concerned Star Rating shall be decreased by 25% of one star, until such time as the status of that report/complaint becomes “Resolved.” Therefore, the Star Rating of any business shall be decreased by one full Star for every four reports/complaints that persist as “Unresolved.”

3.8 Removal Requests

Absent a bona fide reason, it is not the policy of ScamGuard.com to remove any submission or posting from our Site nor shall there be any case under which we are specifically obligated to do so. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we take the guidelines, requirements and regulation concerning all submissions and/or posts very seriously and in any event which we feel the same has been violated we may, at our sole discretion, remove and/or alter the offending content and/or content associated with it such as a concerned business profile, Star Rating or resolution history. If you believe that any content with which you are concerned merits removal, you may specifically request such by contacting us using this form:
If your request appears reasonable, we may review it and take action accordingly. If you make a removal request you agree, without limitation, to provide us with any material and/or evidence which we may require or desire to evaluate your request and if you fail to provide us with such material and/or evidence the review of your request may be abandoned by us without further action or obligation of any kind.

PART IV

Terms for Reporting Parties

As discussed above, if you make any submission of any kind with the apparent intent of reporting suspicious business practices or a business related complaint, you are considered a Reporting Party. Without limitation, the terms and conditions contained in this, Part IV of these TOU, apply specifically to you; other portions of these TOU may also still apply.

4.1 Submission/Posting Process

The ScamGuard.com Site is intended to facilitate submissions/posts in the following fashion and unless otherwise specified in writing the process of submitting and having a report/complaint posted shall work as follows:

I. When you access our Site there will be sub-page available for submissions, accessible either from our homepage (first-time Users) or from your account page (Account Holders). Upon accessing the submission page you will be prompted to fill out various information for your submission, (Submission Requirements are described hereunder).

II. Upon filling out the required information for your submission you may click the “Submit” button. You may be prompted to certify that your submission complies with the requirements/guidelines regarding submissions and if submitting as a first-time User you will be prompted to create an account, (Account Creation/Verification is described hereunder).

III. Once a submission is made, we may review the submission at any time (but are under no obligation to do so). Review of submissions by ScamGuard.com for approval before posting or approval thereafter is a right reserved by us, but no warranties or guarantees of appropriateness or adherence to these TOU as a result of any such review is made by us in any event.

Ensuring that your submissions comply with our content and conduct guidelines and any other provisions in these TOU is solely your responsibility and you agree to indemnify, defend and otherwise hold us harmless for any failure on your part to do so.

IV. Upon our receipt and acceptance of your submission (by review/approval or otherwise), your submission shall be classified as either a “report” or a “complaint” and will subsequently be posted to the appropriate submission category on the publically available portion(s) or our Site. During the submission process you will be required to designate your submission as either a “report” or a “complaint” but if, upon review, we find your chosen designation to be inaccurate we may either change the designation and post to the correct section accordingly without notice to you, or we may reject your submission.

4.2 Account Creation and Verification

When you make a submission as a first time User you will be prompted to create an account. This prompt may be provided to you via an email (which you must provide to make any submission) and/or via you begin transported to a separate registration page following your initial submission. You will be required to follow the instructions for account creation and fill-out all information fields unless they are designated as “optional.” Upon submission of your account creation information you will then be required to verify your submitted info and your status as the intended Account Holder. Verification shall be accomplished by entering a six-digit verification code on the account verification page of our Site; the six-digit code will be emailed to you after you initially submit your account registration information.

You do not have to create an account or verify it in order to make any initial submission and in some cases your submissions may become posts without your account being verified; however no submissions shall become posts absent account creation and any time you make a submission without being logged in you will be prompted to submit account creation information again and asked to verify thereafter. Further, without a verified account you will not be able to make any updated posts to your initial submission nor will you be able to communicate with any concerned business/Responding Party and because disability/failure to do so is counter to the resolution purposes of ScamGuard.com, we reserve the right to delete your post(s), reject your submission(s) and/or take any remedial action we deem necessary including but not necessarily limited to the removal or amendment of any profile, profile element, or any matter or related element such as a Star Rating or “Resolved” / “Unresolved” status.

All accounts for Reporting Parties and all account features currently available are free to create and free to use and are provided “as is” by us without any warranty of any kind.

4.3 Communications

Once your submission is posted and you have a verified account, you may communicate with and/or be contacted by any concerned business which is the subject of your post(s) via the email system facilitated through our Site. You communicate with any concerned business via this email system as well as continue to submit posts to the publically available report/complaint page which will be established by your initial post. The purpose of all communications, submissions and posts is to provide honest information and establish an appropriate discourse with a goal of resolution if at all possible and you are expected to adhere to this standard in all communications.

Further, if you have a submission which is posted and subsequently fail or refuse to communicate with a responding business for an unreasonable amount of time, or if you refuse to communicate with us if we contact you regarding any such submission/post/response or other communication, we may, at our sole discretion, remove your post(s), reject future submissions, suspend/terminate your account, refuse future user access and/or immediately remove or amend any associated matter or profile or profile element such as the Star Rating or “Resolved” / “Unresolved” status.

4.4 Submission/Posting/Communication Requirements and Guidelines

The mission and purpose of ScamGuard.com is to facilitate the honest reporting of suspicious business practices or bona fide business experience-related complaints and to allow for and encourage resolution whenever possible. As such, we take the nature of submissions and subsequent posts and communications very seriously and expect you to adhere to the below guidelines and requirements for all submissions/posts/communications that you make. The guidelines and requirements for submissions/posts/communications include but are not necessarily limited to the following:

I. No submission, post or communication may be defamatory, false, misleading, hateful, harassing, dishonest, exaggerated, vindictive, exploitative, lewd, abusive, vulgar, assaultive, threatening or speculative in nature or apparent intent, or otherwise made in bad faith.

II. All submissions, posts and communications are required to be made by persons having first-hand knowledge of or experience with the subject about which they are posting. We do not condone reports/complaints/communications which are made by parties that did not interact with the concerned business or parties themselves and are not reporting on or complaining or communicating about an experience that they themselves had, and such submissions/posts may be immediately removed by us at any time if, at our discretion, we identify them as such.

III. All submissions must be made with all required information for posting provided and must accurately describe the nature of the experience prompting the submission; any attempt to circumvent this requirement may result in immediate submission rejection and/or account suspension/termination and refusal of future access to our Site.

IV. All submissions, posts and communications must be made in keeping with the mission and purpose of ScamGuard.com. We expect you to make all reasonable attempts to resolve any given situation and accordingly, submissions, posts or communications which appear to have no potential for resolution or are made in such a fashion as to suggest that resolution is not desired or will be made impossible may be immediately removed by us at any time and any associated matter or profile or profile element such as the Star Rating or “Resolved” / “Unresolved” status may also be removed, amended, reset, restored or locked (solely at our discretion).

4.5 Reporting Party Age Restriction

ScamGuard.com provides and forum and service which is intended for the reporting on and resolution of business and consumer related experiences and encourages and expects a mature and productive discourse as well as reasonable judgment and restraint from all Reporting Parties. Further, ScamGuard.com respects the health, safety and privacy rights of all its Users and expects and requires its Users to be competent to understand and assent to these TOU and to utilize the Site in the fashion(s) which are intended. For these reasons among others, you are not permitted to use our Site or to act as or be a Reporting Party if you are under 15 years of age. When you make a submission and/or use our Site you certify that you meet this age requirement and may be required to affirmatively make such certification. If you do not meet this age requirement but you still make a submission, or if we suspect you do not meet this age requirement, we will consider you in violation of these TOU and may terminate any of your posts, reject your submissions, cancel your account and/or take any other remedial action that we deem necessary.

PART V

Terms for Businesses and Responding Parties

As discussed above, if you make any submission of any kind with the apparent intent of responding to any report or complaint or otherwise representing any business, you are considered a Responding Party. Without limitation, the terms and conditions contained in this, Part V of these TOU, apply specifically to you and the business you represent; other portions of these TOU may also still apply.

5.1 Submission/Response Process

The ScamGuard.com Site is intended to facilitate submissions/posts/responses in the following fashion and unless otherwise specified in writing the process of submitting and having a submission/response posted shall work as follows:

I. When you receive notification of a posting regarding your business (we do not provide notification to businesses ourselves; this is the responsibility of Reporting Parties) or otherwise become informed of and you view our Site, you will see a prominently placed click-through option for initiating the response process.

II. When you first access the response initiation portion of our Site as a non-account holding User there will be sub-page available for creating an account as a Responding Party. Upon accessing this page you will be prompted to complete the requisite account creation information and submit it for verification. Contact information shall then be available to you in the form of email and/or a phone number as you are required to verify with us that you are authorized to represent and communicate on behalf of the concerned business. You may either contact us for this purpose or we will contact you in a timely fashion after the initial account application is received.

III. Upon receipt of your account application and its verification and approval, you will be able to submit a response to the concerned report/complaint either through direct emails as facilitated through our Site or by posting to the publically viewable page where the concerned report/complaint is posted.

IV. Once you submit a post or make an email communication through our Site, we may at any time either prior to the completion of its posting/transmission or thereafter, review such submission (but are under no obligation to do so). Review of submissions by ScamGuard.com for approval is a right reserved by us, but no warranties or guarantees of appropriateness or adherence to these TOU as a result of any such review is made by us in any event.

Ensuring that your submissions comply with our content and conduct guidelines and any other provisions in these TOU is solely your responsibility and you agree to indemnify, defend and otherwise hold us harmless for any failure on your part to do so.

5.2 Account Creation and Verification

As discussed above under the Response Process Section, when you wish to generate a response a non-account holding User you will be prompted to create an account. You will be required to follow the instructions for account creation and fill-out all information fields unless they are designated as “optional.” Upon submission of your account creation information you will then be required to verify your submitted info and your status as the intended Account Holder and an authorized representative of the concerned business.

When you submit an account application to us, we will contact you within a reasonable amount of time or you may contact us via emails sent to us and/or phone messages left with us and those shall be replied to in a timely fashion but you are responsible for leaving adequate information and permissions for receiving any reply including hours during which you can be reached, accurate contact details and appropriate settings of any spam filters or instructions for reaching any particular phone extension.

Once we are in contact with you, we will take the necessary information from you to establish an account and will provide you with instruction for account activation and verification. Verification, at our discretion, may include a direct phone conversation to confirm your proper authority to represent and respond on behalf of the concerned business as well as to work towards and authorize any resolution and we may request proof of various information, such as the address of your business, your title, business-website profile, etc. If for any reason we believe or determine that you are not an appropriate and/or authorized representative of the concerned business or do not have personal or adequate knowledge of the situation, we may decline to provide you with an account for initiating any response and the post(s) regarding the concerned business may remain unresolved until an appropriate representative contacts us, and establishes a verified account. Any failure on your part to provide us with accurate information regarding your authority to represent and act on behalf of a concerned business shall cause you to indemnify, defend and otherwise hold us harmless as against any claim, complaint, judgment, sanction, fee (including reasonable attorney’s fees), penalty or fine, as brought by any person or party as a result of such misrepresentation, mistake or otherwise.

Without a verified account you will not be able to make any response posts nor will you be able to communicate with any concerned Reporting Party via our email or posting system and any posting regarding your business may remain in its initial state including any Star Rating or resolution status or lack thereof. All accounts for Responding Parties and all account features currently available are free to create and free to use and are provided “as is” by us without any warranty of any kind.

5.3 Communications

Once you have a verified account, you may communicate with Reporting Parties and/or respond to any post pertaining to your business via either the email system facilitated through our Site or by posting, respectively. The purpose of all communications, submissions and posts is to provide honest information and establish an appropriate discourse with a goal of resolution if at all possible and you are expected to adhere to this standard in all communications.

5.4 Posting/Communication Requirements and Guidelines

The mission and purpose of ScamGuard.com is to facilitate the honest reporting of suspicious business practices or bona fide business experience-related complaints and to allow for and encourage resolution whenever possible. As such, we take the nature of posts and communications very seriously and expect you to adhere to the below guidelines and requirements for all posts/communications that you make. The guidelines and requirements for posts/communications include but are not necessarily limited to the following:

I. No submission, post or communication may be defamatory, false, misleading, hateful, harassing, dishonest, exaggerated, vindictive, exploitative, lewd, abusive, vulgar, assaultive, threatening or speculative in nature or apparent intent, or otherwise made in bad faith.

II. All submissions, posts and communications are required to be made by persons having first-hand knowledge of or experience with the subject about which they are posting and/or communicating and that person must be authorized to do so. We do not condone posts or communications which are made by parties that did not interact with the concerned Reporting Party or do not have direct knowledge of the situation to which any concerned report/complaint pertains and such posts/communications may be immediately removed or rejected by us at any time if, at our discretion, we identify them as such. All submissions, posts and communications must be made in keeping with the mission and purpose of ScamGuard.com. We expect you to make all reasonable attempts to resolve any given situation and accordingly, submissions, posts or communications which appear to have no potential for resolution or are made in such a fashion as to suggest that resolution is not desired or will be made impossible may be immediately removed or rejected by us at any time and any associated matter or profile or profile element such as the Star Rating or “Resolved” / “Unresolved” status may also be removed, amended, reset, restored or locked (solely at our determination and discretion).

5.5 Responding Party Age Restriction

ScamGuard.com provides and forum and service which is intended for the reporting on and resolution of business and consumer related experiences and encourages and expects a mature and productive discourse as well as reasonable judgment and restraint from all Responding Parties. Further, ScamGuard.com respects the health, safety and privacy rights of all its Users and expects and requires its Users to be competent to understand and assent to these TOU and to utilize the Site in the fashion(s) which are intended. ScamGuard.com also expects any Responding Party to be capable of representing a concerned business in a professional fashion. For these reasons among others, you are not permitted to use our Site or to act as or be a Responding Party if you are under 18 years of age. When you make a submission or seek to create a Responding Party account and/or use our Site you certify that you meet this age requirement and may be required to affirmatively make such certification. If you do not meet this age requirement but you still make a submission, or if we suspect you do not meet this age requirement, we will consider you in violation of these TOU and may terminate any of your posts, reject your submissions, cancel your account and/or take any other remedial action that we deem necessary.

PART VI

General Terms and Conditions

6.1. No Warranty

ScamGuard.com does not guarantee that our Site, Services and/or System will be error free or completely secure, or will operate in an uninterrupted manner, or that errors or defects will always be corrected.

YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE, THE SYSTEM, AND OUR SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. SCAMGUARD.COM MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT OUR WEBSITE, SYSTEM OR SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR EXPECTATIONS. OUR SERVICES, SITE AND SYSTEM ARE PROVIDED TO YOU “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, PATENT, TRADEMARK OR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT), AVAILABILITY, RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, ACCURACY, SECURITY, COMPLETENESS, TITLE, CUSTOM, TRADE, QUIET ENJOYMENT OR SYSTEM INTEGRATION, WHETHER ARISING BY LAW, EQUITY, CUSTOM OR CONDUCT. SCAMGUARD.COM MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM OUR SERVICES. FURTHERMORE, SCAMGUARD.COM MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, REGARDING ANY OFFER SERVED/PRESENTED VIA OUR SERVICES OR ANY PRODUCTS, OR ANY SERVICES OR BENEFITS ORDERED OR OTHERWISE ACQUIRED THROUGH OUR COMPANY OR SYSTEM OR ANY TRANSACTIONS ENTERED INTO THROUGH OUR SERVICES/SYSTEM. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED FROM OUR SITE, INCLUDING ANY CODE, OR THROUGH THE USE OF ANY OF OUR SERVICES, IS DONE AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND DISCRETION AND YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOUR SYSTEM, YOUR SERVICES, YOUR BRAND/IMAGE/REPUTATION, YOURSELF OR THE LIKE AS A RESULT OF THIS DOWNLOAD OR YOUR USE OF OUR SERVICES AND/OR SYSTEM OTHERWISE.

6.2 Limitation of Liability

OUR LIABILITY TO ANY AND ALL USERS, INCLUDING BOTH REPORTING PARTIES AND RESPONDING PARTIES AS WELL AS TO ANY CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS OR BUSINESSESS, IS STRICTLY LIMITED. WITH REGARD TO ALL USERS WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL LIABILITIES OF ANY KIND; THE USER EXPERIENCE AND PERMISSIONS OF SCAMGUARD.COM IS PROVIDED SOLELY AT OUR DISCRETION AND WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO USERS FOR ANY EXPECTATION OR REQUIREMENT WHICH MAY BE HAD WITH REGARD TO THE USE OF OUR SITE, OR FOR ANY EXPECTATION OR REQUIREMENT WHICH MAY RESULT FROM ANY OFFER, REPRESENTATION, COMMUNICATION, POSTING, SUBMISSION, REPORT, COMPLAINT OR OTHER CONTENT CREATED BY ANY USER OR OTHERWISE CAUSED TO BE ON OUR SITE BY ANY USER. IN ANY CASE THAT LIABILITY MAY BE ATTACHED TO US NOTHWITHSTANDING THE FORGOING, OUR LIABILITY TO YOU TO, TO ANY USER, TO ANY BUSINESS OR TO ANY OTHER PARTY SHALL BE STRICTLY LIMITED TO $100.00 (one hundred dollars).

6.3 Indemnification

YOU AGREE TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, AND OTHERWISE HOLD SCAMGUARD.COM, ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS AND EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, AND/OR HEIRS AND ASSIGNS OF ANY OF THE SAME HARMLESS, FROM AND AGAINST ANY CLAIMS, LOSSES, LIABILITIES, SUITS, ACTIONS, DAMAGES, DEMANDS, FEES, SANCTIONS, PENALTIES, JUDGMENTS, AWARDS, COSTS, EXPENSES OR THE LIKE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, REASONABLE ATTORNEY’S AND ACCOUNTING FEES, MADE BY ANY PARTY DUE TO OR RESULTING FROM YOUR USE OF OUR WEBSITE, SYSTEM OR SERVICES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY USE OR SUBMISSION BY YOU OF ANY OFFENSIVE, UNAUTHORIZED, FALSE, DEFAMATORY OR INFRINGING CONTENT OF ANY KIND, OR ANY OTHER VIOLATION OF THESE TERMS OF USE, OUR PRIVACY POLICY OR ANY OTHER CONTRACT WHICH WE HAVE OR MAY HAVE WITH YOU, NOW KNOWN OR UNKNOWN.

6.4 Reservation of Intellectual Properties

Various information, images and other content contained within and otherwise comprising portions of the ScamGuard.com Site constitutes and may otherwise be construed as intellectual property of ScamGuard.com, including without limitation various trademarks, copyrights, patents and patentable subject matter, trade secrets, and data elements and source and object code. Unless otherwise expressly permitted by ScamGuard.com in writing or as expressly (not implicitly) allowed under these TOU, you are never permitted to make use of or to download, access, sublicense or sell any such materials. ScamGuard.com expressly and implicitly reserves all rights to all its intellectual properties now known or unknown, and failure of ScamGuard.com to claim, reserve or otherwise contemplate any of its rights or potential rights to the same shall not constitute any waiver of any kind.

6.5 No Waiver

Any failure, oversight, omission or the like on the part of ScamGuard.com in the reservation, claiming, assertion or enjoyment of any right which it may claim under these TOU or generally through the operation of our Site, Service or System, and/or general business activity, now known or unknown, shall not constitute any waiver of any kind.

6.6 Prohibition on Infringing or Offensive Content

The submission or use of any infringing, false, defamatory or offensive content by any User is prohibited by ScamGuard.com and any violation of this restriction by any person or entity constitutes a violation of these TOU, for which ScamGuard.com is indemnified and otherwise disclaims liability.

6.7 DMCA and Third Party Content

ScamGuard.com takes copyright and other intellectual property right infringement claims seriously and in the event that ScamGuard.com receives any bona fide take down order under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ScamGuard.com will comply with such order and will only consider restoration of such content upon a confirmation of non-infringement by the concerned rights holder in the form of a final judgment, arbitration decision or proof of license or other permission or resolution, or upon ScamGuard.com’s own investigation and determination, where the latter shall only be conducted at ScamGuard.com’s sole discretion. ScamGuard.com shall proceed in a similar fashion regarding any third party claim of infringement as to any submission without proper authorization, by any User, of content held by a third party. Any such action as described under this section by any User may be a violation of these TOU and subject the submitting party/parties to indemnification of ScamGuard.com as discussed herein.

6.8 Dispute Resolution

All legal proceedings arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Service shall be brought solely in the state or federal courts seated in the Northern District of California and the City and County of San Francisco, California which will have exclusive jurisdiction and venue under this agreement. YOU HEREBY WAIVE ANY RIGHTS TO MOTION OR SEEK A CHANGE OF VENUE FOR PURPOSES OF FORUM NON CONVENIENS AND ASSENT TO AND ACKNOWLEDGE PERSONAL JURISDICTION IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, IN THE NORTHERN DISTRICT AND CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

6.9 Governing Law

These Terms of Service shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflicts of law provisions.

6.10 Amendments

SCAMGUARD.COM reserves the right to make amendments to these Terms of Service or to update them at any time. Any such modification, addition, deletion or amendment, shall become effective immediately. It is solely the responsibility of any and all Users and any other concerned or potentially effected entity to review these Terms and Conditions from time to time; ScamGuard.com is not obligated to provide any notification of such amendments to any of the aforementioned parties.

6.11 Severability

Any term or provision of these TOU which is adjudged or otherwise determined by a court or other body of competent and authoritative jurisdiction to be illegal or unenforceable shall be automatically deemed as null and void and struck from these Terms and Conditions without any effect to or upon the legality or enforceability of any other provisions contained herein.

6.12 Entire Agreement

These Terms and Conditions constitute the entire agreement between ScamGuard.com and you, except to the extent that any expressly agreed upon and written contract is subsequently established between ScamGuard.com and you in regard to subject matter unrelated to these TOU or otherwise conflicting and expressly designated as controlling, otherwise these TOU supersede all other agreements between ScamGuard.com and you to any extent regarding shared subject matter or conflicting provisions.

THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING SCAMGUARD.COM!