Terms of Service

Date of Last Revision: August 8, 2021

1. Welcome to Chipinjar

This page explains our terms of use. When you use Chipinjar, you’re agreeing to all the rules below. We’ve done our best to offer you clear and simple explanations in these colored boxes, which are not part of the official legal terms.

By using this website (the “Site”) and services (together with the Site, the “Services”) offered by Chipinjar, Inc. (including its subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, representatives, consultants, employees, officers, and directors—collectively, “Chipinjar”, “we,”, “us”, or “our”), you’re agreeing to these legally binding rules (the “Terms”). You’re also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.

We may change these terms from time to time. If we do, we’ll let you know about any material changes, either by notifying you on the Site or by sending you an email. New versions of the terms will never apply retroactively—we’ll tell you the exact date they go into effect. If you keep using Chipinjar after a change, that means you accept the new terms.

Chipinjar is for your personal, non-commercial use.

2. Creating an Account

You must be 18 or over to sign up for a Chipinjar account. You’re responsible for your account and all the activities on it.

To create, contribute or open a jar you are invited to participate or receive, you’ll need to register, choose a username, and set a password. When you do that, the information you give us has to be accurate and complete. Don’t impersonate anyone else or choose names that are offensive or that violate anyone’s rights. If you don’t follow these rules, we may cancel your account.

You’re responsible for all the activities on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone used your account without your permission, you should report it to customercare@chipinjar.com.

To sign up for an account, you need to be at least 18 years old, or old enough to form a binding contract where you live. If necessary, we may ask you for proof of age.

3. How Chipinjar works

This section explains the roles of creator, contributor, and recipient of a jar. How money gets collected, whether the jar can be changed or canceled.

Chipinjar provides a platform for group gifts. When a creator creates a Jar on Chipinjar, he/she is inviting other people to form a contract. Anyone who contributes to a Jar is accepting the creator’s offer, and forming that contract.

Chipinjar is not a part of this contract—the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and the contributors. Here are the terms that govern that agreement:

When a Jar passes the contribution deadline, the creator is responsible to provide a pin to the recipient to receive collected contribution. Once a recipiant has retrieved the contribution, the creators have satisfied their obligation to their contributors.

If a recipient has not collected the contribution within 30 days after the Jar is closed, the funds collected will be returned to the contributors minus the processing fee.

These are the terms that apply when you’re creating a jar:

After your jar has been created, we’ll charge our fees before putting funds in your jar. Chipinjar and its payment partners will subtract fees before transmitting the proceeds to the recipient. Some payments can’t be collected — for instance, when a contributor’s credit card expires before funding ends, and they don’t provide updated information — we can’t guarantee that the amount of contribution the recipient receives will be exactly equal to the full amount contributed minus fees.

These are the terms that apply when you’re contributing to a jar:

You’re only charged at the time of the jar's contribution deadline. You’ll provide your payment information when you contribute, but you won’t be charged. The exact amount you contributed is the amount Chipinjar will collect.

In some cases we’ll reserve the charge on your card. Chipinjar and its payment partners may authorize or reserve a charge on your credit card (or whatever payment method you use) for any amount up to the full contribution, at any time between the contribution and the collection of funds.

You can change or cancel your contribution at any time before the jar’s funding deadline. Once the deadline has passed, you can only cancel or change your contribution by making special arrangements directly with the creator.

Chipinjar doesn’t offer refunds. Responsibility for passing the collected contribution to the recipient rests entirely with the jar creator. Chipinjar doesn’t hold funds on creators’ behalf, and does not offer refunds.

These are the terms that apply when you’re receiving a jar:

There may be a delay between the deadline of contribution and your access to the funds, so don’t assume you’ll be able to immediately collect your funding. And don’t take any actions in reliance on collecting any of the money contributed until you actually have the ability to withdraw it from your account and spend it.

4. Stuff We Don’t Do and Aren’t Responsible For

We don’t oversee nor mediate disputes between users.

Chipinjar isn’t liable for any damages or losses related to your use of the Services. We don’t become involved in disputes between users, or between users and any third party relating to the use of the Services. We don’t oversee the performance or punctuality of projects, and we don’t endorse any content users submit to the Site. When you use the Services, you release Chipinjar from claims, damages, and demands of every kind—known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed—arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and the Services. All content you access through the Services is at your own risk. You’re solely responsible for any resulting damage or loss to any party.

5. Our Fees

We only charge our 5% fee on successfully received contributions, this includes any fees from our payment partners (about 2.9% - 4%). Our partners’ fees may vary slightly based on your location.

Creating an account on Chipinjar is free.

We will not collect any fees without giving you a chance to review and accept them. If our fees ever change, we’ll announce that on our Site. Some funds contributed are collected by payment providers. Each payment provider is its own company, and Chipinjar isn’t responsible for its performance.

You’re responsible for paying any additional fees or taxes associated with your use of Chipinjar.

6. Other Websites

If you follow a link to another website, what happens there is between you and them—not us.

Chipinjar may contain links to other websites (for instance, product pages, user profiles, and comments may link to other sites). When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We don’t control or endorse those sites.

Chipinjar partners with other companies (such as PayPal) for payment processing. When you create or contribute to a jar, you’re also agreeing to the payment processor’s terms of service.

7. Your Intellectual Property

We don't own the content you post on Chipinjar, but we do have your permission to use or copy it however we need. We generally use it to promote our service and showcase our community. Ultimately, you're responsible for the content you post, and you're vouching to us that it's ok to use.

Chipinjar doesn’t own content you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you create a jar, or leave messages in a jar, you agree to these terms:

We can use the Content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content. In general, we use this Content to promote services on the website.

When we use the Content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.

You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Chipinjar all the license rights outlined here).

Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content, or on Chipinjar’s hosting of that Content.

You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If Chipinjar or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.

You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that Content originated.

We’re not responsible for mistakes in your Content. Chipinjar will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any Content.

8. Chipinjar's Intellectual Property

The content on Chipinjar is protected in various ways. You do have the right to use it for certain personal purposes, but you can’t use it for anything commercial without getting permission first.

Chipinjar’s Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

Chipinjar grants you a license to reproduce content from the Services for personal use only. This license covers both Chipinjar’s own protected content and user-generated content on the Site. (This license is worldwide, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable.) If you want to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, or store any of this content for a commercial purpose, you need prior written permission from Chipinjar or the relevant copyright holder. A “commercial purpose” means you intend to use, sell, license, rent, or otherwise exploit content for commercial use, in any way.

9. How We Deal with Copyright Issues

We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA).

Chipinjar respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, you should notify Chipinjar of claimed copyright infringement via email to customercare@chipinjar.com (Subject line: "DMCA Takedown Request").

10. Deleting Your Account

You can delete your account at any time, but doing so won’t automatically remove some content you’ve already posted.

You can terminate your account at any time through your account settings. We may retain certain information as required by law or as necessary for our legitimate business purposes. All provisions of this agreement survive termination of an account, including our rights regarding any content you’ve already submitted to the Site (for instance, if you’ve created a jar, or left comment in a jar, deleting your account will not automatically remove the jar or your comment from the Site). You can contact us at customercare@chipinjar.com for additional information or to request jar page deletion (this is not available in all circumstances).

11. Our Rights

To operate, we need to be able to maintain control over what happens on our website. So in this section, we reserve the right to make decisions to protect the health and integrity of our system. We don’t take these powers lightly, and we only use them when we absolutely have to.

To protect the health and integrity of our system and to help ensure our users enjoy a safe and secure environment, Chipinjar reserves these rights:

We can make changes to the Chipinjar Site and Services without notice or liability.

We have the right to decide who’s eligible to use Chipinjar. We may in limited circumstances impose restrictions or limitations on accounts, or — for particularly significant or repeated violations of our Terms or any other rules on the Site, like our rules for starting jars — we may cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services (especially if you’re abusing them). We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If these things are prohibited by law where you live, then we revoke your right to use Chipinjar in that jurisdiction.

We have the right to cancel any pledge to any project, at any time and for any reason.

We have the right to reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any project at any time and for any reason.

Chipinjar is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions.

It is our general policy not to comment on the reasons for any such action. However, if we impose restrictions on or limit a verified account holder’s access to any of our Services or if we intend to cancel a verified account, we will let the account holder know the reasons for this action and how they can remedy any issues (where appropriate), unless we’re prohibited from doing so by law or in the interest of safety. For account cancelations, we will let the account holder know the reasons for this action at least 30 days in advance, unless we’re canceling for reasons related to illicit or inappropriate content, the safety of a good or service, counterfeiting, fraud, malware, spam, data breaches, other cybersecurity risks, or the suitability of a good or service for minors.

12. Warranty Disclaimer

We work hard to provide you with great services, but we can’t guarantee everything will always work perfectly. This site is presented as-is, without warranties.

You use our Services solely at your own risk. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available” and without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

CHIPINJAR SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ANY WARRANTIES IMPLIED BY ANY COURSE OF DEALING, COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION (ORAL OR WRITTEN) OBTAINED BY YOU FROM CHIPINJAR SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

13. Indemnification

If you do something on Chipinjar that winds up getting us sued, you have to help defend us.

If you do something that gets us sued, or break any of the promises you make in this agreement, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of Chipinjar. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.

14. Limitation of Liability

If something bad happens as a result of your using Chipinjar, we’re not liable (beyond a small amount).

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Chipinjar, its directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special, or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of content of any third party on the Site. In no event shall Chipinjar’s liability for direct damages be in excess of (in the aggregate) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100.00).

15. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law

We’re located in Toronto, and any disputes with us have to be handled in Toronto under the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada applicable.

We at Chipinjar encourage you to contact us if you’re having an issue before resorting to the courts. Our Chipinjar support team is on hand and ready to answer your questions. You can visit our Help Center to find articles with information that may resolve your issue. If you still have questions, you can click “Contact us” in the Help Center or email customercare@Chipinjar.com so that one of our support team agents can personally reply to you and attempt to resolve your issue. These resources are easily accessible and free.

In the unfortunate situation where legal action does arise, these Terms (and all other rules, policies, or guidelines incorporated by reference) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and Canada, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law, and without application of the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act or the United Nations Convention of Controls for International Sale of Goods. You agree that Chipinjar and its Services are deemed a passive website that does not give rise to jurisdiction over Chipinjar or its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, employees, agents, directors, officers, or shareholders, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than the Province of Ontario. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms, or your use or non-use of Chipinjar, shall be filed only in the provincial or federal courts located in Toronto in the Province of Ontario, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. You hereby irrevocably waive any right you may have to trial by jury in any dispute, action, or proceeding.

16. The Rest

These are our official terms and our rules for how things work. You can verify any confusing or conflicting information you see elsewhere by referencing what we’ve explained on this page.

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and Chipinjar with respect to the Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and Chipinjar with respect to the Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or Chipinjar to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way won’t be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get Chipinjar’s prior written consent. Chipinjar has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. Chipinjar will provide you notice via email, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.