Terms of Use

Favour is a pilot service that helps neighbours in Melbourne trade skills and items with each other using credits instead of money. These terms are the agreement between you and Favour (“we”, “us”). By creating an account you agree to them, to our Privacy Policy and to our Community Guidelines.

1. Who can use Favour

• You must be 18 or older and able to enter into this agreement.
• One account per person. Use your real first name or the name people know you by, and keep your details accurate.
• You're responsible for everything done through your account. Keep your password private and tell us if you think someone else has used it.

2. What Favour is, and isn't

We provide a place to post what you can offer or need, find a match, agree a trade, chat and keep track of credits. We are not a party to any trade. We don't employ, supervise, vet or guarantee the people on the service or the quality, safety or legality of what they offer. You decide whether to trade with someone, and you do so at your own risk. Please read the Community Guidelines, especially the safety tips for meeting in person.

This is a pilot. Features may change, and the service may be unavailable or end. We'll give reasonable notice of anything that affects your credits.

3. Credits

• Getting credits. New members receive welcome credits. You earn credits when a trade where you provide the skill or item is completed. We may also give credits for things like verified volunteering, and partner credits to verified volunteer groups (section 5).
• Available credits are what you can put towards a new trade.
• Promised credits are ones you've agreed to pay in a request or offer that hasn't been accepted yet, or that are set aside for open volunteer spots on a group's listing. They stay yours until someone accepts.
• Held credits have been paid for an accepted trade and are waiting until you both confirm it's done. When you both confirm, they go to the other person. If the trade is cancelled, they come back to you.
• Incoming credits are someone else's held credits that will come to you when you both confirm.
• Automatic refund. If a trade isn't confirmed by both people within 14 days of being accepted, the held credits go back to whoever paid, unless a dispute is open. Either person can add 7 more days at a time from the chat, up to 28 days after the trade was accepted.
• Disputes. Either person can raise a dispute any time before the held credits would go back. We'll look at the chat and what both people tell us, and decide whether the held credits are released or refunded. Our decision on where the credits go is final.
• Corrections. We may correct a balance that's wrong because of an error, and remove credits gained through fraud, abuse or breaking these terms.
• If your account is closed, any credits in it lapse. They have no value to be paid out.

4. Listings, trades and conduct

• Describe what you offer or need honestly and accurately, and only post things you're allowed to offer.
• Some work isn't allowed on Favour at all, even if you're qualified, such as electrical, plumbing or gas work, childcare, driving people, and health, legal or financial advice. The full list is in the Community Guidelines.
• Don't post or offer anything illegal, dangerous or sexual, or anything else the Guidelines don't allow, and follow any safety rules that apply to what you offer.
• Turn up when you've agreed to, do what you agreed, and confirm or cancel honestly in the app.
• Treat people with respect. No harassment, threats, discrimination, scams or spam.
• Don't use Favour to ask for or arrange cash payments, or to collect other members' personal information.
• Don't interfere with the service, try to get around its limits or safety features, or access it with automated tools.

We screen posts and profile text automatically for safety, and people can report listings, profiles and chats. We may remove content, hold a post for review, limit features, suspend or close an account if we reasonably believe these terms or the Guidelines have been broken or someone could be harmed.

5. Volunteer groups

Some accounts are verified groups: community and volunteering groups we've checked, for example through their ABN or ACNC registration, a partner organisation that knows them, or a call with a named contact. They show a “Verified group” badge. Verification means we've checked the group exists; it isn't an endorsement of everything it does.

• Spots. A verified group can post a Need with several volunteer spots. Each volunteer who joins has their own trade with the group, on the same terms as any trade here. The group sets one price per volunteer. Credits for open spots are set aside when it posts, and come back to it if spots aren't filled. If the group changes the price, volunteers already accepted keep the price they agreed.
• A group's responsibilities. A group must be genuine, keep its details accurate, and act through a contact who's allowed to act for it. It's responsible for the activity it organises: telling volunteers what's involved and any risks, providing the supervision, training and equipment needed, having appropriate insurance, and any checks the law requires (such as Working with Children Checks).
• A group must not use volunteers in place of paid workers, or for anything the Community Guidelines don't allow.
• Partner credits we give a group are like any other credits: they have no cash value, and section 3 applies to them.
• Volunteering through Favour doesn't make you an employee or contractor of the group, or of us.
• We may remove a group's verification, its listings or its partner credits if it breaks these terms or the Guidelines.

6. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post: listings, photos, your profile, messages and reviews. You give us permission to store, display and process it to run Favour (for example showing your listing to people nearby and your reviews on your profile). Ratings and reviews must be honest and about a real trade.

7. Safety

Meeting someone in person always carries some risk. Follow the safety tips in the Community Guidelines. If you ever feel unsafe, leave. In an emergency, call 000. Report anything concerning to us from the listing, profile or chat.

8. Our responsibility to you

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law that can't be excluded. To the extent the law allows: Favour is provided “as is”; we aren't liable for the conduct of members, for what's exchanged in a trade, or for loss arising from a trade or meeting; and we aren't liable for indirect or consequential loss. Because the service is free and credits have no cash value, our total liability to you is limited, as far as the law allows, to resupplying the service.

9. Ending your account

You can ask us to delete your account at any time from Profile → Delete my account. We can suspend or close accounts as described in section 4, and if the pilot ends.

10. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is significant, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and we may ask you to accept the new version. If you don't agree, you can stop using the service and ask us to delete your account.

11. General

These terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia, and the courts of Victoria have jurisdiction. If part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.