Terms of Service

1. About these Terms

These Terms are an agreement between you and Kweele about using kweele.com and the Kweele app, a marketplace that connects people building in Liberia, many of them living abroad, with builders, tradespeople and material suppliers in Liberia. By creating an account or using Kweele, you agree to them.

Kweele is operated by Kweele LLC, a Minnesota limited liability company.

Our Refund policy is part of these Terms, and our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information. If you use Kweele for a business, you confirm you can agree to these Terms for it.

2. Who can use Kweele

You must be 18 or older and able to make a binding contract. Professionals must be allowed to offer their services in Liberia and must give accurate information when they apply for verification. Kweele may limit new sign-ups, and may let buyers in from a waitlist.

3. Your account

You’re responsible for your account and for keeping your sign-in secure. You agree to:

• Give accurate information and keep it up to date.
• Keep your password and sign-in codes to yourself, and tell us if someone else uses your account.
• Take responsibility for what happens under your account.

4. Buyers, professionals and suppliers

Kweele connects buyers with professionals and suppliers. Buyers describe their projects accurately and review the work. Professionals are responsible for the quality, safety and legality of their work. Suppliers are responsible for what they sell matching its listing.

The agreement to do the work is between the buyer and the professional. Kweele is not a party to it and does not do the work itself. Kweele does take and hold the payments for it, as these Terms describe.

5. Stages and held payments

Work on Kweele is split into stages, each with its own price, agreed in the professional’s quote. When a buyer pays for a stage, Stripe processes the card payment and Kweele holds the money in its own account. It is not paid to the professional yet.

Kweele pays a stage to the professional only when the buyer releases it after reviewing the work, or when Kweele decides a dispute about it (section 16). Nothing is released on a timer. A stage can’t be released until the professional has added a mobile-money account for payouts.

Kweele is not a bank or a licensed escrow agent, and held money earns no interest.

6. Payments, fees and payouts

Buyers pay in US dollars by card or Stripe Link, processed by Stripe. A card is saved for later only if you choose to save it in the app, and we charge a saved card only for a payment you confirm. Stripe emails a receipt for every payment.

• Stages: the buyer pays the stage price and nothing more. Kweele’s commission comes out of the professional’s side: a percentage of each stage, taken when the stage is released, at the rate in effect at that time. The current rate is shown where professionals price their work and on our For Professionals page.
• Marketplace orders: the total shown before you pay is what you pay. It includes the items, delivery and tax at the rate shown, and any service fee is already in the prices. Suppliers pay Kweele a commission on the price of the goods they sell, taken from what they’re paid. Delivery fees are paid to the supplier in full.
• Payouts: Kweele pays professionals and suppliers by Lonestar MTN MoMo or Orange Money, to the account in their settings. Our staff send payouts in batches. A payout counts as paid only once the transfer is confirmed delivered. We hold a payout while a dispute or reported problem about it is open, or while the account it goes to is suspended (section 21).
• Mobile-money transfers can’t be reversed, so check your payout number.
• You are responsible for any taxes on what you earn through Kweele.

7. Marketplace purchases

Independent suppliers sell the materials and tools in the marketplace and set their availability, prices, lead times and delivery fees. Kweele takes the payment for an order and holds each supplier’s share until you confirm the items arrived, or until the confirmation window shown at checkout passes after the supplier marks them delivered. Then Kweele pays the supplier.

Problems with an order, cancellations and refunds are covered by our Refund policy.

8. Verification

Professionals can apply for verification by giving an ID and references. A Verified or Site-Verified badge means we completed our checks at a point in time. It is not a guarantee of quality or of how a job will turn out, so use your own judgment too.

9. The job board

Buyers can post a job publicly. Professionals can say they’re interested, and the buyer can invite up to four of them to quote. Posting and showing interest are free. Anyone can see an open job post, so don’t put your exact address or contact details in it.

10. Crews

Professionals can record their crew members and what they pay them. Kweele doesn’t send that money and isn’t the crew’s employer. The professional is responsible for paying their crew and for any employment and tax duties.

11. What you must not do

To keep Kweele safe and fair, you agree not to:

• Post false, misleading or fraudulent information, or pretend to be someone else.
• Take or make payments outside Kweele for work or goods arranged on Kweele, including repeat work with the same people, or otherwise go around Kweele to avoid its fees.
• Harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone.
• Post anything unlawful, or anything that infringes someone else’s rights, including their copyright.
• Scrape, overload, break into or interfere with Kweele.

12. Reviews

You can review a professional once a stage you paid them for through Kweele has been settled: released to them, refunded to you, or split after a dispute. You can review a product once its supplier has marked your order of it delivered. You get one review per professional or product, and your name is shown with it.

Reviews must be honest and about your own experience. Don’t offer or accept anything in return for a review.

Anyone signed in can report a review as spam, abusive, fake or off-topic. A review reported by several paying customers is hidden until our staff look at it; reports from the professional or supplier it’s about don’t count toward that. We remove reviews that break these Terms. We don’t remove a review because it is negative. The professional or supplier can reply publicly, and replies follow the same rules.

13. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post. You give Kweele a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, copy and show it only as needed to run Kweele: to the people you share it with, and publicly where a feature says so, such as profiles, reviews and job posts.

Photos of a buyer’s project are shown publicly, on the professional’s profile to promote their work, only if that buyer agreed when releasing the stage. The buyer can withdraw that at any time, and closing the buyer’s account withdraws it. When you delete content or your account, this licence ends, except for copies other people already received, such as messages, and records we must keep.

14. Reporting, blocking and removal

On the website you can report a message, a review or a reply, and block a conversation. In the app you can also report a whole chat or a professional’s profile. The person isn’t told who reported them, and our staff review every report.

Kweele may remove content, take down listings, block conversations, or suspend or close accounts that break these Terms or put others at risk.

15. Copyright complaints

If you believe something on Kweele infringes your copyright, tell us through our contact form. Say what the work is, where it appears on Kweele (a link is best), and how to reach you; confirm that you believe in good faith the use isn’t authorized and that what you’ve told us is accurate; and sign with your full name.

We remove or disable content we find infringing, and tell the person who posted it. If you think your content was removed by mistake, tell us the same way and explain why. We close the accounts of people who infringe again and again.

16. Problems and disputes

When a professional asks a buyer to release a stage, the buyer can release it or open a dispute instead: “Something’s wrong — open a dispute” on the website, or “Something’s not right” in the app. Only the buyer can open a dispute. While it is open, the stage’s money stays held.

Kweele’s staff look at the project details, messages and photos, then decide to (a) release the money to the professional, (b) refund the full stage price to the buyer, or (c) split it, refunding part to the buyer and releasing the rest to the professional, less Kweele’s commission on the part released.

A professional who disagrees with a buyer, or a buyer whose professional hasn’t started or has stopped, can ask us to step in through our contact form. Problems with materials and marketplace orders are covered by our Refund policy.

Kweele’s decision about held money is final on Kweele. It doesn’t limit any legal rights you have against the other person.

17. Messages from Kweele

We send account and transaction messages: emails about new messages, job invitations and your marketplace deliveries (which you can turn off in Settings → Notifications), verification results by email (and by text, if we have a phone number for you), and app notifications. Stripe emails a receipt for every payment. Reply STOP to any text to stop texts, and turn app notifications off in your phone’s settings. Message and data rates may apply.

18. The Kweele app

These Terms apply to the Kweele app too. If you get it from the App Store or Google Play, the store’s own terms also apply. Apple and Google aren’t parties to these Terms and aren’t responsible for the app or for supporting it.

19. Kweele’s name and software

Kweele’s name, logo and software belong to Kweele and are protected by law. Don’t copy, change or build on them except as these Terms allow.

20. Disclaimers and limits

Kweele is provided “as is”. We don’t promise that a professional or supplier will meet your expectations, that listings are free of mistakes, or that Kweele will always be available.

As far as the law allows, Kweele isn’t liable for indirect, incidental or consequential losses, or for what buyers, professionals or suppliers do. Our total liability for any claim about Kweele is limited to the greater of US$100 or the amounts you paid through Kweele in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits a right you have that the law doesn’t let a contract take away.

21. Closing your account, suspension and termination

Buyers and professionals can delete their account in Settings on the website or in Profile in the app, once no money is held or moving on it: a stage Kweele is holding, an open dispute or reported problem, materials or an order still being delivered or checked, or a payout on its way. Suppliers close their account through our contact form, under the same conditions. Delete your account explains what we delete and what we keep.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these Terms or puts others at risk. A suspended person is signed out everywhere and can’t sign in or open a new account. To enforce that, we keep scrambled fingerprints of the account’s email, phone, sign-in, ID number and payout number, and ask Stripe to block cards saved on it.

Suspension doesn’t cancel what is owed. Payouts for stages a buyer already released are held while we review them; then we pay them, or, if the work wasn’t done, refund the buyer. Before suspending a buyer, we settle any stage they’ve paid for that Kweele is still holding. A stage or materials payment that reaches us after an account is closed or suspended is refunded.

The sections on payments, disputes, disclaimers and limits keep applying after an account closes.

22. Disagreements with Kweele

If you have a problem with Kweele itself, please tell us through our contact form first, so we can try to put it right.

The laws of the State of Minnesota govern these Terms, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.

If we can’t settle a dispute between you and Kweele that way, it will be decided by the state courts in Anoka County, Minnesota, or the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, and you and Kweele agree to those courts’ jurisdiction.

Nothing in this section takes away a protection you have under the consumer laws of the place where you live.

23. Changes to these Terms

When we change these Terms, we update the date at the top. Before a material change takes effect, we’ll tell you with a notice on Kweele or by email. A change doesn’t apply to a payment made before it took effect. If you don’t agree to a change, you can stop using Kweele and close your account.

24. Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Use our contact form. We reply to the email address you give us.

Kweele is operated by Kweele LLC, a Minnesota limited liability company.