Terms of Service

Last updated: October 1, 2026

1. Who we are and what HelpBLESS is

HelpBLESS ("HelpBLESS", "we", "us") runs a website where people can ask for help and other people can give it. Help can be money, a paid bill, labor, volunteer time, a professional service, mentoring, a consultation, goods, transport or housing.

HelpBLESS is a platform. We are not a charity, bank, lender, broker, insurer, employer or agent of anyone who posts or helps. We are not a party to any arrangement between people on the site. When you donate, you are making a gift to the person who posted, not buying anything from us. Donations are not tax-deductible unless the person you give to is a registered charity that tells you so itself.

Contact us at support@helpbless.com.

2. Eligibility and your account

• You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher, and able to form a binding contract.
• You must give true and current information. One person, one account.
• You must confirm your email address before you can post, comment, ask questions or offer help. We block disposable email services.
• Keep your password safe. You are responsible for what happens on your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it.
• We may suspend or close an account at any time if we believe it breaks these terms, puts others at risk, or if the law requires it.

3. Posting a need

• Your first post is free. Each further post costs a one-time fee, currently $9.35. The fee can change; the price shown at checkout is the price you pay.
• Every post is reviewed before it appears. We may approve it, ask for changes, decline it, or remove it later, at our discretion, and we do not have to give a reason.
• Posts do not expire. You can pause, stop or reopen a post whenever you like. Once a post has supporters, the story is locked so donors are not misled; you can still post updates.
• You must be the person in need, or have clear permission from that person (or their guardian) to ask for them. You must say who the help is for.
• What you write must be true, complete and not misleading. Use your own words and your own photos.
• You are responsible for using money you receive for the purpose you described, and for any tax, benefits or reporting rules that apply to you.
• You agree to answer donors' reasonable questions and to share updates, especially how funds were used.

3A. People profiles

• You can create one profile to present yourself (for example as a teacher, nurse, coach or artist). A profile does not have to ask for help, and anyone can send you a gift or a message of thanks.
• Publishing a profile currently costs nothing. We may change that fee for future profiles.
• You must be the person on the profile. Do not create a profile for someone else, for a business pretending to be a person, or with invented credentials. Say only what is true.
• Profiles are reviewed and can be paused, edited or removed. Gifts to a profile are subject to the same fees, payout rules and no-refund policy as other payments.
• Messages of thanks must be kind, truthful and free of contact details or links.

4. Verification badges

You can add a photo, government ID (passport, driver licence or national ID), address or organization verification. A badge means a reviewer checked a document against your account at the time. It is not a guarantee about your story, your character or how you will use funds. Documents are stored privately and never shown publicly. We can remove a badge at any time.

5. Donating

• Donations are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your full card details.
• A donation is a voluntary gift. Read the post, check the badges and ask questions in the comments before you give.
• All donations are final. There are no refunds. See our refund policy.
• You cannot donate to your own post, and you must not use a card or account that is not yours.
• Donors may choose to appear anonymously on public lists. We still keep a record of every donation for legal and audit reasons.

6. Offering non-money help

When you offer time, labor, skills, mentoring, advice, goods, transport or housing, you do so at your own risk. Contact details are shared only after the person who posted accepts your offer. Meet in public places first, tell someone where you are going, and never send money or personal documents to someone you have just met. We do not check anyone's qualifications or licences unless a badge says so, and even then only as stated in section 4. Nothing on the site is professional medical, legal, financial or tax advice.

7. Fees

• HelpBLESS keeps 15% of each donation as a platform fee. This pays for review, verification, support, fraud prevention and running the site.
• The payment processor's fee is also taken from each donation.
• The rest is paid out to the person who posted. Each donation records the rate that applied when it was made, so a later change does not affect past donations.
• Post fees (section 3) are kept in full by HelpBLESS.
• You are responsible for any bank, currency-conversion or PayPal fees on your side.

7A. Tips

When you give, you may add an optional tip to HelpBLESS. A tip is a payment to Cloudverg LLC to help run the platform. It is separate from your gift, it is not passed on to the person you give to, it is not a charitable contribution, and like all payments it is non-refundable.

7B. Payout details, tax forms and checks

• To receive money you must give your legal name, address and date of birth. This is required by law and is only asked when you ask for money.
• Once you receive more than a small amount in a year (currently $600) we require a tax form: Form W-9 if you are a U.S. person, or Form W-8BEN if you are not. Larger payouts (currently above $1,000 in total) also need identity verification.
• We keep records of gifts, payouts and tax forms for at least seven years, and we may report to tax authorities where the law requires. Receiving a gift may or may not be taxable where you live. That is your responsibility, and we do not give tax advice.
• We run automatic checks for fraud, self-dealing, money laundering and sanctions. We may hold, review, reduce or refuse a payout, and close accounts, to follow the law and protect donors. We cannot pay people in countries subject to sanctions.
• You must not use HelpBLESS to move money for someone else, to hide the source of money, to avoid taxes or reporting, or to receive money you are not entitled to. Using the site to find, target or harm people, or to offer help with bad intent, is forbidden and will be reported to the authorities.

8. Payouts

• Donations become payable after a safety hold, currently 3 days.
• We pay out by hand every Sunday, by PayPal or bank transfer, once your balance reaches $10. Smaller balances roll over.
• You must give correct payout details. We are not responsible for money sent to details you gave us that turn out to be wrong.
• We may delay, hold, reduce or cancel a payout if we suspect fraud or a breach of these terms, if a donation is disputed or reversed, if the law or a court requires it, or while we investigate a report. We may take back, from later payouts, any amount that was paid out on a donation that is later reversed.
• Payouts go only to an account in the name of the person who posted.
• Currencies: donations are taken in US dollars. Your bank or PayPal may convert them.

9. No refunds

Everything paid on HelpBLESS, including donations and post fees, is final and non-refundable, for any reason. Full details are in the refund policy. Please do not file a card dispute for a payment you chose to make; doing so can lead to your account being closed and the amount being recovered from you.

10. What you must not do

Read our community guidelines. In short, you must not:

• post false, exaggerated, stolen or misleading stories, photos or documents;
• ask for or send money outside HelpBLESS, or put phone numbers, emails, payment handles or links in posts, comments or messages to move people off the site;
• use the site for fraud, money laundering, funding violence, hate or any illegal purpose;
• harass, threaten, impersonate or discriminate against anyone;
• post spam or run bots, scrapers or anything that disrupts the site;
• use stolen cards or run test charges; or
• try to get around our review, limits or verification.

11. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post. You give HelpBLESS a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display, share and promote your posts, comments and photos on and for the site (including in search results and social previews) for as long as they are on the site and for a reasonable time after. You promise you have the right to post them. You can ask us to delete your content, but donation records and payment history must be kept (see our privacy policy).

12. Reports and removals

Anyone with a verified email can report a post, comment or profile. Enough reports can send a post back to review automatically. We may remove content, pause a post, hold funds and close accounts to protect donors and the community. We try to be fair, but we are not obliged to settle disputes between users, and our decision on moderation is final.

13. Disputes and chargebacks

If a donation is disputed with a bank or card issuer, the amount may be taken back from the balance of the person who posted, and future payouts may be held or reduced. If you start a dispute for a payment you made on HelpBLESS, we may close your account and send evidence of your payment to the processor.

14. Third-party services

We use Stripe for payments, and other providers for hosting, email and security. Their terms apply to their services. We are not responsible for them, for links to other websites or for anything a user does off the site.

15. Disclaimers

HelpBLESS is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not promise that the site will always be available or error-free. We do not guarantee that any post is true, that any person will use funds as promised, that any need will be met, or that any offer of help will be safe or successful. Giving and receiving help carries risk and you take it on yourself.

16. Limit of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, HelpBLESS and the people who run it are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of money, profit, data or goodwill, arising from your use of the site or from anything another user does. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the fees you paid to HelpBLESS in the 12 months before the claim (and not donations, which go to other people). Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

17. Indemnity

You agree to cover HelpBLESS against claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) that come from your content, your breach of these terms or your breach of someone else's rights.

18. Ending your account

You can close your account at any time by emailing support@helpbless.com. Live posts will be stopped. Sections that by their nature should survive (fees, payouts, no refunds, disputes, disclaimers, liability, indemnity and governing law) continue after closure.

19. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is important we will tell you on the site or by email. Using the site after a change means you accept it. Changes to fees apply to future payments only.

20. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which HelpBLESS is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before bringing a claim, please contact us and give us 30 days to try to fix it. You and HelpBLESS agree to bring claims only on an individual basis, and not as part of a class or group action, where the law allows that.

21. General

If part of these terms is found invalid, the rest stays in force. If we do not enforce a term, that is not a waiver. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours. These terms, with our privacy policy, refund policy and community guidelines, are the whole agreement between you and us.