Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, browsing, accessing, or using the Platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

Your use of the Platform is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal information. If these Terms conflict with the Privacy Policy on a privacy-specific issue, the Privacy Policy controls for that issue.

2. What SOS Is And Is Not

SOS provides a platform where eligible students may share profiles, wishlists, and SOS requests, and where donors may discover students and purchase items from third-party retailers for those students.

• SOS is not the seller of wishlist items.
• SOS does not process payments for retailer purchases and is not the merchant of record.
• All purchases occur on third-party retailer sites and are governed by that retailer’s terms, policies, shipping, return, refund, and dispute processes.
• SOS does not provide financial aid, scholarships, emergency assistance, social services, healthcare, housing services, food security services, or crisis response services.

3. Eligibility

You must be 18 years or older to use the Platform. Do not use the Platform if you are under 18.

Student access may be limited to users who satisfy SOS eligibility requirements, including approved student email domain rules, invitation rules, institutional rules, enrollment-related requirements, or other verification requirements.

SOS may deny, suspend, restrict, or terminate access if we believe a user is ineligible, has provided inaccurate information, creates risk, or violates these Terms.

4. Accounts and Security

You agree to:

• Provide accurate, current, and complete information
• Maintain the confidentiality of your login credentials
• Promptly notify SOS of unauthorized access or suspected misuse
• Use only your own account and not share account access with others
• Keep your email address and contact information current

You are responsible for activity under your account. SOS may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts for violations, suspected misuse, suspected fraud, safety concerns, legal risk, or platform integrity concerns.

5. Profiles, Visibility, and Anonymity Controls

Students and donors may submit profile information, including names, school information, major or academic information, profile images, wishlist links, needs, notes, and related materials.

Student profiles may be visible to the public or to logged-in users depending on platform settings, profile settings, institutional settings, and moderation decisions. SOS may offer visibility controls, including anonymous, obscured, limited, targeted, or private display modes.

Donor profiles may be anonymous by default or may include optional public information depending on donor settings and platform configuration.

SOS may offer anonymity, obscuring, or visibility controls. These controls are intended to reduce public exposure, but they do not guarantee complete anonymity. Information may still be visible to SOS administrators, service providers, institutional administrators where applicable, logged-in users with authorized access, or third parties involved in fulfillment, moderation, security, legal compliance, or platform operations.

Shipping addresses are never publicly displayed on student profiles. Students acknowledge that public profile information may be viewed, shared, indexed, copied, screenshotted, archived, or reused by third parties. SOS cannot guarantee that public information will not be copied or redistributed by others.

6. Shipping Address Handling; Campus Delivery Strongly Encouraged

Students may provide a delivery address to receive items purchased by donors from third-party retailers. Students are responsible for the delivery information they provide. For safety and privacy, students should use a campus mailroom, department office, residence hall desk, campus package center, or other school-controlled delivery location whenever possible. Students should not provide a personal home address unless they knowingly choose to do so and accept the associated privacy and safety risks.

SOS does not verify whether a submitted delivery address is a campus address, does not guarantee the safety of any delivery location, and is not responsible for loss, theft, misdelivery, returned packages, delayed pickup, failed pickup, rejected deliveries, or consequences arising from a student’s chosen delivery address.

6.1 Address visibility

• Shipping addresses are not displayed publicly.
• SOS may display a student’s delivery address only to logged-in donors or other authorized users when reasonably necessary to support an intended purchase, shipment, pledge, verification, dispute review, moderation, safety review, or platform operation.
• SOS administrators and authorized service providers may access delivery information when needed for platform operation, safety, moderation, dispute review, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or technical support.

SOS may log, audit, and review access to student delivery information to support safety, fraud prevention, dispute review, platform integrity, and legal compliance.

6.2 Permitted use by donors

Donors may use a student’s delivery address only to ship purchased item(s) to that student and for no other purpose.

Strictly prohibited:

• Using, storing, sharing, selling, publishing, scraping, copying, or exploiting address information for any purpose other than shipping purchased item(s)
• Contacting, visiting, locating, surveilling, tracking, or attempting to identify a student using address information
• Harassment, marketing, off-platform outreach, solicitation, pressure, or any misuse of address information
• Combining student delivery information with other data to identify, contact, profile, or target a student

Violations may result in immediate suspension or termination and may be reported to institutional authorities, service providers, retailers, payment providers, or law enforcement where appropriate.

6.3 Full name allowed for shipping

Students may provide their full name for shipping purposes. Donors agree to use a student’s name only to complete shipping and delivery of purchased item(s), and not for unrelated contact, identification, marketing, profiling, or outreach.

6.4 Campus mailroom and delivery limitations

Campus delivery locations may impose restrictions, including required name formats, student ID requirements, approved carrier rules, prohibited item lists, package size or weight limits, pickup deadlines, storage limits, return policies, and recipient verification. Students and donors are responsible for ensuring delivery information complies with the campus location’s rules and the retailer’s shipping requirements.

7. Retail Purchases, Returns, and Disputes

Because purchases occur on third-party retailer sites:

• SOS does not guarantee item availability, pricing, taxes, shipping costs, shipping times, delivery outcomes, item condition, substitution rules, or retailer performance.
• SOS is not responsible for defects, returns, refunds, replacements, cancellations, chargebacks, failed payments, retailer account issues, or retailer policies.
• Purchase disputes, payment disputes, shipping disputes, product defects, and return requests must be handled with the retailer or payment provider.
• SOS does not control third-party retailer checkout flows, inventory, product descriptions, pricing, recommendations, delivery carriers, or package handling.

The Platform may include tools to reduce duplicate purchases or track workflow status, including “reserved,” “claimed,” “purchased,” “proof submitted,” “received,” “approved,” “rejected,” “flagged,” or similar statuses. These tools are informational and administrative only and do not guarantee purchase, shipment, delivery, receipt, approval, or student benefit.

Donors are responsible for reviewing retailer terms and ensuring that their purchase, shipping method, delivery details, and selected item are appropriate before completing any transaction.

8. Verification, Platform Integrity, and Fraud Prevention

SOS may verify student eligibility, donor activity, pledge activity, proof submissions, account status, profile information, email domains, invitation status, or other platform activity. SOS may request reasonable documentation or supporting information and may decline, restrict, or remove access if verification is not completed or if information appears inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, fraudulent, unsafe, or inconsistent with these Terms.

Donors may be asked to submit order confirmations, screenshots, tracking details, confirmation numbers, receipts, or similar proof of purchase. Students may be asked to confirm receipt or non-receipt of items. SOS may review this information to support platform integrity, reduce duplicate purchases, investigate disputes, audit activity, and moderate misuse.

Submission or approval of proof does not guarantee that an item was actually purchased, shipped, delivered, received, accepted by a campus location, or retained by the student. SOS may reject, flag, remove, or request additional information regarding any proof submission at its discretion.

SOS may take actions to preserve platform integrity, including:

• limiting account features,
• requiring additional verification,
• removing, hiding, or limiting content,
• rejecting, flagging, or reopening pledge-related submissions,
• temporarily or permanently suspending accounts,
• notifying affected users, institutional administrators, service providers, retailers, or law enforcement where appropriate.

SOS may maintain audit logs, moderation records, security records, notification records, and workflow history to support safety, security, dispute review, compliance, and platform operation.

9. Prohibited Conduct

You may not:

• Harass, threaten, stalk, shame, exploit, coerce, discriminate against, or abuse any user
• Post or request sensitive personal data, doxxing material, private addresses, identification numbers, private phone numbers, private social media handles, or confidential information
• Impersonate others or misrepresent identity, age, school affiliation, enrollment, need, donor activity, purchase activity, delivery status, or receipt status
• Engage in fraud or deception, including fake profiles, fake orders, fake shipments, false proof, false receipt claims, duplicate claims, or misleading wishlist activity
• Post, request, purchase, or attempt to facilitate prohibited, unsafe, illegal, age-restricted, regulated, or inappropriate items, including weapons, controlled substances, alcohol, nicotine products, sexually explicit items, counterfeit goods, stolen goods, hazardous materials, or items prohibited by a school, campus delivery location, retailer, or law
• Use student delivery information for any purpose other than shipping purchased item(s)
• Attempt to contact, locate, visit, market to, solicit, or target a student using delivery information
• Use the Platform for commercial solicitation, spam, scraping, data harvesting, lead generation, or unauthorized outreach
• Scrape, crawl, reverse engineer, disrupt, probe, overload, attack, or interfere with the Platform
• Bypass safety controls, visibility controls, authentication controls, eligibility rules, email-domain restrictions, invite restrictions, or access restrictions
• Upload malicious code, harmful files, deceptive links, phishing content, or content designed to compromise another user or system
• Use the Platform in a way that violates law, school policy, retailer policy, third-party terms, or these Terms

10. User Content and License

You retain ownership of content you submit, including profiles, text, wishlist links, images, notes, proof submissions, confirmations, and related materials (“User Content”). You represent that you have the rights needed to submit your User Content and that your User Content does not violate law, third-party rights, school policy, retailer policy, or these Terms.

You grant SOS a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, display, perform, distribute, transmit, adapt, and use your User Content as reasonably necessary to operate, maintain, secure, moderate, improve, analyze, and promote the Platform.

SOS may review, edit, reject, hide, remove, limit distribution of, or disable access to User Content at any time when we believe it violates these Terms, creates safety risk, creates legal risk, is misleading, is inappropriate, is outdated, is fraudulent, or may harm users, SOS, schools, donors, students, or the Platform.

SOS will not use a student’s personal story, name, image, likeness, testimonial, or detailed need narrative in external marketing materials without consent, except where the content has already been made publicly available by the user through the Platform and the use is reasonably related to operating, displaying, or promoting the Platform.

11. Intellectual Property

The Platform and its software, branding, design, logos, trade names, workflows, text, graphics, interfaces, and non-user content are owned by SOS or its licensors and are protected by law. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, create derivative works from, or exploit the Platform except as permitted by law or with our written permission.

12. Third-Party Services

The Platform may link to, display information from, or interact with third-party websites, retailers, delivery carriers, payment providers, email services, authentication services, analytics providers, hosting providers, or other third-party services.

SOS does not control and is not responsible for third-party services, content, pricing, policies, data practices, availability, security, delivery performance, payment processing, or disputes. Your use of third-party services is governed by their own terms and policies.

13. Termination

SOS may suspend, restrict, deactivate, or terminate your access, remove content, or restrict features at any time if we believe:

• you violated these Terms,
• your use creates risk for SOS, users, schools, service providers, retailers, or others,
• your account is inactive, compromised, fraudulent, misleading, or unsafe,
• you are no longer eligible to use the Platform,
• we are required or advised to do so for legal, security, operational, or compliance reasons.

You may stop using the Platform at any time. Termination does not limit SOS’s right to retain records where reasonably needed for legal, security, audit, fraud prevention, dispute review, or legitimate business purposes.

14. Disclaimers

THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SOS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, AND RELIABILITY.

SOS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE PLATFORM WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, ERROR-FREE, FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED.

SOS DOES NOT GUARANTEE USER IDENTITY, STUDENT NEED, DONOR INTENT, PURCHASE COMPLETION, SHIPMENT, DELIVERY, RECEIPT, RETAILER PERFORMANCE, CAMPUS MAILROOM PERFORMANCE, ITEM QUALITY, OR ANY PARTICULAR OUTCOME FROM USE OF THE PLATFORM.

15. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SOS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, USE, OR OPPORTUNITY, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, STATUTE, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY.

SOS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR CLAIMS ARISING FROM THIRD-PARTY RETAILERS, PAYMENT PROVIDERS, DELIVERY CARRIERS, CAMPUS DELIVERY LOCATIONS, USER CONDUCT, USER CONTENT, FAILED PURCHASES, FAILED SHIPMENTS, MISDELIVERIES, RETURNS, REFUNDS, CHARGEBACKS, LOST PACKAGES, STOLEN PACKAGES, OR DISPUTES BETWEEN USERS.

IN NO EVENT WILL SOS’S TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE PLATFORM EXCEED $100 OR THE AMOUNT PAID TO SOS BY YOU, IF ANY, IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, WHICHEVER IS GREATER.

16. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SOS, its owners, officers, employees, contractors, service providers, affiliates, and agents from and against claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to your use of the Platform, your User Content, your interactions with other users, your purchases or attempted purchases, your misuse of delivery information, your violation of these Terms, your violation of law, or your violation of third-party rights.

17. Institutional or Licensed Instances

SOS may provide versions of the Platform for schools, departments, institutions, employers, nonprofit organizations, or other organizations. In those cases, access, eligibility, visibility, moderation, reporting, branding, permitted email domains, administrative controls, and available features may be configured for that organization.

Institutional administrators may have access to certain account, profile, request, activity, reporting, moderation, audit, and compliance information associated with their instance, subject to applicable agreements, privacy notices, and law.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will update the “Last Updated” date when we make changes. Continued use of the Platform after changes means you accept the revised Terms.

19. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms are governed by California law, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute must be brought in state or federal courts located in California, unless a different venue is required by law.