Terms of Service

Mishtatef (“we”, “us”, the “Service”) is a tool for organizing group gifts: shared Circles with a pooled Pot, Occasions for each gift, and a ledger that keeps track of who gave what. By creating an account or joining a Circle you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

These Terms are an agreement between you and Mishtatef. They do not create any agreement between you and the other members of your Circle — how your family divides a gift is between you and your family.

• You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or contribute money through the Service.
• You sign in with your email address or a linked Google account. You are responsible for keeping access to that email and account secure — anyone who controls your inbox can sign in as you.
• The information you give us (your name, email, timezone) must be accurate. Members of your Circle rely on it to know who is who.
• One person, one account. Do not impersonate anyone or create accounts for people without their knowledge.

A Circle is created and administered by its members. Some members hold roles (such as organizer or treasurer) that let them invite people, open Occasions, request contributions, and approve payouts. Those permissions are granted inside the Circle, by the Circle — we provide the machinery, not the judgment.

• Invitations may only be sent to people you actually know and reasonably believe want to join. Do not use invitations to send unsolicited mail.
• Free Circles hold up to 20 people, counting invitations that have not yet been accepted. Larger Circles require a Mishtatef Gold subscription.
• Leaving a Circle stops future requests to you, but does not erase your past contributions from the Circle’s ledger — the ledger is the shared record every other member relied on.

Mishtatef is not a bank. When money moves through the Service, it is held in accounts at a regulated partner bank and moved by our payment processor. We never see or store your bank credentials or full card numbers — those are collected directly by the payment processor. Funds held in a Pot are not insured deposits belonging to Mishtatef; they belong to your Circle under the terms of the partner bank’s program.

• Nobody is charged without saying yes. Every contribution requires your explicit confirmation, and every recurring contribution sends you notice before each charge with the option to skip or change it.
• Fees are shown before you confirm. Bank-account contributions are free. Card contributions carry the card processing fee, displayed upfront. Standard payouts are free; instant payouts carry a fee, also displayed upfront. We do not charge fees we have not shown you.
• Tracking-only Circles move no money. A Circle may use Mishtatef purely as a ledger, marking contributions settled by cash, check, or Zelle. In that mode we record what members report; we cannot verify that the underlying money actually moved.
• Contributions are gifts, not purchases. Once your contribution settles into a Pot it belongs to the Circle’s common fund. Whether and how it is refunded to you is a decision for your Circle’s organizers, not a right these Terms create — though we will always help correct genuine processing errors.

The ledger is append-only. Corrections are made by reversing entries, never by editing or deleting history. Every member of a Circle can inspect their Circle’s ledger. This is deliberate: the shared, undisputable record is the product. By using the Service you accept that your contributions and reimbursements will appear in that record, subject to the visibility settings described in section 6 and in the Privacy Policy.

When an Occasion excludes an honoree, our servers withhold that Occasion — its existence, chat, ledger lines, and emails — from the excluded person’s account entirely. We build this seriously and test it before every release.

What we cannot control is people. If a family member tells the honoree, forwards an email, or leaves a laptop open, the surprise is gone and that is not something we can prevent or be responsible for. Circle organizers also control visibility settings — full amounts, percentages only, or hidden — and anonymous giving; those settings bind what other members see, not what people say to each other at the Shabbos table.

• Payouts from a Pot require approval under the Circle’s own rules (typically a treasurer or organizer). We execute approved payouts; we do not decide whether a payout is wise.
• Reimbursement requests must be honest: real expenses, real receipts. Submitting a falsified expense to a family Pot is fraud against your own Circle and grounds for immediate account termination.
• Where the Service issues a single-use virtual card for an approved amount, the card may only be used for the approved purpose and amount.

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Break the law, launder money, evade sanctions, or move money for any purpose other than genuine group gifting and shared family expenses.
• Harass, deceive, or defraud other members — including pressuring people to contribute. The Service is built around asking once, gently.
• Probe, overload, or interfere with the Service, attempt to access other Circles or excluded Occasions, or scrape data.
• Resell the Service or use it to run a commercial collection operation.

The free plan is free forever, with the limits published on our site. Mishtatef Gold is a paid subscription billed in advance; you may cancel at any time and Gold remains active through the end of the paid period. If a Circle downgrades below Gold while over the free member limit, existing members stay but new members cannot be added until the Circle is within the limit. We will give at least 30 days’ notice before any price increase or before introducing fees on anything currently free.

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate an account that violates these Terms, creates risk for other members, or that we are required to close by our payment processor, partner bank, or law. If an account holding a role in a Circle is closed, the Circle’s remaining members keep the Circle, its Pot, and its ledger. Money in a Pot is never forfeited because an account closes — it remains the Circle’s, payable under the Circle’s own approval rules.

The Service is provided “as is”. We do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we are not a party to — and will not arbitrate — disagreements between Circle members about gifts, amounts, or who should have been invited.

To the maximum extent the law allows, Mishtatef’s total liability to you for any claim arising out of the Service is limited to the greater of $100 or the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages — including a spoiled surprise. Nothing in this section limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or your rights against the payment processor and partner bank under their own terms.

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. For material changes we will email every account holder at least 14 days before the new terms take effect. Continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept the updated Terms; if you do not, close your account before they take effect and any balance you are owed will be paid out under your Circle’s normal rules.

Questions about these Terms: support@mishtatef.app. We read everything.