Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions (the “Terms”) are a legally binding agreement between you and Tethered Software LLC (“Tethered,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). They govern your use of our website at www.jointethered.com, our mobile applications, and any related services (together, the “Services”).

These Terms apply to everyone who uses the Services, including people who connect their own accounts (“Account Holders”) and people who accept an invitation to support an Account Holder (“Accountability Partners” or “Partners”).

Please read Section 20 carefully. It requires most disputes to be resolved through binding individual arbitration rather than in court, and it waives your right to participate in a class action. You may opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, as described in that section.

1. Agreement to these Terms
2. Not a clinical, financial, or emergency service
3. What the Services do
4. No guarantee of detection or accuracy
5. Eligibility and your account
6. Accountability partners
7. Linked accounts and Plaid
8. Fees, subscriptions, and payments
9. Beta features
10. Acceptable use
11. Your content
12. Communications
13. Our intellectual property
14. Third-party services
15. Privacy
16. Suspension and termination
17. Disclaimers
18. Limitation of liability
19. Indemnification
20. Dispute resolution and arbitration
21. Additional terms for Apple devices
22. Changes to these Terms
23. General terms
24. Contact us

By creating an account, accepting a Partner invitation, or otherwise accessing or using the Services, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Cookie Policy, each of which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

Tethered is a peer-accountability and budgeting tool. It is not a medical, clinical, or therapeutic service, it is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or treatment, and it does not provide financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Nothing in the Services, including alerts, budgets, streaks, or other content, is professional advice. We are not a bank, lender, money transmitter, or financial advisor, and your Accountability Partner is not acting as a counselor or professional on our behalf. You remain solely responsible for your own financial decisions, including any decision to gamble or wager.

The Services are not an emergency or crisis service. Alerts can be delayed or missed, and no one at Tethered monitors your activity in real time. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), call 911 in an emergency, or contact the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700, available 24/7.

Subject to these Terms, the Services allow Account Holders to:

• connect financial accounts in read-only mode through our data provider, Plaid;
• have transactions automatically reviewed for activity that may relate to gambling, wagering, or deposits to gaming platforms;
• share alerts, flagged transactions, budget status, and account connection changes with a designated Accountability Partner;
• set spending limits, and request changes to those limits that may require a Partner's approval; and
• track streaks and other progress indicators.

The Services are read-only. Tethered cannot move, withdraw, hold, or transfer your money, and the Services do not block, stop, or reverse any transaction.

We may add, change, or remove features at any time. We will try to give reasonable notice of changes that materially reduce the core functionality of the Services.

The Services depend on information supplied by your financial institutions, by Plaid, and by automated classification. We do not guarantee that the Services will detect every gambling-related transaction, or that every flagged transaction is gambling-related. Among other things:

• financial institutions may report transactions late, incompletely, or with unclear descriptions;
• account connections can break, expire, or be revoked by you, your institution, or Plaid;
• activity in accounts you have not connected, cash, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other payment methods may not be visible to us;
• automated categorization can be wrong in either direction; and
• email and other notifications can be delayed, filtered as spam, or fail to deliver.

You understand that the Services can be circumvented, and that their usefulness depends on your own honesty and participation. You agree not to rely on the Services as the sole means of preventing gambling or financial loss.

You must be at least 18 years old, and of legal age to form a binding contract where you live, to use the Services. By using the Services you represent that you meet these requirements and that you are not barred from using the Services under applicable law.

You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information, to keep it up to date, and to keep your login credentials confidential. Each account is for one individual. You are responsible for all activity under your account, and you must notify us promptly at support@jointethered.com if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.

If you are an Account Holder

Sharing information with a Partner you choose is the purpose of the Services. By inviting a Partner, you instruct and authorize us to share with that Partner, once they accept, the information described in our Privacy Policy, which may include your name, flagged transactions (with amounts, merchants, dates, and account names), budget and streak status, limit change requests, and notices when a linked account is added, removed, or disconnected.

Because ending payment is a way to end monitoring, your Partners are also told promptly when your subscription is cancelled, when a payment for it is refunded or disputed, when you remove a Partner who was paying for it, and when monitoring stops.

You agree that these notices are part of the Services you requested, and that you will not attempt to prevent or suppress them while a Partner is active. You represent that you have your Partner's permission to give us their contact details and to have us contact them about the Services. You may remove a Partner or end the partnership at any time, but information already shared cannot be recalled.

If you are an Accountability Partner

By accepting an invitation, you agree to:

• keep the Account Holder's information confidential and use it only to support them;
• not use that information, or the Services, to harass, threaten, coerce, shame publicly, or financially exploit the Account Holder or anyone else; and
• stop using the Account Holder's information if the partnership ends.

Your role is voluntary. You do not owe the Account Holder or us any duty to monitor, respond to, or act on any alert, and you may leave the partnership at any time.

Relationship between users

Partners are not our employees, agents, or representatives, and we do not screen, supervise, or vouch for them. Each user is solely responsible for their own conduct toward the other. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for any Partner's actions or inaction, or for disputes between users, though we may suspend accounts involved in misuse.

You may only connect financial accounts that you own or are fully authorized to access. You may not connect another person's account, or use the Services to monitor anyone who has not agreed to it.

Tethered uses Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”) to gather your data from financial institutions. By using the Services, you grant Tethered and Plaid the right, power, and authority to act on your behalf to access and transmit your personal and financial information from the relevant financial institution. You agree to your personal and financial information being transferred, stored, and processed by Plaid in accordance with the Plaid End User Privacy Policy.

We never receive or store your bank login credentials. Your financial institution's own terms continue to govern your accounts, and we are not responsible for the availability or accuracy of the data they provide.

Monitoring an Account Holder's linked accounts requires a paid subscription. Accountability Partners can use the Services free of charge unless they choose to pay for someone. The price, billing period, and any free trial are shown before you subscribe. Each subscription covers one Account Holder.

• Free trial. New subscriptions may start with a free trial (30 days unless stated otherwise), limited to one per person. A payment method is required to start it. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, your subscription converts to a paid subscription and your payment method is charged the price shown at sign-up.
• Promotional free periods. We may offer free access for a set period, such as to people who tested the Services before paid plans began. A promotional period is limited to one per account, cannot be combined with a free trial, and ends on the date we tell you. Monitoring then stops unless a subscription is in place.
• Billing. Purchases made on our website are processed by Stripe. Purchases made in our iOS app are processed by Apple through your Apple ID and are subject to Apple's terms. An Apple ID can hold one Tethered subscription at a time.
• Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, and your payment method will be charged, until you cancel.
• Cancellation. You can cancel at any time, effective at the end of the current billing period. Cancel website subscriptions from your account settings or by emailing support@jointethered.com, and Apple subscriptions from your Apple ID subscription settings. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription.
• Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, monitoring continues for a grace period of 7 days so the payment can be fixed. If it is not fixed, the subscription ends and monitoring stops as described in Section 16.
• Partners who pay. A Partner may offer to pay for an Account Holder's subscription. The Partner who pays is the subscriber: they are billed, and only they can cancel it or change its plan. If a paying Partner stops paying, leaves, or is removed, the Account Holder has a grace period of 7 days to start their own subscription before monitoring stops. A Partner paying through Apple must cancel that subscription in their Apple ID settings; ending the partnership does not cancel it.
• Refunds. Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods. Refunds for Apple purchases are handled by Apple under its policies. If a payment is refunded or disputed (a chargeback), the subscription it paid for ends immediately and monitoring stops.
• Price changes. We will notify you in advance of any price increase, and it will apply from your next billing period. If you do not agree, you may cancel before it takes effect.
• Taxes. Prices do not include applicable taxes unless stated, and you are responsible for any taxes associated with your purchase.

Some or all of the Services may be labeled beta, early access, or similar. Beta features are still being tested, may contain errors, may change or be discontinued without notice, and are provided without any commitment that they will become generally available.

You agree not to, and not to help anyone else to:

• use the Services to monitor, track, or surveil a person without their knowledge and consent;
• connect financial accounts you do not own or are not authorized to access;
• impersonate anyone, provide false information, or create accounts through automated means;
• use the Services to harass, threaten, stalk, or abuse anyone;
• access or attempt to access another user's account or data, or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Services or bypass any security or access control;
• copy, modify, reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Services, except where applicable law expressly permits it;
• scrape, crawl, or use bots to access the Services, or interfere with or disrupt their operation;
• resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Services without our written permission; or
• use the Services for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms.

You may submit content through the Services, such as notes, reasons for a transaction, check-in messages, and replies to support (“Your Content”). You keep ownership of Your Content. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, process, display, and transmit Your Content, including to your Partner, solely to operate, maintain, and improve the Services.

You are responsible for Your Content and represent that you have the right to submit it. We may remove content that violates these Terms, but we have no obligation to review it.

If you send us suggestions or feedback, you agree that we may use them without restriction or compensation to you.

By using the Services, you agree to receive electronic communications from us, including account notices, security messages, alerts, and messages to or from your Partner, by email and, where available, by in-app or push notification. Because these messages are how the Services work, you cannot opt out of them while your account or partnership is active. You agree that notices, agreements, and disclosures we provide electronically satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing.

We do not currently send text messages. If we add text messaging, we will ask for your separate consent first.

The Services, including their software, design, text, graphics, logos, and the Tethered name, are owned by Tethered Software LLC or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Services for their intended purpose. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

The Services rely on third-party services, including Plaid, Stripe, Apple, and our hosting and email providers. Your use of those services may be subject to their own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services, and their unavailability or errors may affect the Services.

Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy explain how we collect, use, and share your information, including financial data. We do not sell your personal or financial data.

You may stop using the Services at any time, and you can permanently delete your account from your account settings. Deletion cannot be undone. When an Account Holder deletes their account, their Accountability Partner is notified that monitoring has ended, and when a Partner deletes their account, the Account Holder they supported is notified.

When monitoring stops. If an Account Holder no longer has a paid subscription, free trial, promotional period, or grace period, monitoring stops: we remove our access to their linked accounts through Plaid, and they and their Partners are notified. The account itself stays open, and monitoring can resume by subscribing and reconnecting an account. If monitoring stays stopped for 90 days, we delete the Account Holder's monitoring history (transactions, reports, and streaks), after a warning about a week beforehand.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Services, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, if your use poses a risk to other users, to us, or to third parties, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Services. If we discontinue the Services entirely, we will try to give reasonable advance notice.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including Your Content, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, and general terms.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Services are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and any warranties arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

Without limiting the above, we do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that they will detect any particular transaction, that any alert will be delivered or acted upon, or that use of the Services will change your behavior or produce any particular financial or personal outcome. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Tethered Software LLC or its members, managers, employees, agents, or licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, savings, data, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Without limiting the above, we are not liable for any gambling or wagering losses, any other financial losses, any transaction the Services did or did not detect, any delayed or undelivered alert, any decision you or your Partner make based on the Services, or the conduct of any Partner or other user.

Our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Services in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100).

These limitations apply to any theory of liability, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or otherwise, and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose. They do not limit liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, such as for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud where such limits are prohibited.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Tethered Software LLC and its members, managers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of or relating to (a) your violation of these Terms, (b) your misuse of the Services, (c) Your Content, (d) your connection of any account you were not authorized to connect, or (e) your conduct toward any other user, including as an Accountability Partner.

Informal resolution first. Before filing any claim, you and we each agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by sending a written notice describing it (for you, to support@jointethered.com or our mailing address below) and negotiating in good faith for at least 30 days.

Binding individual arbitration. If the dispute is not resolved informally, you and we agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules then in effect. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this section. The arbitrator, and not a court, will decide questions of arbitrability, except that a court may decide whether the class action waiver below is enforceable. Arbitration may be conducted by video or telephone, or in person in the county where you live or in Harris County, Texas. Payment of AAA fees will be governed by its rules.

Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court to protect its intellectual property rights or to stop unauthorized access to the Services.

Class action waiver: you and we agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate claims of more than one person.

30-day opt-out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing support@jointethered.com within 30 days after you first accept these Terms, with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” and your name and account email address. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

Governing law and venue. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict of law rules, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs the arbitration agreement. For any claim not subject to arbitration, you and we consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Harris County, Texas.

If any part of this section is found unenforceable, the rest will remain in effect, except that if the class action waiver is found unenforceable as to a claim, that claim will proceed in court and not in arbitration.

If you download our app from the Apple App Store, the following also applies:

• These Terms are between you and Tethered Software LLC only, not Apple Inc. (“Apple”). We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and its content.
• Your license to use the app is limited to use on Apple-branded products you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
• Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support services for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) for the app. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app.
• We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the app, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to legal or regulatory requirements, and claims under consumer protection, privacy, or similar laws.
• If a third party claims that the app or your use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of that claim.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must comply with any applicable third-party terms, such as your wireless carrier's, when using the app.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and once you accept these Terms, Apple will have the right to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

We may update these Terms from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by a new “Last updated” date at the top of this page. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the Services before they take effect. Your continued use of the Services after changes take effect means you accept them. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Services. Changes will not apply retroactively, and changes to Section 20 will not apply to disputes of which we already had notice.

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the policies they reference, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Services and replace any prior agreements.
• Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the rest of these Terms will remain in effect, subject to the special rule in Section 20.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, or to an affiliate.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for any delay or failure caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages at financial institutions, Plaid, or our service providers.
• No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between you and us, or between you and any other user.
• Headings. Section headings are for convenience only and have no legal effect.

If you have questions about these Terms, or need to send us a legal notice, email us at support@jointethered.com or write to us at: