Terms of service

Who we are

Sendbud is a business name registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria (registration no. BN 3692661), Lagos, Nigeria. In these terms, “Sendbud”, “we” and “us” mean that business, and “you” means anyone who uses sendbud.app.

By creating an account or using Sendbud, you agree to these terms. They include our Refund policy and Prohibited items list. If you don't agree, please don't use Sendbud.

Our Privacy policy explains how we handle your personal data.

What Sendbud does

Sendbud is an online marketplace. Travellers post trips with their route, travel date and spare luggage space. Senders ask a traveller to carry an item for a reward. The two of them agree the details in the in-app chat, and the traveller carries the item.

The arrangement to carry an item is between the sender and the traveller. Sendbud is not a courier, carrier, freight forwarder, customs agent or insurer. We don't collect, inspect, pack, store or transport items, and we don't check what's inside a package.

Everyone verifies their identity before using the marketplace (see Verifying who you are). A Verified badge means the person confirmed a phone number, their ID was found and their selfie matched it, and they are 18 or over. It doesn't mean we vouch for them: we can't promise that a trip will happen or that an item is what the sender says it is. Ratings from other users can help you decide, but they aren't checks by Sendbud.

Your account

• You must be at least 18 years old to use Sendbud. Identity verification checks your date of birth.
• Use your real name and an email address you check. Keep your password secret. You're responsible for what happens in your account.
• One account per person. Don't share your account or use someone else's.
• We may ask you to confirm your email address before you can use some features.
• You can ask us to delete your account at any time by emailing privacy@sendbud.app. We are also adding a way to do it yourself in the app. If money is held on one of your deliveries, we'll delete the account once that delivery is completed, refunded or settled. We keep some records after an account is deleted, as our Privacy policy explains.

Verifying who you are

• Before you post a trip, send or accept a request, or pay, you must confirm your email address, confirm a mobile phone number with a code we text you, and verify your identity with your NIN or passport and a live selfie. This applies to everyone, including people who signed up before it started.
• Dojah runs the ID and selfie check for us, and Termii sends the texts. The selfie step uses biometric data, so we ask for your explicit consent before it starts. Our Privacy policy explains what is kept.
• Only verify with your own phone number and your own, valid ID. One phone number and one identity per account: a phone number or ID already used on another account is refused or checked by our team.
• A check passes only if your ID is found, your selfie passes the liveness check and matches the ID's photo, and you are 18 or over. If it doesn't pass you can try again, a few times a day. We may look at a check before accepting it, refuse it, or ask you to verify again later, for example if we suspect fraud.
• Travellers are paid only into a bank account in their verified name. If the name your bank holds is different (for example a married name), you can ask us to check the account, and we decide whether to accept it.

Trips and delivery requests

• Travellers must only post trips they plan to make, with the right route, date and spare weight. If your plans change, tell the senders on that trip in the chat straight away.
• Senders must describe items honestly: what the item is, how much it weighs, and anything the traveller should know, such as its value or whether it's fragile.
• When a traveller accepts a request, the sender and traveller have an agreement to carry that item. Agree where and when to hand it over in the chat.
• The traveller marks the item picked up once they have it, and delivered once they've handed it over. The sender then confirms delivery, which pays the traveller.
• The reward is the full price for carrying the item. Don't ask for or offer extra payments.

Prohibited items and inspection

• Don't send or carry anything on our Prohibited items list, or anything that is illegal where it starts, where it passes through or where it's delivered.
• Each time you send a request, you confirm that the item isn't on the list and that the traveller can inspect it at pickup. We record when you confirmed.
• Travellers can inspect any item before taking it, and can refuse anything, including a sealed package they can't open. A traveller who refuses an item can cancel the request before pickup, and the sender gets a full refund.
• If we believe an item is prohibited, we may cancel the request, refund the sender, suspend the accounts involved and report it to the authorities.

Customs, airlines and the law

• Senders and travellers are each responsible for following the law, including customs, import and export rules, and the rules of the airline or other transport the traveller uses.
• The traveller carries the item through customs. Travellers must declare items when the law requires it, and should only carry items they're willing to answer for.
• The sender and traveller agree between themselves who pays any customs duties, taxes or excess baggage charges. Sendbud doesn't pay them.
• Sendbud isn't responsible if customs, an airline or anyone else seizes, destroys or delays an item.
• Travellers are responsible for any tax due on the rewards they receive.

Payments and fees

Payments are in Nigerian naira (NGN) and are processed by Paystack. Senders pay by card on Paystack's checkout page. Sendbud never sees or stores your card number.

Once the traveller accepts a request, the sender pays:

• the reward, which goes to the traveller in full;
• a payout fee, which is Paystack's charge for transferring the reward to the traveller's bank account; and
• Paystack's card fee, which Paystack adds on its checkout page.

Sendbud shows each of these before you pay, and Paystack's checkout page shows the exact total before you confirm. Sendbud doesn't charge a fee of its own at the moment (0%). If that changes, we'll show the fee before you pay, and it won't apply to payments already made.

Travellers pay nothing. Neither Sendbud nor Paystack takes anything from the reward. A request with no reward needs no payment.

Only pay and get paid through Sendbud. If you pay or receive money any other way for a delivery arranged on Sendbud, we can't hold it, refund it or help you get it back.

How we hold and release payments

• After the sender pays, we hold the money in Sendbud's Paystack balance until the delivery is finished. The app calls this escrow. Sendbud is not a bank, and held money earns no interest.
• When the sender confirms delivery, we pay the full reward to the traveller's bank account through Paystack Transfers. Travellers must add a Nigerian bank account in their verified name (see Verifying who you are); the payment waits until they do.
• Transfers usually arrive within minutes, but banks can take longer. If a transfer fails, we try again.
• Only confirm delivery once the item has arrived and you've checked it. After you confirm, the money goes to the traveller and can't be taken back through Sendbud.
• Automatic release: if the traveller marks an item delivered and the sender neither confirms nor opens a dispute in time (3 days at the moment), we pay the traveller as if the sender had confirmed. The request page shows you both the date beforehand.
• We may delay a payment or payout while we look into a dispute, a report or suspected fraud, or where the law requires it.

Cancellations and refunds

• Before pickup, the sender can cancel a request that is waiting or accepted, and the traveller can cancel a request they accepted. If the sender has paid, they get back everything they paid, fees included, on the card they used.
• Once the traveller marks the item picked up or delivered, the request can't be cancelled in the app. If something goes wrong after that, open a dispute instead of confirming delivery.

Our Refund policy has the details, including how long refunds take.

Problems and disputes

• If something goes wrong, first try to sort it out with the other person in the chat.
• If you can't, open a dispute on the request page while the money is still held: the sender once the item is picked up, the traveller once they have marked it delivered. You can also email support@sendbud.app with a link to the request.
• While a dispute is open, the delivery can't be confirmed, cancelled or released automatically. We look at what both of you send us, such as the chat, photos and receipts, and decide whether to refund the sender in full or pay the traveller. You'll both see what we decided, and why, on the request page.
• Our decision only settles what happens to the money we hold. It doesn't stop either of you taking legal action against the other.
• If you dispute a card payment with your bank, please tell us too. We may pause the request until the bank's process ends.

Ratings and what you post

• After a delivery is completed, the sender and traveller can rate each other. Ratings must be honest and about that delivery. A traveller's average rating is shown on their trips.
• You're responsible for what you post: trip notes, item descriptions, messages and ratings. Don't post anything illegal, abusive or misleading, or anything that isn't yours to share.
• You own what you post. You allow us to store it, show it to the people who need to see it, and use it to run Sendbud and settle disputes.
• We may remove anything that breaks these terms.

Rules for using Sendbud

Don't:

• send or carry prohibited or illegal items, or use Sendbud to smuggle anything;
• lie about who you are, your trip or your item, or verify with someone else's phone number, ID or face;
• ask for or make payments outside Sendbud for a delivery arranged here;
• harass, threaten, defraud or discriminate against anyone;
• create fake accounts, trips, requests or ratings;
• try to get into accounts or systems that aren't yours, overload Sendbud, or copy other users' data from it.

Reports, blocking and suspension

• Tell us about any user, trip, request or message that breaks these terms by reporting the user from the menu next to their name, or by emailing support@sendbud.app. From the same menu you can block someone: you stop seeing each other's trips and can't send each other new requests, while deliveries already under way carry on.
• If we believe someone has broken these terms or the law, or put others at risk, we may warn them, remove content, cancel requests, hold or refund payments, limit what they can do, or suspend or close their account. Where we can, we'll tell them why.
• We may share information with the police or other authorities when the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.
• If you think we got a decision wrong, reply to our message and we'll look at it again.

Our responsibility to you

We work to keep Sendbud running and secure, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors.

Senders and travellers deal with each other directly. As far as the law allows, Sendbud isn't responsible for:

• an item being lost, damaged or delayed;
• what another user does or fails to do;
• items seized, destroyed or delayed by customs, an airline or anyone else;
• money paid outside Sendbud.

As far as the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim about a delivery is limited to the amount paid through Sendbud for that delivery.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else the law doesn't allow us to limit. Nothing in them takes away your rights under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 or other consumer law that applies to you.

If you break these terms or the law, for example by sending a prohibited item, you're responsible for the losses that causes, including claims made against Sendbud.

Changes to Sendbud and these terms

• We may change Sendbud and these terms. We'll post the new terms here with a new date. If a change matters, we'll tell you by email or in the app before it applies.
• Changes don't apply to payments made before they take effect.
• If you keep using Sendbud after a change applies, the new terms apply to you. If you don't agree, you can delete your account.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Any dispute about them will be dealt with by the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria. If you live in another country, you keep any rights its consumer law gives you that can't be waived.

Before going to court, please email us so we can try to settle it.

Contact

Questions about these terms or a delivery: support@sendbud.app. Data and privacy requests: privacy@sendbud.app. More ways to reach us are on our Contact page.

Sendbud is a business name registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria (registration no. BN 3692661), Lagos, Nigeria.