Terms of Service

1. Introduction

Welcome to Strawlo. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of our web app, mobile applications, and related services (together, the "Service"). By accessing or using Strawlo, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you don't agree with any part of these Terms, you may not use the Service.

These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and Strawlo. They are entered into electronically and have the same effect as a written agreement under the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) of Ghana. Please read them carefully before using our platform.

These Terms incorporate by reference our Privacy Policy and our Acceptable Use Policy, which together describe how we handle personal data and what is and is not permitted on the Service.

2. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, accessing our platform, or using any part of the Service, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Acceptable Use Policy.

If you are using Strawlo on behalf of an organisation or business, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, and references to "you" in these Terms refer to both you as an individual and the organisation.

3. Eligibility and Account Registration

Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old or the age of majority in your jurisdiction to use Strawlo. By creating an account, you confirm that you meet this age requirement.

Account Registration

To access certain features of Strawlo, you need to create an account. When you register, you agree to:

• Provide accurate, current, and complete information about yourself and, where applicable, your business;
• Maintain and promptly update your account information;
• Keep your password secure and confidential;
• Accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account;
• Notify us immediately of any unauthorised use of your account.

You may not create an account using false information or on behalf of someone else without permission. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these requirements.

4. Strawlo's Role

Strawlo is a software-as-a-service platform that enables individuals and businesses ("Merchants") to create and operate their own online stores. We provide the storefront software, hosting, order-management tools, and an integration with third-party payment providers.

Strawlo is not a marketplace, fulfilment centre, payment institution, or merchant of record. In particular:

• Merchants — not Strawlo — are the sellers of any goods or services listed on a Merchant's store. The contract for sale is between the Merchant and the customer;
• Merchants are responsible for sourcing, storing, packaging, shipping, and fulfilling their own orders;
• Customer payments settle directly into the Merchant's own payment-provider account (for example, a Paystack subaccount or Paystack Connect account in the Merchant's name). Strawlo does not custody, hold, or pool customer funds;
• Strawlo does not warrant or guarantee the quality, safety, legality, or accuracy of any goods or services sold by a Merchant. Any dispute about a Merchant's products is between the Merchant and their customer.

5. User Responsibilities and Acceptable Use

As a user of Strawlo, you are responsible for:

• All content you upload, post, list, or share through the Service, including product listings, images, and store copy;
• Ensuring your use of the Service complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including the laws of the Republic of Ghana and the laws of any jurisdiction in which you operate or sell;
• Maintaining the security of your account credentials;
• Your interactions with customers, other Merchants, and third parties;
• Backing up any important data or content you store on the Service;
• Using the Service in a manner that doesn't harm, disable, or impair our systems or any third party's use of the Service.

You retain ownership of any content you create or upload to Strawlo. By using the Service, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, store, transmit, and display your content solely for the purpose of operating and improving the Service.

You also agree to comply with our Acceptable Use Policy, which describes the products, services, and conduct that are prohibited on Strawlo. Breach of the Acceptable Use Policy is a breach of these Terms.

6. Payments, Subscriptions, and Refunds

Strawlo Subscription Fees

Strawlo offers paid subscription plans. Pricing, features, and availability of plans are subject to change. We will notify you of any material pricing changes before they take effect.

If you purchase a paid subscription:

• You authorise us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis according to your chosen billing cycle;
• All subscription fees are non-refundable unless otherwise stated or required by law;
• You are responsible for paying all taxes applicable to your subscription;
• Payment is due immediately upon purchase or at the start of each billing period;
• Failure to pay may result in suspension or termination of your access to paid features.

Cancellation of Subscriptions

You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings. Cancellations take effect at the end of your current billing period, and you will retain access to paid features until that time. We do not provide refunds for partial months or unused portions of your subscription, except as required by law or at our sole discretion.

Customer Transactions, Refunds, and Chargebacks

Customer payments for a Merchant's products are processed by a third-party payment provider (such as Paystack) and settle into the Merchant's own account. Strawlo does not take custody of those funds and is not a party to the contract of sale between the Merchant and the customer. As a result:

• Each Merchant must publish a clear refund, return, and cancellation policy on their store;
• Merchants are responsible for authorising refunds to their customers in accordance with that policy, applicable Ghanaian law (including the consumer-protection provisions in Part V of the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) and the Sale of Goods Act, 1962 (Act 137)), and any chargeback ruling;
• Merchants are responsible for handling chargebacks, payment disputes, and customer complaints relating to their own orders, and for cooperating with Strawlo and the payment provider in resolving them;
• Strawlo may, but is not required to, mediate disputes that involve suspected fraud, breach of these Terms, or misuse of the Service. We may also disable payment routing, suspend payouts where permitted by the payment provider, or terminate accounts in response.

Under the Paystack subaccount model used in Ghana, Merchants do not have a Paystack dashboard. Strawlo is the parent Paystack account holder and initiates refunds through Paystack's API on the Merchant's request, currently through our support channel. The refund is debited from the Merchant's next settlement. The detailed flow is set out in Section 6 of our Acceptable Use Policy.

Taxes on Merchant Sales

Merchants are solely responsible for determining, collecting, reporting, and remitting any taxes that apply to the sale of their own goods or services, including value-added tax (VAT), customs duties, and income tax under the Income Tax Act, 2015 (Act 896), the Value Added Tax Act, 2013 (Act 870), and the Revenue Administration Act, 2016 (Act 915) of Ghana, and any equivalent law in other jurisdictions where the Merchant operates. Strawlo does not collect, withhold, file, or remit those taxes on a Merchant's behalf.

7. Paystack and Other Payment Providers

Where a Merchant accepts online payments through Strawlo, the Merchant is also bound by the terms and acceptable-use rules of the payment provider — including, where applicable, Paystack. By enabling payments on your store, you agree to:

• Comply with the payment provider's terms of service and acceptable-use or prohibited-business policy;
• Complete all "Know Your Customer" (KYC) and identity-verification steps required by the payment provider before payments are enabled;
• Maintain accurate settlement details (a bank account or mobile-money account in your own legal name or that of your registered business);
• Respond to information requests, chargebacks, and disputes raised through the payment provider, and provide supporting documentation when asked.

A breach of the payment provider's rules is also a breach of these Terms. We may disable payment routing on your store, suspend or close your subaccount through the payment provider, or terminate your Strawlo account in response to a payment-provider instruction or to a breach we identify ourselves.

8. Anti-Money Laundering, Sanctions, and Transaction Laundering

You may not use Strawlo in breach of any anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing, or sanctions law, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044), the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2008 (Act 762), and the regulations and guidance issued under them by the Financial Intelligence Centre and the Bank of Ghana, as well as any equivalent law in any other jurisdiction that applies to you.

You also agree not to engage in transaction laundering or factoring — that is, you must not:

• Accept payments on Strawlo on behalf of any business, person, or activity that is not the registered Merchant of your store;
• Process payments for goods or services that were not sold through your Strawlo store;
• Aggregate, combine, or pool the transactions of multiple businesses through a single Strawlo store or settlement account.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts that we reasonably believe are being used in breach of this section, and we may report suspected breaches to the payment provider and to law-enforcement or regulatory authorities.

9. Data Protection and Record Retention

We process personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) of Ghana and, where applicable, other data-protection laws. Our handling of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

Where you collect or process personal data about your own customers through your Strawlo store, you are the data controller of that data and must comply with applicable data-protection law in your own right, including providing your customers with a privacy notice and a lawful basis for processing.

We retain account records, transaction records, and customer-due-diligence records for at least five (5) years after the relevant account is closed or the transaction is completed, in line with record-keeping obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044), and we may retain other data for as long as needed to operate the Service, defend legal claims, or comply with our legal obligations.

10. Intellectual Property Rights

Our Intellectual Property

All content, features, and functionality of Strawlo — including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, software, design, and user interface — are owned by Strawlo and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws, including the Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690) of Ghana.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of the Service without our express written permission. You also may not reverse engineer or attempt to extract the source code of our platform.

Your Content

You retain all ownership rights to the content you create and upload to Strawlo. By using the Service, you grant us a limited licence to use, store, display, and transmit your content solely for the purpose of providing and improving the Service.

You represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights to the content you upload and that your content does not violate any third-party rights or applicable laws.

Notice and Takedown

If you believe that content on Strawlo infringes your intellectual property rights, please send a written notice to support@strawlo.com that includes:

• Your name, contact details, and (if applicable) the rights-holder you represent;
• A description of the work you say is being infringed;
• The URL or location on Strawlo where the infringing content appears;
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the rights-holder, its agent, or the law;
• A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and (under penalty of perjury) that you are authorised to act on behalf of the rights-holder.

We review every notice we receive and, where appropriate, will remove or disable access to the content and notify the user who uploaded it. A user who believes their content was removed in error may submit a counter-notice to the same email address. Repeat infringers may have their accounts terminated.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Strawlo and its affiliates, officers, employees, and partners shall not be liable for:

• Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages;
• Loss of profits, revenue, data, or business opportunities;
• Service interruptions, errors, or security breaches;
• Any damages resulting from your use or inability to use the Service;
• Acts or omissions of third parties, including payment providers, couriers, and other Merchants, and any content posted by other users.

In jurisdictions where liability limitations are not permitted, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Service shall not exceed the greater of: (a) the total amount you paid Strawlo in subscription fees in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the claim; or (b) GHS 1,000.

12. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

We do not guarantee that:

• The Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free;
• Results obtained from using the Service will be accurate or reliable;
• Any errors or defects will be corrected;
• The Service will meet your specific requirements or expectations.

Strawlo does not warrant or guarantee any goods or services sold by Merchants through the Service. Each Merchant is solely responsible for their own products, listings, customer service, and fulfilment.

You use Strawlo at your own risk. We recommend maintaining backups of your important data and content.

13. Termination

Termination by You

You may terminate your account at any time by contacting us at support@strawlo.com or through your account settings. Upon termination, you will lose access to your account and any associated data, subject to our record-retention obligations described in Section 9.

Termination by Us

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account at any time, with or without notice, if:

• You breach these Terms, our Acceptable Use Policy, or any policy of a connected payment provider;
• Your use of the Service creates security, regulatory, or legal risks;
• You engage in fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal activities;
• Your account remains inactive for an extended period;
• We discontinue the Service or specific features.

Effect of Termination

Upon termination of your account:

• Your right to use the Service immediately ceases;
• We may delete your data and content from our systems, subject to record-retention obligations;
• You remain liable for any outstanding payments, refunds, or chargebacks;
• Provisions of these Terms that should reasonably survive termination — including Sections 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 — will remain in effect.

14. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ghana, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. You agree that any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of Strawlo shall be resolved exclusively in the courts of Accra, Ghana.

If you are a consumer in a jurisdiction with mandatory consumer-protection laws, you may also have rights under local law, and nothing in these Terms affects those rights.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in our service, legal requirements, or business practices. When we make changes, we will:

• Update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page;
• Notify you via email or through a notice on our platform if the changes are material;
• Give you an opportunity to review the updated Terms before they take effect.

Your continued use of Strawlo after the changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms. If you don't agree with the changes, you should discontinue using the Service and close your account.

16. Contact Information

If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback about these Terms of Service, please contact us:

Email: support@strawlo.com

We're here to help and will respond to your inquiries as quickly as possible.

Thank you for using Strawlo. We're committed to providing you with a great experience while protecting your rights and ours.