name: Payments & Refund Policy slug: payments-terms version: 1.0.0 effective_date: [EFFECTIVE_DATE] last_updated: 2026-05-09
Payments & Refund Policy
Plain-English summary. Credits aren't money. We don't cash them out, transfer them, or owe you anything outside of the Service for them. Refund requests for App Store or Google Play purchases go to Apple or Google — not us. Boost-claim cancellation refunds happen automatically inside your ShareFree account when a giver cancels a confirmed claim on a boosted listing. Ad campaigns are non-refundable once your impressions have been delivered. Initiating a chargeback on an in-app purchase before going through Apple's or Google's refund flow will get your account suspended.
This Payments & Refund Policy ("Policy") governs your purchase and use of ShareFree Boost Credits and related paid features on the ShareFree platform (the "Service"), operated by ShareFree ("ShareFree," "we," "us," or "our"). It is part of, and incorporated by reference into, the ShareFree Terms of Service (the "Terms"). Capitalized terms used but not defined here have the meanings given in the Terms. To the extent of any conflict between this Policy and the Terms, the Terms control except as to subject matter expressly addressed here.
By purchasing or spending Credits, you agree to this Policy.
1. Definitions
For purposes of this Policy:
- Credits or Boost Credits — a non-monetary, non-transferable, non-refundable, internal unit of account recorded on your ShareFree account that may be spent on Service features such as Boosts and Ad Campaigns. Credits are not currency, not legal tender, not property, not a deposit account, not a stored-value instrument or money-services product under Texas Finance Code Chapter 278 or any analogous law, and have no cash value. Credits represent only a limited, revocable license to use specific Service features as described in this Policy.
- Boost — a paid feature that promotes one of your listings to a higher position in the Service's feeds (within a category and/or community) for a defined duration, currently between one (1) and seven (7) days.
- Ad Campaign — a sponsored advertisement placed in feed slots (currently "Slot A" and "Slot B") and targeted by community and/or category for a defined duration or impression count, governed additionally by our Advertising Policy.
- IAP — an In-App Purchase processed via Apple's StoreKit (on iOS) or Google Play Billing (on Android). IAP is currently the only channel through which Credits may be acquired.
- Apple — Apple Inc. and its affiliates, operating the Apple App Store and Apple Media Services.
- Google — Google LLC and its affiliates, operating Google Play and Google Play Billing.
- Promotional Credits — Credits granted to your account by ShareFree at no charge (for marketing, beta participation, support compensation, or similar reasons), as opposed to Credits acquired through an IAP ("Purchased Credits").
2. Acquiring Credits
2.1 Channels
Credits are sold and delivered exclusively through Apple In-App Purchase (on iOS) and Google Play Billing (on Android). Web users today must install one of our mobile apps to acquire Credits.
2.2 Merchant of Record
When you buy Credits through IAP, Apple or Google is the merchant of record for that transaction. Your bank or card statement will reflect a charge from Apple or Google, not from ShareFree. Apple's and Google's respective terms of service govern the payment leg of the transaction (authorization, payment method, currency conversion, statement description, fraud screening, tax collection, and refund rights against them).
2.3 Pricing Display
Pricing for Credits is shown in the app at the time of purchase. Apple and Google may adjust prices to reflect local currency, regional taxes, and store-specific tier pricing. The price you see in-app immediately before confirming the purchase is the price you authorize.
2.4 Promotional Credits
ShareFree may, in its sole discretion, grant Promotional Credits to your account — for example, as part of a marketing campaign, a beta program, a loyalty offer, or as goodwill compensation in support cases. Promotional Credits are subject to the same restrictions as Purchased Credits and may carry additional restrictions (such as expiration dates or eligible-feature limitations) that we will state at the time of grant. Promotional Credits are never redeemable for cash and are not refundable in any form.
2.5 Eligibility
You must be old enough to enter a binding contract in your jurisdiction (and at least 18 years of age in Texas) to acquire Credits. You represent that any payment instrument used to buy Credits is yours or you have authorization to use it.
3. Spending Credits
3.1 Boosts
The cost of a Boost (in Credits) is shown in-app before you confirm. Boost pricing varies by category, duration, demand, and other factors, and we may change the operational pricing at any time. Boosts you have already purchased are honored at the price you paid — i.e., once a Boost is active, a later price change does not retroactively affect it. Future Boosts are priced at the rate in effect at the time of purchase.
3.2 Ad Campaigns
The Credit cost of an Ad Campaign is shown in-app before you confirm. Depending on the campaign type displayed in-app, Credits may be deducted in full at campaign-creation time or progressively as impressions are delivered. Ad Campaigns are also governed by the Advertising Policy and the Acceptable Use Policy; a violation of those policies may cause your campaign to be paused, rejected, or terminated under Section 5.3 of this Policy.
3.3 Spend Order
Where your account contains both Purchased Credits and Promotional Credits, Credits are spent first-in-first-out (FIFO), with the oldest Credits consumed first. Where Purchased Credits and Promotional Credits would be spent in the same transaction, Promotional Credits are spent first within the FIFO ordering, to the extent any are eligible for the feature in question.
3.4 Expiration
Purchased Credits do not expire, except where expiration is mandatory under applicable law in your jurisdiction. Promotional Credits may expire on the schedule disclosed at the time of grant. Expired Credits are forfeited and are not refundable.
3.5 Balance Display
Your Credit balance is shown in the app. The balance shown is your authoritative balance for purposes of this Policy. Discrepancies between the in-app balance and any third-party display (for example, an Apple or Google receipt) are resolved by reference to ShareFree's server-side records.
4. Non-Property, Non-Refundable, Non-Transferable
4.1 Limited License
Credits represent a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferable license to use specific Service features. They are not goods, not chattels, not securities, not currency, not stored-value instruments, and confer no ownership interest in ShareFree, the Service, or any underlying technology.
4.2 No Cash Out
Credits cannot be cashed out, withdrawn, redeemed for money, or exchanged for anything of value outside the Service. We will not, under any circumstance not required by law, convert your Credit balance to currency or transfer it to a third party on your behalf.
4.3 No Transfer
Credits cannot be transferred, sold, gifted, assigned, or otherwise conveyed to another ShareFree account or to any third party. Any attempted transfer is void. Accounts found to be trafficking in Credits are subject to termination under Section 6 and Section 9.
4.4 Forfeiture for Cause
Credits are forfeited upon termination of your account for cause, including without limitation: fraud, payment-instrument abuse, chargebacks, prohibited-listings violations, repeated copyright or trademark infringement, violations of the Acceptable Use Policy, violations of the Community Guidelines, or material breach of the Terms.
4.5 Frozen Pending Appeal
If your account is suspended (rather than terminated) for reasons that do not involve fraud or chargebacks, your Credits are frozen during the suspension and will be restored if your appeal succeeds. If the suspension is upheld and converted to termination, Section 4.4 applies.
4.6 Voluntary Account Deletion
If you voluntarily delete your account, unused Credits are forfeited as of the deletion request. The thirty (30) day post-deletion grace period referenced in the Terms preserves recoverability of certain account data; it does not preserve Credits. If you intend to spend remaining Credits, do so before initiating deletion.
5. Refunds
Default rule: all sales are final. Exceptions are limited to those described in this Section 5 and any additional refund right that is mandatory under applicable consumer-protection law and cannot be waived.
5.1 IAP Refunds — Apple and Google
Refund requests for IAP transactions must be made directly to Apple or Google through their respective channels:
- Apple App Store: https://reportaproblem.apple.com (or via your App Store account → Purchase History)
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/account → Order history → Request a refund
ShareFree does not process IAP refunds and does not have authority to override Apple's or Google's refund decisions. Submitting a refund request to ShareFree for an IAP transaction will not produce a refund and may delay your resolution; please go to Apple or Google directly.
We will, however, honor refund decisions made by Apple or Google by reversing the corresponding Credits from your account. If Apple or Google refunds an IAP that has been partially or fully spent, we may reverse Credits even if doing so produces a negative Credit balance, and we may suspend your access to Boost or Ad features (and reject new Boosts or Ad Campaigns) until the negative balance is reconciled, either by you purchasing replacement Credits or by us writing off the balance at our sole discretion.
5.2 Boost-Claim Refund Mechanic
ShareFree implements a server-side automatic refund for boosted listings in certain claim-cancellation situations:
- If a giver-confirmed claim on a boosted listing is canceled by the giver before the pickup is completed and within the Boost's active window, a portion of the Boost's Credit cost is returned to the lister's Credit balance. The refund schedule (how much is returned, prorated by remaining Boost time and other factors) is described in-app at the time of Boost purchase and is governed by ShareFree's internal Boost policy as it may be updated from time to time.
- Refunded Credits are returned in the same class (Purchased or Promotional) as originally spent, and on the same expiration terms as the original Credits.
- This refund is a Service-internal Credit refund only. It does not create any right to a monetary refund, does not affect the underlying IAP charge processed by Apple or Google, and does not convert Credits into a stored-value instrument.
The Boost-claim refund mechanic exists to protect listers from giver-side flaking on boosted listings; it is not a general satisfaction guarantee and does not apply to other cancellation scenarios (lister cancellation, mutual cancellation, expiration, or user-blocking).
5.3 Ad Campaign Refunds
Ad Campaigns are non-refundable once delivered. "Delivered" means impressions have been served against the campaign or the campaign has otherwise begun running.
- You may cancel an Ad Campaign before delivery begins. In that case, any unspent portion of the Credit cost is returned to your Credit balance.
- For campaigns priced per-impression and delivered progressively, only the undelivered portion is refundable on cancellation; delivered impressions are non-refundable.
- If ShareFree pauses, rejects, or terminates your campaign for policy reasons — for example, violation of the Advertising Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, or Community Guidelines, prohibited content, intellectual-property complaints, or trust-and-safety actions — no refund is owed for the delivered portion. We may, in our sole discretion, refund the undelivered portion where the rejection arose from our error (for example, an erroneously triggered automated review).
5.4 Statutory Refunds
Where applicable consumer-protection law provides a non-waivable refund right (for example, the EU Consumer Rights Directive, the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, or certain state-law digital-content provisions), we will provide a refund to the extent required.
For purchases of Credits or paid features that begin to be supplied immediately, the fourteen (14) day cooling-off period under EU/UK consumer law does not apply where you have expressly consented to immediate supply and acknowledged that you lose the right to cancel. Our IAP purchase confirmation flow collects that consent at the point of sale; by completing the purchase, you provide it. Some statutory rights of withdrawal for digital content or digital services may not apply once performance has begun.
Where statutory refund rights do apply, they apply only to the IAP transaction with Apple or Google, and are typically administered through Apple's or Google's refund flow (Section 5.1).
5.5 Promotional Credits
Promotional Credits are never refundable in cash, by chargeback reversal, or by any other monetary means. If Promotional Credits are revoked (for example, due to fraud or violation of the offer's stated terms), no compensation is owed.
5.6 No Other Refunds
Except as described in Sections 5.1 through 5.5, ShareFree does not provide refunds. In particular, we do not refund for: dissatisfaction with Boost performance, lower-than-expected impressions or claims, market changes, your decision to delete your account, your loss of access to a device or App Store account, or your inability to use the Service for reasons within your control.
6. Chargebacks
6.1 Use Apple/Google First
If you believe an IAP charge was unauthorized, duplicated, or otherwise erroneous, you must first request a refund from Apple or Google through the channels in Section 5.1. Initiating a chargeback or payment-network dispute against the IAP transaction without first using the platform refund process — or after you have already spent the Credits associated with that transaction — will result in immediate suspension of your account pending resolution of the chargeback.
6.2 Bad-Faith and Repeat Chargebacks
Repeated chargebacks, chargebacks ShareFree reasonably believes to be in bad faith (for example, chargebacks filed after spending the Credits), and chargebacks linked to fraud or account-trafficking patterns will result in:
- Permanent termination of your ShareFree account;
- Forfeiture of any remaining Credits in the account (whether Purchased or Promotional);
- Device-fingerprint deny-listing, where technically feasible, to prevent re-registration; and
- Where appropriate, referral to law-enforcement or anti-fraud networks.
6.3 Dispute Evidence
We may dispute chargebacks with Apple, Google, or the relevant payment network, and may submit your account history (login records, IP addresses, device fingerprints, Credit-spend ledger, listings, claims, and other records) as evidence. By initiating a chargeback you consent to that submission.
6.4 Negative Balance
If a chargeback is honored by Apple, Google, or the network and the Credits associated with the disputed transaction have been spent, your account may be left with a negative Credit balance under Section 5.1. We may, at our discretion, write off, collect on, or net against future purchases such negative balance.
7. Pricing Changes
7.1 Forward-Looking Changes
ShareFree may change the price of Credits, Boosts, or Ad Campaigns at any time. Pricing changes are forward-looking: they apply to purchases or feature uses initiated after the change takes effect.
7.2 Already-Purchased Credits
Credits you have already purchased retain the operational value at which they were purchased: a Boost or Ad Campaign you confirm in-app costs the number of Credits shown to you at the time of confirmation. If we change the operational price of a feature (the number of Credits required to use it), that change applies to future uses of the feature, not to Boosts or Ad Campaigns you have already activated.
7.3 Already-Spent Purchases
Boosts that have already begun running and Ad Campaigns whose impressions have already been delivered are not refunded if the price of the same feature drops later. There is no retroactive price match.
7.4 Apple / Google Tier Changes
Apple and Google occasionally adjust their pricing tiers and regional pricing. We may pass through those changes by re-tiering Credit packages. Such adjustments are part of Apple's or Google's IAP framework and are not within ShareFree's control.
8. Tax
8.1 IAP Sales Tax / VAT
For IAP transactions, Apple or Google handles sales-tax, VAT, GST, and similar marketplace-facilitator obligations in the channels they operate. The price you see in the App Store or Google Play already reflects any applicable tax for your region. ShareFree does not separately collect sales tax on IAP and does not issue separate tax receipts for IAP purchases — your App Store or Google Play receipt is the receipt of record. ShareFree does not issue 1099s, W-9 documents, or analogous tax forms in respect of Credit purchases.
8.2 P2P Exchanges Between Users
ShareFree is a peer-to-peer marketplace for free items, posts, events, jobs, services, businesses, and professional listings. ShareFree is not the seller, employer, principal, marketplace-of-record, or counterparty to any underlying exchange between users.
You — the user — are solely responsible for any tax obligations arising from your activity on the Service, including without limitation:
- Income tax on the value of items, services, jobs, or other consideration you receive from other users;
- Self-employment tax, estimated tax, and Social Security / Medicare contributions on services or work you provide;
- Sales tax, where applicable in your state or locality, on services or items you provide (Texas, for example, taxes certain services; check with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts or your state equivalent);
- Tax-reporting obligations to the IRS, the Texas Comptroller, or any analogous foreign or state authority.
8.3 No Tax Advice
ShareFree does not provide tax advice. Statements in this Policy or in the Service about tax are general information, not advice. Consult your own tax advisor about your obligations.
9. Account Closure and Loss of Credits
9.1 Voluntary Deletion
If you delete your account voluntarily, your Credits are forfeited as of the deletion request. The post-deletion grace period that may apply to other account data does not preserve Credits. Spend remaining Credits before deleting if you wish to use them.
9.2 Termination for Cause
On termination for cause (Section 4.4 — fraud, prohibited listings, repeat infringement, AUP violations, chargebacks, or material breach of the Terms), Credits are forfeited at termination. We are not obligated to refund Credits, in whole or part, in that scenario.
9.3 Suspension Pending Appeal
On suspension that is not terminal-for-cause, Credits are frozen for the duration of the suspension. If the suspension is lifted, Credits are restored. If the suspension is converted to termination for cause, Section 9.2 applies.
9.4 Service Discontinuation
If ShareFree elects to discontinue the Service in whole, or to permanently remove the Boost or Ad features from the Service, we will provide reasonable notice through the Service or by email to the address on file. We may, in our sole discretion, offer a final-redemption window, an alternative remediation, or a partial refund of unspent Purchased Credits in proportion to their unused share of original spend. We are not obligated to provide a monetary refund on discontinuation, and we will not provide a refund where doing so is prohibited by Apple's or Google's IAP policies, by operation of law, or by the terms of any underlying IAP contract.
9.5 Death or Incapacity
Credits are personal to the account holder and are not part of the user's estate. On notice of an account holder's death or incapacity, we may close the account in accordance with the Terms. Credits in such accounts are forfeited; we cannot transfer Credits to heirs, executors, attorneys-in-fact, or successors-in-interest.
10. Disputes
10.1 Tier 1 — Support
For most billing or Credit issues, contact ShareFree support:
- Email: support@sharefree.org
- Include: the order or transaction ID (from your Apple or Google receipt), the date of the transaction, the affected listing or campaign ID where applicable, and a description of the issue.
We will acknowledge and triage support tickets in a commercially reasonable time. Tier 1 support is the appropriate channel for Boost-claim refund questions, Credit-balance discrepancies, Promotional Credit issues, and Ad Campaign questions.
10.2 Tier 2 — Apple / Google for IAP
Refund disputes about an IAP charge itself — i.e., disputes about whether Apple or Google should refund the underlying payment — must go to Apple or Google directly under Section 5.1. ShareFree cannot resolve those disputes on Apple's or Google's behalf and will, where helpful, redirect you to the correct platform channel.
10.3 Tier 3 — Arbitration
Disputes that are not resolved through Tier 1 or Tier 2 are subject to the dispute-resolution provisions of the Terms of Service, including the agreement to arbitrate before the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, with venue in Dallas County or Collin County, Texas, the class-action waiver, and the 30-day arbitration opt-out described there. See Terms of Service §25 for the full arbitration agreement and opt-out procedure.
Nothing in this Policy waives any non-waivable consumer right under your local law.
Cross-References
This Policy is effective as of [EFFECTIVE_DATE]. Material changes will be communicated through the Service or by email to the address on file, with continued use of the Service after the effective date constituting acceptance.