Provider Terms of Service

1. Provider Obligations

• Maintain accurate, current business information on your profile at all times.
• Respond to customer leads in good faith and within the SLA for your plan tier.
• Deliver services as represented on your profile.
• Maintain valid business licenses and insurance as required by your jurisdiction.
• Not misrepresent qualifications, experience, certifications, or service capabilities.
• Treat customers with professionalism and resolve disputes in good faith.
• Accept every customer payment through VettaLux — no exceptions.

2. Verification Requirements

Before you may accept any booking, you must complete and continuously maintain:

• Valid business or trade license for every jurisdiction you serve.
• Active insurance certificate (general liability at minimum; additional coverage as your trade requires, including workers' compensation where employees are on site).
• Government-issued photo ID matching the account principal.
• Background check through our screening vendor, re-run annually and on a material change to the account principal.

Lapse policy: if any required credential expires or is revoked, your profile is removed from search and new bookings are blocked until it is restored. Expiration reminders go out at 60, 30, and 7 days before expiry. Optional extended verifications (specialty certifications, bond, additional insureds) add weight to your trust score but do not replace the mandatory items above.

3. Subscription Plans & Success Fee

VettaLux operates on a subscription model with a per-booking success fee. Four plan tiers are available:

• Free: basic listing, limited leads, standard success fee.
• Starter: expanded lead volume, core dashboard, standard success fee.
• Growth: priority placement and advanced analytics, reduced success fee.
• Elite: top placement, dedicated account support, lowest success fee.

Current monthly and annual pricing, included lead volume, and the applicable success-fee percentage for each plan are published on the Pricing page. Pricing may change on 30 days' notice; any increase that applies to you will be disclosed before renewal.

Payment failures: day 0 notice on failure, automatic retries days 1-7, feature restriction at day 7, profile hidden at day 14, subscription cancelled at day 30 and tier reset to Free. Upgrades are prorated immediately. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; we do not refund unused time.

4. Unified Payment Flow

Every payment flows through VettaLux. This includes, without limitation: the initial diagnostic or problem-check fee; any service-visit or travel fee; the full service price or hourly rate; any quoted amount accepted by the customer; milestone payments on multi-step jobs; change-order additions; and tips. Providers may not receive any customer payment outside VettaLux for work sourced through the platform.

No modes. No tiers of payment handling. Every booking on VettaLux, regardless of size, category, or complexity, routes the customer's payment through VettaLux escrow. Funds are held until the customer approves completion; small-ticket bookings release on a short window; larger multi-stage projects release by agreed milestones. This is the only payment flow. There are no exceptions, product modes, or opt-out tiers.

If a customer asks to pay you directly to save fees, the answer is no. Route them back into the platform, quote through the in-app tools, and let escrow do its job. Your trust score, your dispute protection, and the money-back guarantee your customers rely on all depend on the payment sitting in escrow.

5. Off-Platform Payment Prohibition & Enforcement

Prohibited off-platform conduct. Providers must not (a) request cash, Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Cash App, check, ACH, or any form of direct payment from a customer sourced through VettaLux, (b) offer an off-platform discount or pricing that conditions on leaving the platform, (c) request a second "outside" payment for additional work discovered during a job — additional work goes through the platform as a change order, (d) share bank details, payment handles, or direct billing links in platform messaging, or (e) continue a paid relationship off-platform with a customer introduced by VettaLux for at least 12 months after the introduction.

Detection signals. VettaLux monitors for prohibited conduct through (a) customer review prompts after every completed job that ask "Were you asked to pay outside VettaLux?", (b) anonymous customer reports via /contact, (c) automated scanning of in-platform messaging for payment-handle keywords and patterns (Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Cash App, CashApp, "pay me directly", bank-account numbers, email-and-number patterns), (d) device and IP correlation of repeat signals, and (e) post-payment customer surveys.

Enforcement ladder.

• (1) First confirmed violation: a clawback equal to the success fee VettaLux would have earned on the diverted amount, plus a formal written warning.
• (2) Second confirmed violation: permanent account termination, forfeiture of all pending payouts against confirmed clawback, and a ban on re-registration under the same individual, legal entity, tax ID, bank account, or principal.
• (3) Customer goodwill: customers who are solicited off-platform and report promptly receive a full credit of the booking value to their VettaLux wallet as a goodwill gesture and retain priority re-matching with a different provider.

Clawback amounts may be withheld from pending payouts, charged to the payment method on file, or referred to collections. Termination under this section is final and is not subject to the general reinstatement process in Section 11.

6. Payouts

Payouts on all bookings are issued on a weekly schedule to your business bank account on file, net of the success fee and any refunds or chargebacks. Escrowed funds release after the customer marks the work complete and the dispute window (typically 48 hours for small-ticket bookings, or the next agreed milestone on multi-stage projects) expires without a dispute being opened. A minimum payout threshold may apply.

Tax forms: US-based providers submit a W-9 and receive a 1099-K where reporting thresholds are met. Non-US providers submit W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E. Payouts are held until required tax documents are on file. You are solely responsible for income, self-employment, and sales taxes on amounts earned through the platform.

7. Trust Score & Ranking

Your Trust Score is calculated automatically across multiple weighted dimensions, including verified reviews, completed-job rate, response time, dispute history, credential status, and tenure. Paid campaigns and add-ons can amplify visibility but cannot override earned trust-score ranking. See the Trust Scores page for current methodology.

8. Insurance

You must carry, at your own cost, general liability insurance appropriate to your trade and valid in every jurisdiction you serve, and any coverage required by law (auto, workers' compensation, bond). You are responsible for damage, injury, or loss caused by your work. VettaLux is not your insurer and does not assume liability for the services you perform.

9. Review Integrity

You may not solicit fraudulent or incentivized reviews, retaliate against customers who leave honest reviews, attempt to manipulate your trust score, or post reviews from accounts you control. Violations result in review-integrity penalties, probation, or permanent suspension. See the Review Policy for the full rules and the provider-side dispute process.

10. Disputes (Provider Side)

If a customer opens a dispute on a booking, escrow is held and you have 7 days to submit your response and evidence — job records, before/after photos, in-app messages, invoices, and receipts. A human moderator reviews both sides and issues a written decision, typically within 14 days. The moderator may release funds in full, order a partial refund, require remediation work, or require a full refund. Decisions can be appealed once within 14 days with new evidence.

Patterns of unfounded disputes against you are tracked on your record. Patterns of disputes you fail to substantiate may result in probation or account suspension.

11. Suspension, Probation & Termination

• Probation: triggered by fraud signals, complaint thresholds, or document issues. Visibility may be restricted.
• Suspension: profile hidden, leads paused, a formal investigation runs.
• Reinstatement: requires a written appeal. If granted, a 90-day monitored probation applies. Reinstatement is not available for second-strike off-platform payment terminations under Section 5.
• Termination: permanent for fraud, safety incidents, repeat policy violations, confirmed off-platform payment conduct at the second-strike level, or failure to cure a material breach after notice. We may terminate for convenience on 30 days' notice.

12. Data Retention After Termination

On termination, your public profile is delisted within 24 hours. Historical booking records, invoices, payout records, tax documents, and dispute decisions are retained as required by law (typically 7 years in the US). Customer reviews you received remain on VettaLux unless removed under the Review Policy. You can export your data from the dashboard before closing your account.