Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what Gathora is

Gathora is operated by Gathora Ltd (RC 9845461) ("Gathora", "we", "us"). Gathora is an online marketplace where people who organise group trips and events ("Hosts") list them, and people who want to attend ("Travellers") book and pay for them. "You" means whichever of the two you are at the time, and these Terms apply to both roles.

Gathora is not a travel agency, tour operator, event organiser, bank, payment service provider or escrow service. When a Traveller books a listing, the contract for the trip or event is between the Traveller and the Host. Gathora provides the platform, the booking and payment tools, identity checks on Hosts who want to be paid, and the review, refund and dispute processes described below.

We act as the Host's limited collection agent for the money a Traveller pays. Payment to us discharges the Traveller's payment obligation to the Host, and it is then our job to pay the Host or to refund the Traveller under these Terms. It does not make us a party to the trip or event.

By creating an account or using Gathora you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which together form a binding contract. If you do not agree, do not use Gathora.

2. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract to use Gathora. If you use Gathora on behalf of a company or an agency, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it, and these Terms bind it.

The information you give us when you register, and anything we ask for later, must be true, current and complete. That includes your name, your contact details, and for Hosts who want to be paid, your identity documents, your bank account and, where you trade as a business, your registration details.

You authorise us to share the information you give us with our payment processor, our identity verification provider, banks and card schemes so that they can verify you, process payments and meet their own legal obligations. We may approve or decline any registration, and we may set limits on any account, where we reasonably need to.

You are responsible for your account, for keeping your password private and for everything done through it. Tell us immediately at support@gathora.app if you think it has been compromised. One person, one account.

We may suspend or close an account that is used fraudulently or abusively, that breaches these Terms, that is subject to legal process, or that our payment processor declines to support.

3. Hosting: listing a trip or event

Anyone with an account may create a listing. A listing must be accurate: the destination or venue, dates, price, what is included and excluded, group size and any conditions of participation must be true and complete when you publish and kept up to date afterwards.

Once any Traveller has paid towards a listing, its core terms, which are the destination, the dates, the payment deadline and the price, are frozen. A Host who needs to change them must cancel the listing under section 8 and create a new one. Descriptions and photos stay editable.

The Host is solely responsible for delivering the trip or event as listed, for holding any licence, permit, visa support or insurance the law requires, for the safety of the activity, and for complying with all applicable law. You must deliver what you advertised to every Traveller whose booking is confirmed, whether or not you have been paid out yet.

You are responsible for honouring every pass and ticket Gathora confirms for your listing, and for checking passes at the door. Gathora is not responsible for forged or invalid passes or for the cost of dealing with them.

Hosts may be shown as ID verified once their identity has been checked, and as Partner once Gathora has additionally vetted them in person. These badges describe checks we have done. They are not a guarantee of the Host's performance.

4. What may not be listed or done

You may not use Gathora if you are subject to sanctions, if you are located in a country under comprehensive sanctions, or if a card scheme or payment processor has terminated or barred you.

You may not list or sell:

• anything illegal under Nigerian law or the law of the place the trip or event happens, including trafficking, prostitution and the supply of controlled drugs;
• gambling, betting, lotteries, raffles, sweepstakes or prize draws;
• adult or sexual services, and any content involving minors;
• weapons, ammunition, or counterfeit goods;
• financial products, investment schemes, cryptocurrency, multi level marketing, or anything whose real purpose is to raise or move money rather than to run a trip or an event;
• a trip or event you do not actually intend or are not able to run.

You may not use the checkout for anything other than genuine bookings, tickets and event related items. You may not use it to move money, to give cash advances, to process your own card, or to launder funds. You may not take payment outside Gathora for a listing you published on Gathora, and you may not encourage a Traveller to raise a chargeback.

We may remove any listing, cancel any booking and hold any money connected with a breach of this section while we investigate.

5. Booking and paying

When you book, you agree to pay the listed price to the Host under the payment plan you choose. Payments are collected by our payment processor, currently Paystack, and sit in Gathora's merchant account until they are paid out to the Host or refunded under these Terms.

Paying in full. If you pay the whole price at once you pay the listed price and nothing more. There is no booking fee and no service charge on top.

Paying in instalments. Where a listing offers it, the price is split into three payments: 40 % to book your place, then 30 %, then 30 %. You authorise Gathora and its payment processor to take each payment from your saved payment method on its due date, in the same way a pay small small plan works. Your place is reserved once the first payment is made, and the booking is complete when the last one is. We remind you before and after each due date.

Instalments are offered on listings priced at ₦20,000 or more, and only when the start date is far enough away for all three payments to be made in time. For an event, the last payment falls at least 15 days before it starts. For a trip it falls at least 45 days before departure, because a Host has to pay for visas, flights and accommodation well before you travel. Either way your plan finishes before the point where a booking can no longer be refunded under section 7.

What instalments cost. Our payment processor charges us for every payment it takes, so three payments cost three times. A transaction charge is added to each instalment to cover it, and it is shown on the plan before you agree to it and on every receipt. It is a few hundred naira on a small instalment and it is capped by the processor's own cap on a large one: spreading a ₦780,000 trip over three payments adds about ₦6,000 in total, which is under 1 %. Nothing is added to the price itself, and the Host receives the full instalment either way.

The transaction charge is spent the moment the payment is taken and our processor does not return it, so it is not refunded to you if the booking later ends. Sections 7 and 8 say what happens to the rest.

Missed instalments. If you do not bring your plan back up to date within the grace period shown on the listing, your place is released to someone else and we refund the instalments you have paid, less the transaction charges described above, which we cannot recover. Nothing else is forfeited. A Host may waive a missed payment for a particular Traveller.

Ticketed events. Some events sell tickets in tiers, for example General and VIP. Tickets are paid in full at purchase, with nothing added, and are personal to the buyer. Tickets are not transferable unless the Host says so on the listing.

Free listings. Free events and free tiers are still bookings under these Terms, and the Host may set attendance conditions.

Prices are shown in the listing's currency. Your bank or card issuer may charge fees or apply exchange rates we do not control.

6. Passes and check in

Once your first payment is made you receive a digital pass with a QR code. The pass shows whether your booking is fully paid or still has a balance due, and a Host may refuse entry until the balance is paid.

Passes are personal. Do not share the QR code. Anyone who scans it before you may be admitted in your place, and we cannot reverse that.

7. If you cancel: Traveller cancellations and refunds

Gathora is not an escrow. Money you have paid is a payment to the Host for the trip or event, not a balance you hold with us, and you cannot withdraw it at will. Refunds happen only in the situations set out in sections 7, 8 and 9, and every refund is reviewed by Gathora before it is paid.

You may ask to leave a listing from the trip's room. Your request goes to our team and is decided on this basis:

• Cancelled 15 days or more before the start date: we refund what you paid towards the price, less a 2 % cancellation charge that covers the administration already spent on your booking. Transaction charges on instalments are not part of the refund, for the reason given in section 5.
• Cancelled 14 days or fewer before the start date, or after it has started: no refund. By that point the Host has committed the money to running the trip or event and it is locked for payout.

A Host may agree to a more generous outcome for a particular Traveller, and may allow you to pass your place to someone else. Neither is an entitlement.

If you do not show up, no refund is due.

How refunds are paid. Refunds go back to the card or bank account you paid from. Where the payment processor can no longer refund to source, for example on a very old transaction, we pay to a bank account in your name that you verify in the app. Card refunds typically appear on your statement 5 to 15 business days after we send them.

8. If the Host cancels

A Host who cancels a listing that already has Travellers who have paid causes real cost: the payment processing charges on every instalment collected are already gone, and they are not returned to us when we refund.

Travellers are refunded in full. The Host is asked to pay a cancellation penalty equal to those unrecoverable charges, so that the refund can be made whole.

If the Host does not pay the penalty, all money collected for that listing is held while we investigate the Host, and the Host may be suspended, may lose the Partner badge and may be barred from listing again.

If the Host cannot be reached or refuses to pay, we refund each Traveller what they paid less that Traveller's share of the unrecoverable charges. We tell you the exact figure when we process it. This is the outcome we work hardest to avoid, and it is why we hold the penalty over a cancelling Host in the first place.

If money for the listing was already released to the Host under section 10, the Host owes that money back to Gathora, and we may recover it by deducting it from any other payout due to that Host, by invoicing the Host, and by pursuing it as a debt.

If Gathora cancels a listing, for example for fraud, safety or a breach of these Terms, Travellers receive a full refund and the Host bears the cost.

9. If the trip or event is not delivered

Gathora is a marketplace for trips, tickets and communities. We do not run the trip or the event and we cannot guarantee how good it is. What we can do is hold the money while there is a serious question about whether it happened at all.

If the Host does not deliver, meaning the trip or event did not take place, funds for that listing are held and not paid out while we investigate, and we may refund Travellers in full from what is still held.

If the Host delivers in part, meaning the trip or event took place but was smaller, shorter or different from what was described, funds are released to the Host. Your remedy in that case is against the Host, and we will give you the Host's details and any records we hold so that you can pursue it. We may still act against the Host on the platform, including removing listings, removing badges and closing the account.

Report a problem within 7 days after the end date, with evidence: photos, messages, receipts, and anything the Host told you. The Host is given 72 hours to respond. Our decision on whether to release or refund the money we still hold is final as between you and Gathora. Nothing in this section limits whatever rights you have against the Host under the law.

10. Host payouts and early release

Anyone can host. Only a Host whose identity has been verified and whose bank account has been confirmed to match that identity can be paid. Bank accounts are verified with our payment processor, and a Host's first payout is held for 48 hours after verification.

When a payout is due, for events. The money collected becomes payable to the Host once the event has concluded, and we pay it no later than 5 business days after that, subject to the review in this section.

When a payout is due, for trips. A trip is paid out in two parts, because an agency has to buy flights and pay for visas long before anyone travels. Before departure, the Host can only reach the money through an early release vote of the Travellers who have paid, described below, and no more than 70 % of what has been collected can be released that way. After the trip ends, the rest is paid automatically without a vote, no later than 5 business days after the end date, subject to the review in this section and to any open report or dispute. Delivering the trip is what earns the money; the vote only decides how much of it the Host can have early.

Review. Every payout is reviewed by Gathora before it is sent, and is paid by bank transfer to the Host's verified account. We may hold a payout while a report, dispute, exit request, chargeback or investigation is open, or where we reasonably suspect fraud, and we may hold back a reserve against refunds and chargebacks we can see coming.

What is deducted. We deduct our service fee (section 11) from every payout, and we may also deduct what you owe us: refunds we have funded, chargebacks and their costs, our fees, penalties under section 8, and money released early that has to come back. We may take it from a payout on a different listing. If a payout does not cover it, the balance is immediately due.

Early release for trips. Before a trip departs, a Host may ask the Travellers who have paid to release part of what has been collected, so that visas, flight tickets and supplier deposits can be paid on time. This applies to trips only. Events, ticketed or not, do not use early release.

A request must say what the money is for and show the evidence, which is the airline quote, the visa agency invoice or the supplier's deposit request. Travellers see it when they vote. A request without evidence is refused.

The vote is weighted by how much each Traveller has paid. Only Travellers who have made at least their first payment vote, and the Host cannot vote. It passes when more than half of the money that votes says yes, provided at least 40 % of the money paid into the listing has voted at all. If fewer than that vote, the request does not simply fail: it goes to Gathora, who decide it on the evidence.

A request stays open for at least 24 hours. Where a supplier deadline is shorter than that, a Host may ask Gathora to run a 12 hour request instead, and we will only allow it with the evidence in front of us.

No more than 70 % of everything collected for a trip can be released before departure, however many requests are made. The last 30 % stays until the trip is over, because it is the only money that can make Travellers whole if the trip does not happen.

A request is blocked while a report, a dispute or an exit request is open on the listing, and every approved release is executed by Gathora, not automatically. Money released early is a payment to the Host; if the trip later fails, the Host must repay it under section 8.

Payment processing charges. The charges our payment processor takes on each collection are a cost of the booking. They are not refundable to us once incurred, which is why sections 5, 7 and 8 account for them.

Statements and receipts. Travellers receive a numbered receipt for every payment and Hosts a numbered statement for every payout. Both are kept in your account.

Unclaimed money. If we cannot pay you because your bank details are wrong or your account is closed, we will try to reach you. Money we still cannot pay after a reasonable period is dealt with as the law requires.

11. Fees

Hosting is free. Listing is free. Gathora earns in one place: a service fee taken from the Host's payout.

Service fee. Gathora charges the Host 5 % of the amount collected for a listing plus ₦100 per booking. It is deducted from the payout and itemised on the Host's statement. It covers the platform, the payment processing on money paid in full, the identity checks on Hosts, and the people who review payouts, refunds and disputes.

Travellers who pay in full pay the listed price and nothing else. There is no booking fee, no service charge and no card surcharge.

Travellers who pay in instalments pay a transaction charge on each instalment, as section 5 describes. It covers what our payment processor takes on that payment and nothing more. It is not a fee for choosing instalments and Gathora does not profit from it.

Free events and ₦0 tiers carry no fee of any kind.

We may change these fees. A change applies to listings published and bookings made after it takes effect, never to one already in progress. Your bank or card issuer may charge you separately, and we do not control that.

12. Chargebacks

A chargeback is when a Traveller asks their bank or card issuer to reverse a payment instead of using the process in these Terms.

Hosts are responsible for chargebacks and other payment reversals on their listings, and for the fees the payment processor charges on them. We may deduct a chargeback and its costs from money held for that listing, from the Host's next payout, or invoice the Host for it.

We decide how to handle a chargeback, including whether to contest it. We are not obliged to contest one we think will fail or one that should have been a refund anyway.

If you raise a chargeback instead of asking us first, we may suspend your account while the bank decides, and we may close it if the chargeback was not made in good faith. Asking us first is faster and it does not cost you the account.

13. Tax

You are responsible for working out, collecting, reporting and paying any tax that applies to what you sell on Gathora, including value added tax and any tourism or entertainment levy that applies where your trip or event takes place. Gathora does not give tax advice.

Where the law requires us to charge, withhold or report tax on our own fees or on your earnings, we will, and we may ask you for your tax identification number in order to do it. If a tax authority makes us pay tax that was yours to pay, you reimburse us for it, together with any penalty and interest.

14. Communities, rooms and conduct

Every listing has a group room, and communities have their own rooms and polls. You must not use them to harass, threaten, defraud or discriminate against anyone, to send spam, to share sexual content involving minors or non consensual content, to arrange payment outside Gathora for a Gathora listing, or to break the law.

Hosts moderate their own rooms and communities. Gathora may remove content, lock a room, and suspend or close an account. Reports are reviewed by our team.

If you message Travellers about your listing, you must have the right to contact them, you must keep it about the listing, and you must honour an opt out. Do not upload contact lists you did not collect lawfully.

You are responsible for your own safety when you travel or attend an event. Meet in public first, tell someone where you are going, and use your judgement. Gathora does not vet Travellers.

15. Your content

You keep ownership of the photos, videos, text and other content you post. You give Gathora a worldwide, royalty free, non exclusive licence to host, display, reproduce, adapt for display and share it on the platform and to promote the platform, for as long as it is on Gathora and for a reasonable period afterwards in caches and backups.

You must have the right to post what you post, including the consent of people who appear in your photos and videos, and you are responsible for it whether you made it yourself or generated it with a tool.

Tell us at support@gathora.app if you believe something on Gathora infringes your copyright or trademark, and identify the content, your right in it and how to reach you. We remove infringing content and repeat infringers.

16. Our role and liability

Gathora provides the platform "as is" and "as available". We do not organise, supervise or deliver trips or events, and we make no promise about a Host's performance, the safety of an activity, or the accuracy of a listing beyond the checks we describe. We do not promise the platform will be uninterrupted or error free.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Gathora's total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of the platform is limited to the platform fees Gathora earned from the booking concerned, or ₦50,000, whichever is greater. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for loss of profit or opportunity, for personal injury, or for loss caused by a Host or another user.

You indemnify Gathora against claims, losses and costs arising from your listings, your bookings, your content, your breach of these Terms and your breach of the law. For a Host, that includes claims by Travellers about a trip or event you ran or failed to run.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law, including under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018.

17. Suspension and closing your account

You can close your account from Settings. Bookings you hold and listings you host are settled under sections 7 to 10 first, and closing an account does not release you from what you already owe.

We may suspend or close your account for breach of these Terms, suspected fraud, chargebacks, legal requirements or risk to other users, with or without notice. Money owed to you is still paid, subject to any investigation and to our right of set off.

Sections on refunds, payouts, chargebacks, tax, liability, indemnity and governing law survive the end of this agreement.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We show the new version and its date here and notify you in the app for material changes, which take effect 30 days after we post them unless the law requires otherwise. Continued use after that is acceptance. Bookings made before a change stay on the cancellation terms shown when they were made.

19. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Before going to court, contact us at support@gathora.app. We try to resolve any complaint within 14 days. Disputes that are not resolved that way are subject to the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria.

These Terms are the whole agreement between you and Gathora about the platform. If a court finds part of them unenforceable, the rest stands. Our not enforcing something once does not waive it.

20. Contact

Gathora Ltd (RC 9845461), Block 119, Karfin Madaki Crescent, Kubwa, Abuja. Email: support@gathora.app.