Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Post Maze, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy, incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the platform. Post Maze is a B2B wholesale marketplace connecting Indian suppliers with buyers through category browsing, Requests for Quotation (RFQs), supplier quotations, product listings, saved offer lists, a freight cost estimator, and a help/support ticketing system.

You must be at least 18 years old and have legal capacity to bind yourself or the business you represent. By registering a Buyer or Supplier account, you represent that you are authorized to act on behalf of the business you register.

2. Account Registration, Verification & Security

• Registration: register with email/password or Google Sign-In; both paths require a one-time passcode (OTP) sent to your email before the account is created, so sign-up is consistent regardless of method.
• Suppliers are activated instantly on registration — no manual approval gate — with a company record automatically created and linked in the same transaction, so your dashboard and company settings are usable immediately.
• Buyers can post RFQs, browse the marketplace, save offers, and compare quotations immediately after registration.
• Phone verification: where offered, verifying a phone number requires entering an OTP sent to that number. You must only submit a phone number you control; impersonating another party's number is prohibited.
• Password reset: reset links/tokens are single-use and time-limited. Do not share a reset link — anyone who uses it can set a new password on your account.
• You are responsible for safeguarding your credentials and OTPs, and for all activity under your account, authorized or not. Report suspected compromise immediately via our contact page.
• You must keep your registration information accurate and current. Providing false information is a material breach of these Terms.
• We may suspend, reject, or block accounts that violate these Terms; blocked/rejected accounts are denied login with a clear status code (`REJECTED` / `BLOCKED`) and, where applicable, a stated reason. Administrators cannot action their own account — this is blocked at the platform level.

3. Supplier Company Profile, Documents & Verified Badge

• Suppliers maintain a public company profile (name, industry, description, location, logo, banner, established year, employee count, turnover, trading areas, export history) that buyers see directly.
• Suppliers may submit verification documents (GST certificate, PAN, business license) for admin review. Documents must be genuine, current, and belong to the business submitting them — forged, altered, or third-party documents are prohibited and will result in account action, up to immediate suspension.
• An admin may grant a "Verified" badge after review. The badge is a trust signal only, not a guarantee of creditworthiness, product quality, or legal compliance, and buyers should not rely on it alone. Admins may revoke it at any time if information is found inaccurate or unverifiable.
• Payment & shipping details: suppliers may optionally publish declared payment methods (including bank account number, IFSC code, and/or UPI ID) and shipping/logistics terms on their profile. You are solely responsible for the accuracy and currency of this information. Post Maze does not process, hold, or move funds on behalf of any user — all payments are arranged and settled directly between buyer and supplier, outside the platform, entirely at their own risk. Never treat a counterparty's request to change payment details received through any channel as automatically trustworthy; verify independently before paying.
• Verification is optional for using core supplier features but may affect buyer trust and discoverability.

4. RFQ, Quotation & Category Matching Flow

Nothing in this loop is static — matching runs dynamically against current database state:

• Category Watchlist: suppliers follow categories; changing this list immediately changes which RFQs they are matched against.
• RFQ Creation: buyers create RFQs with category, quantity, unit, budget range, deadline, and description, optionally referencing a specific product. Buyers may edit, archive, or delete their own open RFQs.
• Marketplace Matching: the Supplier RFQ Marketplace dynamically lists RFQs matching each supplier's followed categories — there is no manual assignment step.
• Quotation & Comparison: each supplier may hold only one active quotation per RFQ (price, terms/message, validity date); a supplier may withdraw it any time before acceptance. Quotations populate the buyer's comparison dashboard in real time.
• An RFQ or quotation is an expression of genuine business interest, not by itself a binding offer or acceptance. A binding transaction arises only from whatever separate agreement the buyer and supplier reach directly (Section 11).
• Submitting false, misleading, duplicate, or spam RFQs or quotations is prohibited. Admins may soft-delete an RFQ identified as spam or abusive, with a recorded reason, and notify the buyer by email; the RFQ is then excluded from all supplier-facing marketplace views.

5. Product Listings & Moderation

• Suppliers may list products (title, HS code, description, country of origin, brand, pricing model, unit price, minimum order quantity, sample price, production capacity/lead time, images, certificates, and specifications). Every new or edited listing enters a pending state before it is publicly visible.
• Admins may approve, reject, or remove any listing, including a previously approved one later found to violate these Terms, and notify the supplier by email with the outcome and reason.
• Editing an approved product resets it to pending and requires re-approval before it is publicly visible again, so approved content cannot be silently swapped for something never reviewed.
• Listings must accurately describe the goods, including country of origin, HS code, specifications, certificates, and pricing. Listing counterfeit, stolen, illegal, improperly disclosed hazardous goods, or materially misrepresented goods is strictly prohibited and will result in removal and account review.
• Suppliers remain solely responsible for compliance with all applicable import/export, customs, safety, labeling, and trade-compliance laws in both the country of origin and any prospective buyer's destination country. Post Maze does not verify regulatory compliance of listed goods.

6. Saved Offer Lists (Wishlists) & Category Requests

• Saved offer lists: buyers may organize products or offers of interest into named, private lists for their own later reference. These lists are visible only to the buyer who created them and are not shared with, or disclosed to, the suppliers whose listings appear in them.
• Category requests: if the category catalog does not cover your business, suppliers may request a new top-level category or a sub-category under an existing one, with a reason. An admin reviews the request and may approve it (which creates the real category and links it back to your request) or reject it with an explanatory note. Submitting frivolous, duplicate, or deliberately misleading category requests to manipulate marketplace matching is prohibited.

7. Instant Freight Calculator

• The Freight Calculator (FCL, LCL, Air Freight, Express Courier) provides estimated logistics costs from trade-lane data, carrier surcharges, and market benchmarks (Drewry WCI, FBX, IATA TAC), recalibrated periodically.
• Estimates are informational only and do not constitute a binding freight quotation, rate guarantee, offer of carriage, or contract of any kind.
• Actual costs may vary — potentially significantly — with carrier availability, fuel/currency surcharges, exchange rates at booking time, customs duties, port congestion, and peak-season factors, all outside our control.
• Post Maze is not a freight forwarder, carrier, NVOCC, or customs broker, holds no such license, and assumes no liability for shipments booked, planned, or budgeted based on calculator estimates. Always obtain a confirmed, binding quotation from a licensed freight forwarder or carrier before committing to a shipment.

8. Help & Support Tickets

• You may raise a support ticket for issues with your account, an RFQ, a product, or any other platform matter. Each ticket has a category, priority, and status, and may be escalated or placed on hold with a stated reason.
• Communications you send through a ticket are visible to our support team and may be used to help resolve your issue, including by linking the ticket to a related RFQ, product, or report for context. Internal notes our team adds for coordination purposes are never shown to you.
• Attachments you upload to a ticket must not contain malicious files, and must relate to the issue being raised; unrelated or abusive attachments may be removed, and repeated abuse may result in ticket access restrictions.
• Replying to a resolved ticket reopens it; we track reopen counts to help improve support quality, not to penalize you for following up.

9. Trust & Safety, Reporting, and Spam Protection

• You may report another user for spam, fraud, abuse, a fake listing, or another policy violation. Only one open report per reporter/target pair is permitted at a time, to prevent duplicate or harassment-style reporting of the same party.
• Admins review, resolve, or dismiss reports and notify the reporter of the outcome by email where applicable.
• Filing knowingly false, exaggerated, or malicious reports is prohibited and may itself result in account action against the reporter, including suspension.
• Login, registration, password reset, product creation, and report submission are rate-limited to prevent abuse. Attempting to circumvent these protections — via automated scripts, bot traffic, proxy rotation, or bulk/disposable account creation — is prohibited and may result in an immediate and permanent block.
• We may, but are not obligated to, proactively monitor the platform for abuse, fraud, or policy violations independent of user reports.

10. Platform Usage & Conduct

Users agree to use the platform only for legitimate business purposes. You agree not to:

• Submit false, misleading, duplicate, or fraudulent RFQs, quotations, product listings, category requests, support tickets, or reports.
• Upload content that infringes another's intellectual property, or documents that are forged, falsified, or belong to a different entity (verification documents, certificates, support attachments).
• Scrape, crawl, or conduct unauthorized automated data collection of other users' company, product, pricing, or RFQ data.
• Attempt to bypass rate limiting, verification, moderation, access controls, or any other safeguard, including reverse engineering, unauthorized API access, or credential sharing.
• Impersonate another person, business, or administrator, or misuse, forge, or misrepresent the Verified badge.
• Upload malicious code, viruses, or content designed to disrupt the platform, other users' devices, or our storage/hosting providers.
• Use the platform to solicit or conduct transactions unrelated to legitimate B2B wholesale trade, or to engage in money laundering, sanctions evasion, or trade in prohibited/restricted goods.
• Harass, threaten, defame, or discriminate against other users in any communication conducted through the platform, including support tickets and RFQ/quotation messages.

11. Transactions, Disputes & No Agency

Post Maze is solely a facilitator and technology platform connecting buyers and suppliers through category discovery, RFQs, quotations, and product listings. We are not a party to, and do not broker, underwrite, insure, or guarantee, any transaction between a buyer and a supplier, and we do not process payments.

• We do not guarantee the quality, safety, legality, originality, or deliverability of goods advertised, the accuracy of user-submitted content (including company, payment, and shipping information), the accuracy of freight estimates, or any party's ability or willingness to fulfill their obligations.
• No agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship is created between Post Maze and any Buyer or Supplier.
• Commercial terms (pricing, payment, delivery, warranties, returns) must be negotiated and agreed directly between buyer and supplier; Post Maze is not responsible for drafting, reviewing, or enforcing such agreements.
• Disputes — including non-payment, non-delivery, quality defects, or misrepresentation — must be resolved directly between the parties. Post Maze may, at its sole discretion and without obligation, provide records relevant to a dispute (e.g., the original RFQ or quotation text, or a related support ticket) but will not act as arbitrator, mediator, or guarantor of outcome.

12. Fees

Post Maze does not currently charge fees for core registration, category following, RFQ posting, quotation submission, product listing, saved offer lists, or support tickets. We reserve the right to introduce fees, commissions, or premium features in the future; any such change will be communicated in advance and will not apply retroactively. Attempting to bypass or manipulate any future fee structure or platform limitation is prohibited.

13. Intellectual Property

The Post Maze name, logo, platform design, and underlying software are the exclusive property of Post Maze. Content you upload (company information, product listings, RFQ details, documents, support messages/attachments, and images) remains your property, but by uploading it you grant Post Maze a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, and display it as necessary to operate the marketplace, including showing approved listings publicly.

If you believe content on the platform infringes your rights, contact us with details of the allegedly infringing material and your rights in the underlying work via our contact page; we will review and may remove the content.

14. Account Suspension & Termination

We may suspend, block, or reject any account violating these Terms — including for spam, fraud, misuse of verification, payment-detail, reporting, or support systems, intellectual property infringement, or repeated violations — with or without prior notice depending on severity. Affected users are notified by email with the reason, where applicable.

You may request deletion or deactivation of your own account at any time via our contact page; we process such requests per Section 15 (Data Retention) of our Privacy Policy, which explains that some records are retained in soft-deleted form where legally or operationally necessary.

15. Disclaimers

The platform — including the freight calculator, market-benchmark data, Verified badges, and support ticket resolutions — is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express, implied, or statutory, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant uninterrupted, error-free, or completely secure operation.

16. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Post Maze and its officers, employees, and affiliates shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, revenue, data, or business opportunity, arising from your use of the platform — including losses from failed or disputed transactions, inaccurate product, company, or payment-detail listings, freight estimate variances, moderation decisions, or disputes between buyers and suppliers — even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Our aggregate liability for any claim shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amount, if any, you paid to Post Maze in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (b) ten thousand Indian Rupees (₹10,000).

17. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Post Maze and its officers, employees, and affiliates from claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your breach of these Terms; (b) content you submit, including RFQs, quotations, product listings, category requests, support messages, and verification/payment details; (c) your violation of applicable law or a third party's rights; or (d) any transaction or dispute between you and another user.

18. Third-Party Links & Services

The platform may reference or link to third-party services (e.g., Google for SSO, or ports/cities referenced in the freight calculator). We do not control and are not responsible for third-party content, policies, or practices; your use of them is governed by their own terms.

19. Force Majeure

Post Maze is not liable for delay or failure to perform caused by events outside its reasonable control, including acts of God, natural disasters, war, terrorism, labor disputes, internet or hosting-provider outages, or governmental action.

20. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Subject to any mandatory consumer-protection rights you may have, disputes shall first be addressed through good-faith negotiation by contacting us; if unresolved within thirty (30) days, the dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in India at Post Maze's registered place of business.

21. Severability & Entire Agreement

If any provision of these Terms is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force. These Terms, with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Post Maze regarding your use of the platform, superseding prior agreements on the subject.

22. Modifications to Terms

We may modify these Terms at any time, including as new modules (in-platform messaging, online payments, SMS delivery, additional SSO providers) go live. Significant changes are announced on the platform or by email, and the "Last updated" date above will reflect the revision. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms; if you disagree, you must stop using the platform.

23. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us.