Policies and Procedures

Policies that apply to your account and use of this site

Last revised on September 10, 2020, effective as of September 10, 2020

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These Terms of Service are a contract between you and Help Scout PBC (referred to in these Terms of Service as “Help Scout”, “us”, “we” or “our”), the provider of the Help Scout website and the services accessible from the Help Scout website (which are collectively referred to in these Terms of Service as the “Help Scout Service”).

You are agreeing to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these Terms of Service, please do not use the Help Scout Service. In these Terms of Service, “you” refers both to you as an individual and to the entity you represent. If you violate any of these Terms of Service, we reserve the right to cancel your account or block access to your account without notice.

Your Account

• Eligibility. Your account must be registered by a human. Accounts registered by "bots" or other automated methods are not permitted. Additionally, you must be 16 years of age or older.
• Registration Information. You must provide a valid permanent email address, along with any other information required by Help Scout during the registration process. One person or legal entity may not maintain more than one free account.
• Password. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password. We will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation. Personally identifiable information submitted by you will be subject to our Privacy Policy.
• Restrictions. You may not use the Help Scout Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. You must not, in the use of the Help Scout Service, violate any laws in your jurisdiction, including, among other things, by:
  • distributing any virus, time bomb, trap door, or other harmful or disruptive computer code, mechanism or program;
  • covering or obscuring any notice, legend, warning or banner contained on the Help Scout Service;
  • interfering with or circumventing any security feature of the Help Scout Service or any feature that restricts or enforces limitations on use of or access to the Help Scout Service;
  • infringing or violating the rights of any other party, including without limitation any intellectual property rights, including copyright laws, or rights of privacy or publicity
  • being obscene, offensive, pornographic, fraudulent, deceptive, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, slanderous, hateful, or causing embarrassment to any other person as determined by Help Scout in its sole discretion; or
  • deliberately misleading anyone as to your identity, impersonating another, or falsely identifying the source of any information.

Payment, Refunds, Upgrading and Downgrading

A valid credit card is required for paying accounts unless your company pays for services annually, in which case payment via check or PayPal is acceptable. Free accounts are not required to provide a credit card number.

The Help Scout Service is billed in advance in accordance with our pricing schedule. There will be no refunds or credits for partial months of service, annual payments, or refunds for months unused with an open account, except in the case of our 30-day money back guarantee (see below). In order to treat everyone equally, no exceptions will be made.

All fees are exclusive of all taxes, levies, or duties imposed by taxing authorities, and you will be responsible for payment of all such taxes, levies, or duties, excluding only United States (federal or state) income taxes. You agree to pay for any taxes that might be applicable to your use of the Help Scout Service or payments made by you in connection with your use of the Help Scout Service.

30-day money back guarantee

If for any reason, you are unhappy with your Help Scout purchase, we do offer a 30-day money back guarantee. If you decide not to use Help Scout in your business within 30 days from your first payment, you may request a full refund. This applies to both annual and monthly subscriptions.

Violation of these Terms of Service

We reserve the right to investigate and prosecute violations of any of these Terms of Service to the fullest extent of the law. We may involve and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting Users who violate the Terms of Service. You acknowledge that Help Scout has no obligation to prescreen or monitor your access to or use of the Help Scout Service or any information, materials or other content provided or made available through the Help Scout Service, but has the right to do so. You hereby agree that Help Scout may, in the exercise of our sole discretion, remove or delete any data, accounts or other content that violates these Terms of Service or that is otherwise objectionable.

Cancellation

You are solely responsible for properly canceling your account. As a security precaution, an email or phone request to cancel or make changes to your account will not result in cancellation. You can cancel your account at any time from the “Your Plan” page. The Account Owner, and in some cases Administrators with permission, are the only Users with access to this page. Step-by-step instructions are available in this article.

Any cancellation of your account will result in the deactivation or deletion of your account, and the removal of all content in your account. This information can be restored by request of the Account Owner to Help Scout for a 14-day period. Cancelled accounts cannot be recovered or restored from Help Scout following this 14-day period. Please be aware that we may for a time retain residual account information in our backup and/or archival copies of our database. We will make reasonable commercial efforts to delete your information as soon as possible after you communicate that intention to us.

Cancellations will take effect immediately. If you wish to continue using your account through the end of a billing cycle, please do not cancel until the billing cycle is completed.

Termination

Help Scout reserves the right to terminate any free accounts that do not have any activity (replies or logins) for sixty (60) days, or trial accounts without a payment method thirty (30) days after expiration.

Help Scout, in its sole discretion, has the right to suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms of Service. Any termination of your account will result in the deactivation or deletion of your account, denied access to your account, and the removal of all content in your account.

Modifications to the Help Scout Site and Prices

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Help Scout Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice. However, we will make our very best efforts to notify customers of any upcoming system maintenance and/or service disruptions.

Prices of all Help Scout Service plans are subject to change. If Help Scout does for any reason have to remove the plan you are on or require an upgrade to a current plan, we will provide you with at least six (6) months notice via email.

We will not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, price change, suspension or discontinuance of the Help Scout Service.

We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change, modify, add to, supplement or delete any portion of these Terms of Service at any time, effective with or without prior notice; provided, however, that we will use reasonable efforts to provide you with notification of any material changes (as determined in our sole discretion) by email.

If any future changes to these Terms of Service are unacceptable to you or cause you to no longer be in compliance, you must immediately stop using the Help Scout Service. Your continued use of the Help Scout Service following any revision to this Agreement constitutes your complete acceptance of any and all such changes. Any new features that augment or enhance the current Help Scout Service, including the release of new tools and resources, will be subject to these Terms of Service.

Intellectual Property and Content Ownership

We claim no ownership rights over the content submitted or created exclusively by you in your Help Scout Service account. Any content that is yours remains yours. These Terms of Service do not grant us any licenses or rights to your content except for the limited rights needed for us to provide the Help Scout Service to you.

Similarly, any reporting data we collect from your use of the Help Scout Service remains yours. By using the Help Scout Service you agree that we can use this data to provide the Help  Scout Service to you, and you also agree that as long as the data is anonymized and does not identify you, we can combine this data with the anonymized data of other companies to provide benchmarking, public reports or to otherwise use it to provide the Help Scout Service.

The contents of the Help Scout Service are copyrighted under the United States copyright laws (© 2023 - Help Scout PBC dba Help Scout). Help Scout, and the Help Scout logos, are trademarks of Help Scout and may not be used without our express written permission. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS or visual design elements without express written permission. You do not acquire any ownership rights by using the Help Scout Service. For more guidelines on using the name or logo, see this page.

Account Access

In some cases, it is necessary for Help Scout employees to access your account and content in order to diagnose a problem. When you contact our support team, it is implied that you are allowing Help Scout employees to access your account if necessary, in order to be helpful. If you wish to receive assistance without granting permission to your account, please specify as much in your communication with our support team and those requests will be honored to the extent possible.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Help Scout, its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, partners and employees harmless from any claim or demand, charge, liability, damages, expenses or loss, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the Help Scout Service, use of your account by any third party, your violation of these Terms of Service, or any infringement by you or any third party using your account.

Disclaimer

The Help Scout Service and its contents are provided “as is” and “as available” without any warranty or representations of any kind, whether express or implied. Help Scout is a distributor and not a publisher of the content supplied by third parties; as such, Help Scout exercises no editorial control over such content and makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy, reliability or currency of any information, content, service or merchandise provided through or accessible via the Help Scout Service. Without limiting the foregoing, Help Scout specifically disclaims all warranties and representations in any content transmitted on or in connection with the Help Scout Service or on sites that may appear as links on the Help Scout Service, or in the products provided as a part of, or otherwise in connection with, the Help Scout Service, including without limitation any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement of third party rights. No oral advice or written information given by Help Scout or any of its affiliates, employees, officers, directors, agents, or the like will create a warranty. Price and availability information is subject to change without notice. Without limiting the foregoing, Help Scout does not warrant that the Help Scout Service will be uninterrupted, uncorrupted, timely, or error-free.

Limitation of Liability

Help Scout will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, exemplary or consequential damages, lost profits, lost data, or business interruption, in any way whatsoever arising out of the use of, or inability to use, the Help Scout Service, whether or not Help Scout is advised of the possibility of such damages. You acknowledge and agree that Help Scout’s maximum liability to you will not exceed the amount you have paid Help Scout in the ninety (90) days immediately preceding the date on which you first assert a claim.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, these disclaimers and limitations of liability apply to any and all damages or injury whatsoever caused by or related to use of, or inability to use, the Help Scout Service under any cause or action whatsoever of any jurisdiction, including, without limitation, actions for breach of warranty, breach of contract or tort (including negligence).

Jurisdiction and Venue

These Terms of Service and any controversy, claim or dispute arising under or related to these Terms of Service will be construed, pursued and resolved in accordance with and will be governed by the laws of Massachusetts, USA without regard to its conflicts of laws provisions. You irrevocably consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Massachusetts and the federal courts situated in Massachusetts in connection with any action or dispute arising between the parties under or in connection with these Terms of Service.

Miscellaneous

If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision or portion of these Terms of Service to be unenforceable, the remainder of these Terms of Service will continue in full force and effect. Any waiver of any provision of these Terms of Service will be effective only if in writing and signed by an authorized representative of Help Scout. Help Scout will be entitled to injunctive or other equitable relief (without the obligations of posting any bond or surety) in the event of any breach or anticipatory breach by you. Help Scout operates and controls the Help Scout Service from its offices in the United States. The Service is not intended for distribution to or use by any person or entity in any jurisdiction or country where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation. Accordingly, those persons who choose to access the Help Scout Service from other locations do so on their own initiative and are solely responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. These Terms of Service (which include and incorporate the Help Scout Privacy Policy) contains the entire understanding, and supersedes all prior understandings, between you and Help Scout concerning its subject matter, and cannot be changed or modified by you. The section headings used in this Agreement are for convenience only and will not be given any legal import.