Terms of service

Kindred (“Kindred”, the “Service”) is a values-first dating and social platform with games, chat and date planning. It is operated by Kindred HQ of Lagos, Nigeria (“Kindred HQ”, “we”, “us”, “our”).

These Terms of service (the “Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and us. They apply to the Kindred website, web app, mobile apps and related services. By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms, our Privacy policy, our Community guidelines and our Cookie policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

To use Kindred you must:

• be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live, if higher);
• be legally able to enter into a binding contract;
• not be barred from using the Service under the laws of your country or any applicable sanctions;
• not have been convicted of, or be subject to any court order relating to, a sexual offence, a violent offence or stalking;
• not have had an account removed by us, unless we have expressly allowed you back.

Kindred is for personal, non-commercial use. You may hold only one account.

You must give accurate, current information, use recent photos that show you, and keep your profile up to date. You are responsible for keeping your password and devices secure and for everything that happens under your account. Tell us straight away through the Help page if you think someone else has accessed it.

We verify phone numbers, and we offer selfie (liveness) verification, which is required to send messages and to show the Verified badge. Verification reduces risk but cannot remove it. We do not carry out criminal background checks, and a Verified badge is not a guarantee of anyone's identity, intentions or behaviour.

Your username must follow our naming rules. We may reclaim or change a username that impersonates someone, infringes rights or is misleading.

You agree to follow our Community guidelines at all times, online and when you meet people offline. In particular, you must not:

• harass, threaten, stalk, intimidate, deceive or exploit anyone;
• ask members for money, gifts, airtime, loans or financial information, or run any scam or romance fraud;
• post or send sexual content without consent, or any content that sexualises minors;
• impersonate anyone, use a fake identity or create accounts for others;
• advertise, solicit, recruit or promote businesses, investments, crypto or other platforms;
• use bots, scrapers, automation or modified clients, or interfere with, probe or overload the Service or its security;
• cheat in games, manipulate leaderboards, or exploit bugs, coins or promotions;
• use the Service for anything unlawful, or encourage anyone else to break these Terms.

You are responsible for your interactions with other members, online and offline. We do not control and are not responsible for what members say or do. Please read our Safety centre, meet in public places, arrange your own transport and tell someone you trust where you are going. Kindred's Safety Share and venue suggestions are aids, not guarantees.

Kindred is not an emergency service. If you are in danger, contact your local emergency services first, then report the member to us. Safety features, including reporting and blocking, are free for everyone and are never part of a paid plan.

You keep ownership of the photos, text, voice notes and other content you post or send (“your content”). You are responsible for it, and you confirm that you have the rights needed to share it and that it follows these Terms.

You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable (to our service providers only) licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example resize, crop or compress), display and moderate your content, solely to operate, secure, improve and promote the Service within the app. We will not use your photos in advertising outside Kindred without your separate permission. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies we must keep for safety, legal or dispute purposes, and for content already shared with other members (such as messages they received).

We may remove or restrict any content that breaks these Terms or the law, or that we reasonably believe puts someone at risk.

The Service, including its software, design, games, text, graphics, illustrations, the Kindred name and logos, belongs to Kindred HQ or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for its intended purpose under these Terms. You must not copy, modify, distribute, sell, reverse engineer or create derivative works from any part of the Service, except where the law expressly allows it. If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them freely without any obligation to you.

Kindred is free to join. Optional paid plans (such as Kindred Plus and clique memberships) add features and perks and are offered as monthly or annual subscriptions. The features, price, currency, billing period and any applicable taxes are shown before you confirm a purchase. Payments are processed by our payment provider, Paystack, by card, bank transfer, USSD or mobile money where available, or by an app store if you subscribe through one.

Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, at the then-current price, and the payment method on file is charged, until you cancel. If a payment fails, we may retry it or pause your paid features.

Cancellation. You can cancel at any time from Me → Subscription (or in your app store account if you subscribed there). To avoid the next charge, cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date. Cancelling stops future charges; you keep your paid features until the end of the period you have already paid for.

Price changes and trials. We will tell you about any price increase at least 30 days before it applies to your next renewal, and you can cancel before then. If we offer a free or discounted trial, it converts to a paid subscription at the price shown unless you cancel before the trial ends.

No plan lets anyone bypass verification, moderation, safety tools or another member's preferences and dealbreakers, and subscriber badges are shown only while a subscription is active.

Kindred Coins (“Coins”) are a virtual currency you can use inside Kindred, for example to make matches or play games. You may receive Coins as a sign-up or plan bonus, as part of a promotion, or buy Coin packs at the price shown in the app. The current costs of actions in Coins are shown in the app and may change; we will give reasonable notice of increases.

• Coins and other virtual items are a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use a feature of the Service. They are not money, e-money, a deposit or property, and they have no cash value.
• Coins cannot be exchanged for cash, refunded, sold, gifted, transferred between accounts or redeemed outside Kindred, except where the law requires otherwise.
• Purchased Coins do not expire while your account is active. Bonus or promotional Coins may expire as stated when they are given.
• Your balance is held on our servers and our records are the reference. If you believe there is an error in your balance or transaction history, contact us through the Help page and we will investigate.
• Coins are lost when your account is deleted, or if it is terminated for a serious or repeated breach of these Terms. Coins obtained through fraud, chargebacks, bugs or abuse may be removed.

If we ever stop offering Coins, we will give you at least 60 days' notice and, where the law requires it, a fair refund for unused purchased Coins.

Except as set out here or required by law, payments for subscriptions and Coins are non-refundable, and we do not give refunds or credits for partially used periods or unused Coins. We will refund you:

• if you were charged in error, charged twice, or charged after cancelling in time;
• if a technical fault on our side means you did not receive what you paid for and we cannot fix it within a reasonable time;
• a pro-rata amount for the unused part of a prepaid subscription if we end your account or the Service without your having breached these Terms.

If you live in a country whose law gives you a right to withdraw from a digital purchase (for example, 14 days in the European Union and the United Kingdom), you may have that right. Where the law allows, you agree that a subscription or Coins are supplied immediately when you buy them, and you acknowledge that you lose the right of withdrawal once supply has begun. Purchases made through an app store are governed by that store's refund policy. To request a refund, contact us through the Help page within 30 days of the charge.

Kindred games are for entertainment and connection. They are games of skill or chance played for fun and ratings only: there are no cash prizes, no wagering, and Coins cannot be won as money. Leaderboards, ratings and results are calculated by us and may be corrected or reset to fix errors or cheating. We may change, add or retire games at any time.

We use automated tools and human moderators to review content, reports and accounts. If you break these Terms or the Community guidelines, or we reasonably believe you put others at risk or expose us to legal liability, we may warn you, remove content, limit features, suspend or permanently ban your account, and block associated phone numbers and devices. Where it is safe and lawful to do so, we will tell you why and give you a way to appeal. Permanent bans are always reviewed by a person.

You can stop using Kindred and delete your account at any time from Me → Settings → Blocked & your data. Deleting your account does not cancel an app store subscription; cancel that in the store. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (such as content licences already granted for safety records, intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and dispute terms) continue to apply.

We work hard to keep Kindred safe, available and accurate, but to the fullest extent permitted by law the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement or uninterrupted, error-free operation. Compatibility scores, introductions and suggestions are guidance, not promises: we do not guarantee that you will find a match, a friend or a relationship. We are not responsible for the conduct of members or for third-party venues, services or content you reach through Kindred.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Kindred HQ and its officers, employees and partners will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill or opportunity, arising out of or relating to the Service or the conduct of any member, whether online or offline. Our total liability to you for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim and NGN 50,000 (or its equivalent in your local currency).

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or your statutory rights as a consumer, including under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 in Nigeria and the mandatory consumer protection laws of the country where you live.

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to compensate Kindred HQ for reasonable losses, claims and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your content, or your conduct towards other members, except to the extent caused by our own fault. This does not apply to consumers in countries where such an obligation is not permitted.

These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If you are a consumer living in another country, you also benefit from any mandatory protections of the law of your country of residence, and nothing in these Terms takes those protections away.

Most concerns can be solved quickly. Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us through the Help page and describe the issue; we will try to resolve it with you in good faith within 30 days. If we cannot, either of us may refer the dispute to mediation at the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse, or take it to the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria, which will have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer, you may instead bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live, use a small-claims procedure, or contact your local consumer protection authority (in Nigeria, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission). Residents of the European Union can also use their national alternative dispute resolution bodies.

We are always improving Kindred, so features may change, be added or be withdrawn. We may also update these Terms to reflect changes to the Service, the law or our business. If a change materially affects you, we will tell you in the app or by email at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless it is needed sooner for legal or safety reasons. If you do not agree, you can delete your account before the change applies; continuing to use the Service afterwards means you accept the updated Terms. The “Last updated” date at the top shows when these Terms last changed.

• These Terms, together with the documents they refer to, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.
• If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
• If we do not enforce a right straight away, we do not give it up.
• You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor business, provided your rights are not reduced.
• We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• These Terms are written in English. Translations are for convenience; if there is any difference, the English version prevails.

Questions, complaints or legal notices: contact Kindred HQ through the Help page (or Me → Help in the app). We aim to reply within 5 working days, and sooner for anything about safety.