Terms of Service.

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and the operator of CollectorVault (“CollectorVault”, “we”, “us”). By visiting the site, creating an account, or using any part of the service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Who may use CollectorVault

You must be at least 13 years old (or the higher minimum age required in your country) and legally able to enter into this agreement. If you use CollectorVault on behalf of someone else or an organization, you confirm you have authority to bind them to these Terms.

3. Your account

You are responsible for your account credentials and for everything that happens under your account. Provide accurate information, keep your password secure, and tell us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised. We may refuse, suspend, or reclaim account names that infringe rights or mislead others.

4. Your content stays yours

You keep every right you hold in the photos, descriptions, stories, and other material you add (“Your Content”). So that the service can function, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, resize, and display Your Content — but only as needed to operate, back up, and improve the service, and, for content you explicitly publish, to show it to the audience you chose. This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for the limited time it persists in routine backups.

You promise that you own Your Content or have the rights needed to post it, and that it does not infringe anyone’s intellectual property, privacy, or other rights.

5. Community rules

When using CollectorVault, you agree not to:

• post content that is unlawful, infringing, deceptive, hateful, or harassing;
• misrepresent an item’s authenticity, provenance, condition, or history, or use the service to promote counterfeit goods;
• impersonate any person, brand, or grading or authentication service;
• scrape, harvest, or bulk-download content or data, or access the service with automated tools except public search engines honoring robots.txt;
• probe, overload, or interfere with the service, its security, or other users’ accounts; or
• use the service to send spam or unsolicited commercial messages.

We may remove content or restrict accounts that break these rules.

6. No appraisals, valuations, or professional advice

This section matters more than any other. CollectorVault is a cataloging and community platform. Identifications, comments, “helpful” marks, community verification responses, guides, value estimates, and any AI-assisted suggestions are informal community opinions provided for general information only. They are not appraisals, authentications, grading opinions, investment advice, insurance valuations, tax valuations, or professional advice of any kind, and we do not verify them.

Never rely on anything on CollectorVault when buying, selling, insuring, valuing, or authenticating an item. Always engage a qualified, independent professional. We are not responsible for any loss arising from reliance on content found on the service, and we make no promise that any item discussed on the service is authentic, accurately described, or worth any particular amount.

7. Sponsored content and third-party links

Placements from partners are always labeled (for example “Sponsored”). We may earn a commission from labeled affiliate links. Sponsors and linked third parties are solely responsible for their own products, services, and sites; a label or link is not an endorsement, and your dealings with them are between you and them.

8. Our service providers

The service runs on third-party infrastructure — currently Supabase (database and authentication) and Vercel (hosting and privacy-focused analytics). Their processing of your data is described in our Privacy Policy.

9. Our intellectual property

The service — including its design, code, wordmark, and content we create — belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by law. We grant you a personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the service as intended by these Terms. If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without restriction or compensation.

10. Copyright complaints

We respect intellectual property and expect the same from users. If you believe content on CollectorVault infringes your copyright, email support@collectorvault.social with: your contact details, identification of the work and of the infringing material (including its URL), a statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized, a statement under penalty of perjury that your notice is accurate and you are authorized to act, and your physical or electronic signature. We will remove or disable access to material identified in valid notices and will terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. If your content was removed by mistake, you may send a counter-notice with equivalent details.

11. Termination

You may stop using CollectorVault at any time and may request account deletion as described in the Privacy Policy. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms, create legal risk, or harm other users — where practical we will tell you why. Sections 4 (license during backups), 6, 12, 13, 14, and 16 survive termination.

12. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. WE DO NOT WARRANT ANY CONTENT POSTED BY USERS OR PARTNERS. KEEP YOUR OWN RECORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF YOUR COLLECTION; DO NOT USE THE SERVICE AS YOUR ONLY ARCHIVE.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, COLLECTORVAULT AND ITS OPERATOR WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, OR LOSS OF GOODWILL, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE — INCLUDING RELIANCE ON ANY IDENTIFICATION, VALUATION, OR OTHER CONTENT — EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US$100) OR THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN LIMITATIONS, SO PARTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

14. Indemnification

You will defend and hold harmless CollectorVault and its operator from claims, damages, and reasonable legal fees arising out of Your Content, your use of the service, or your breach of these Terms.

15. Changes to the service or these terms

CollectorVault is an evolving product; features may change, be added, or be removed. If we make material changes to these Terms we will update the date below and take reasonable steps to notify you (for example, a notice on the site). Continuing to use the service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of the state in which CollectorVault's operator resides, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and disputes will be brought exclusively in the courts located there. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us and give us 30 days to try to resolve the dispute informally. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect; our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the service.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@collectorvault.social.