Terms of service

Aupex is operated by Jacob Fletcher, an individual. Using the site means accepting what is on this page. If you are using it for a company, you are saying you may agree to this on that company's behalf.

No money moves through Aupex. Nothing is charged, collected, held in escrow, or released. Accepting a statement of work records a commitment between two parties; approving a milestone records that work was accepted. Neither pays anybody. Invoicing and payment happen directly between the client and the contractor, on the terms written into their own document, using whatever they already use.

Aupex is not a party to your contract, not an employer, not an agency, and not a broker. It does not supervise work, guarantee that it will be done, guarantee that it will be paid for, or arbitrate a disagreement about either. What it keeps is a record of what was proposed, what was accepted and what was marked delivered, and that record is available to both sides.

• One person, one account — with real details. A profile that misrepresents who is behind it is grounds for removal, and the whole marketplace depends on that being true.
• You are 18 or over — and able to enter into a contract where you live.
• Your credentials are yours to keep — and you are responsible for what is done with them. Sessions can be revoked from Settings if you think one has been taken.
• A confirmed email address — is required before posting a project, sending an invitation, submitting a bid or writing in the feed. It is the only thing standing between the marketplace and a throwaway account.

A statement of work is a document one member writes and another accepts. When a client accepts one, the role is filled and the other bids on it are declined — that part is irreversible on the site, and the confirmation says so before you do it.

What that acceptance means legally is between the two of you. The document carries your own scope, milestones, rates, payment terms and validity, and those are the terms that govern the work — not this page. Aupex records the document and the decision, and does not enforce either.

Ratings are computed from reviews left on completed engagements. Badges are awarded automatically from activity that already happened, and can be revoked. A verified marker means somebody on the staff looked at evidence an account submitted and found it convincing.

All three are recognition, not a guarantee. None of them is a credit check, a background check, a reference, or a promise about anybody's work. Do your own diligence before hiring somebody or taking a contract.

Your profile, briefs, statements of work, posts and images stay yours. Posting them here gives Aupex permission to store and display them on the site as part of running it, and to show public parts of a profile or an open project to search engines. Nothing is licensed for any other use, and deleting something ends that permission for what was deleted.

Do not post anything you do not have the right to post.

• Misrepresenting who you are — including a fabricated identity, a borrowed portfolio, or claimed experience that is not yours.
• Using the marketplace to reach people for something else — recruiting for unrelated schemes, advertising, or bulk-messaging members.
• Harassment or abuse — of anybody, in a post, a comment, a bid or a message.
• Scraping or automated collection — of profiles, projects or contact details.
• Attacking the site — probing for holes, trying to reach another account's data, or interfering with anybody else's use of it.
• Anything illegal — where you are, or where the other party is.

A post can be hidden and an account can be suspended where something here has been broken. Both are recorded with a reason, and a suspension is explained to the account it affects. A hidden post is not deleted, because what was written and what was done about it are both facts.

You can close your account at any time from Settings. Reviews written about you and completed engagements survive it — they are part of the other party's record too — with your name removed.

Aupex is offered without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. It is not promised to be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at any particular moment. It is early software and is being run honestly rather than perfectly.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Jacob Fletcher is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost business or lost data arising from your use of the site — and is not liable at all for what another member does, for work that is not delivered, or for payment that does not arrive.

Total liability for any claim relating to the site is capped at what you paid to use it, which today is nothing. That is stated plainly rather than hidden, because it follows directly from the site being free and holding no money.

You agree to cover Jacob Fletcher against claims arising from what you post, from how you use the site, and from any contract you enter into through it.

These terms can change. When they do, the date at the top changes with them, and a material change is emailed to registered accounts before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that is acceptance of the new version.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Kentucky, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and any dispute about them belongs to the courts there.

Questions about these terms, about a suspension, or about anything else here go to admin@aupex.dev.