Legal

Seller and Payment Request Terms

Version 2026-10-21.1 · Effective October 21, 2026

Interim launch version 2026-10-21.1. Effective date: October 21, 2026. These terms are part of the Much Obliged Terms of Service and use the same definitions.

1. When these terms apply

These terms apply only if Much Obliged has made selling available to your account and you use it: Offers, the ways to get your Creative Work, Services (including series and ongoing services), Client Work, Payment Requests (also called Sale Links or Private Sales) and Quick Sale. Each of these, and each of the capabilities within them (physical items, Services, Deposits and balance payments, and Shipping), may be switched off for all accounts, for some accounts, or in some states, at Much Obliged's discretion. Nothing in these terms means a capability is available to you. If a capability is later switched off, sales that were already paid keep working: payments already made are still recorded, refunds and disputes are still handled, and your records remain.

2. What a Payment Request is

A Payment Request is a private, single-use checkout you create for one agreed transaction with one Buyer you have already found and agreed terms with somewhere else. It is not a listing, a storefront, a catalogue or a marketplace. Much Obliged does not advertise it, index it or show it to anyone but the person you send it to. The Buyer does not need a Much Obliged account.

You may keep items in your dashboard to prepare a Payment Request before you have a Buyer: your own words and photos for one thing you are selling somewhere else. An item is visible only to you. It is not a listing, is never shown, offered or searchable to anyone, has no quantity, and is not a sale; when a Buyer agrees, you can start a Payment Request from it.

You can bring an item in from a listing you already have elsewhere, from a screenshot of it or its text. A screenshot is read on your own device; it is not sent to Much Obliged, except for any photo you choose to keep from it. Much Obliged does not open, fetch or copy a listing from another website. What is read is shown to you to check before anything is saved; anything Much Obliged had to guess is marked as a guess until you confirm or change it, and an item saved without checking waits as a draft. What you save is your own description, and you are responsible for it and for having the right to use the words and photos you bring in.

A Payment Request states a total agreed price, what the Buyer gets, how they get it, and your terms, and may include photos, details, known flaws, what is included, the dates you state and how the Buyer can reach you. Once created, its terms cannot be changed; if the deal changes, withdraw it and create a new one. Much Obliged keeps a fixed record of what the Payment Request stated when you created it, with a fingerprint of that record and of each photo. A Payment Request accepts at most one payment per stage, and a unique item is never intentionally payable twice.

When you create a Payment Request you choose how long a first payment can be started on its link: 1 hour, 3 days (the default) or 30 days. After that time no first payment can be started, and nothing is charged; you can create a new one. The time limit applies only to the first payment: once a deposit is paid, the balance is not affected by it.

Before paying, the Buyer is shown the Payment Request's terms and must confirm them before continuing to Stripe. Much Obliged keeps a record of that confirmation with the sale: which confirmation wording was shown, when the Buyer confirmed, and a fingerprint of exactly what the page showed. On a Payment Request the Buyer pays you directly (section 4A), the Buyer confirms the terms on their page instead of paying there, and Much Obliged keeps the same kind of record.

2A. Offers and Creative Work: ways to buy that you publish

An offer you turn on, or a way to get a Creative Work you publish, can be bought by anyone who reaches its page, including where you embed it on your own website. The page is public; each purchase is recorded as a Payment Request for the one Buyer who bought it, private to you and that Buyer, and these terms apply to it as to any other Payment Request. Before an offer or a way to get a Creative Work can take payment, you make the same attestations as for a Payment Request (section 3, item 10).

Licenses. A license with set terms is granted by you to the Buyer, on the terms you wrote, which the Buyer agrees to before paying. Much Obliged records those terms, a fingerprint of them and when the Buyer agreed, and is not a party to the license. Before a license can be offered you state that you have the rights necessary to offer the licenses you publish for that work; Much Obliged records that statement and does not verify it. An exclusive license is never sold on the page: it is agreed with you directly.
Commissions at a set price. A commission you publish on your Creative Work at a set price and terms is one piece of work that you make for the one Buyer who buys it, as described before they pay. Section 6 (Services) applies to it.
Inquiries and requests. An inquiry, a license request or a commission request charges nothing and agrees nothing. Anything you then agree with the person is between you and them.

3. Your responsibilities as Seller

You, not Much Obliged, are the Seller. You must meet the eligibility rules in the Terms of Service (at least 18 and based in the United States). You:

own the item or have the right to sell it, or have the right and ability to perform the service;
describe it accurately, including its condition and any serial number you choose to record;
use a Payment Request only for a genuine sale of the item or service it describes. A Payment Request is never a way to move money: it is not a payment to yourself, not a transfer between friends, family or business partners, not a way to get cash from a card, and not a payment for something other than what it describes;
set the price, the payment structure, how long the Payment Request stays open, your return or service terms, and, for Shipping, the shipping charge, the ship-by date and the destination countries;
deliver the item, hand it over, ship it, or perform the service as you described;
hold any licence, permit, registration or seller's permit your activity requires, and collect and pay any sales tax or other tax that applies to what you sell;
comply with the Acceptable Use Policy, Stripe's rules and the law, including product-safety and recall law, consumer-protection law, and the rules of the platform where you found your Buyer;
handle refunds and disputes for your card payments in your own Stripe Dashboard, and give back yourself any money that was paid to you directly;
make your own pickup or delivery arrangements with the Buyer. If you record a day, a time or a place for a pickup or your own delivery, it is shown to the Buyer (the place and any directions only once they have paid something or confirmed a deal paid to you directly), and you may change it; Much Obliged records each change, but does not schedule, confirm or attend any handoff. Places you use may be remembered for you to reuse; they are shown to no one else; and
make the attestations the product asks for when you create a Payment Request (that you have the right to sell or perform, that the item or service is not prohibited and the Payment Request is a genuine sale of what it describes, and, for physical items, that you have checked for safety recalls) truthfully.

4. How payment works

A card payment on a Payment Request is charged directly on your Connected Account through Stripe Checkout. You are the merchant of record. Your Stripe business name, statement descriptor and receipt settings apply. A Payment Request, or one stage of it, may instead be paid to you directly (section 4A).
Much Obliged's fee on the payment is $0. Stripe's card-processing fee is charged to your Connected Account by Stripe and is not shown in Much Obliged.
Much Obliged never takes possession of the item, never performs the service, and never receives, holds, routes or escrows the Buyer's money. There is no hold, no delayed payout and no release-on-delivery. Stripe pays you out under Stripe's schedule.
Much Obliged records what Stripe confirms: that a payment was made, refunded or disputed. A Buyer's return to the Much Obliged page after Checkout is not proof of payment; a verified Stripe confirmation is. Only a payment Stripe confirmed is ever shown as confirmed by Stripe.
Much Obliged may set a maximum price for a single Payment Request (currently $10,000), may decline Payment Requests for handoffs in particular states, and may pause your ability to create new Payment Requests. Payments already made are never affected by these controls.
If Much Obliged suspends your selling, places your account on hold, or ends your access to selling, your Payment Requests stop taking further payments, including a balance still due after a paid deposit. Payments already made are not affected, and Much Obliged refunds nothing.

4A. Payments made to you directly (recorded by you)

When you create a Payment Request you may choose that the Buyer pays you directly - in cash, by Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, check, bank transfer or another way - instead of by card on the link. You may also record one stage of a card Payment Request as paid to you directly, for example a balance paid in cash at pickup. Each stage is met once: by a card payment Stripe confirms, or by your recording, never both. A Payment Request still has at most two stages (section 7), and a recording always covers a whole stage.
A recording is your own statement that you were paid: the method, an optional note, the stage and its amount, and the day you say you received it. Much Obliged did not process, receive, hold, route, verify or independently confirm that payment, and says so wherever the payment appears - your dashboard, the Buyer's page, the timeline, sale records, evidence summaries, exports and analytics - where it is labelled "Recorded by you" (or "Recorded by" your name, to the Buyer) and is never counted or described as a payment Stripe confirmed.
You must record only a payment you actually received, for the stage and amount shown. A false or misleading recording breaches these terms and the Acceptable Use Policy. The Buyer can see what you recorded.
Recordings are kept, never deleted. If you recorded something by mistake, you may void it with a reason, or correct it, in which case the original stays in the record marked as corrected. If you give money paid to you directly back to the Buyer, you may record that as a return; that is also your own statement. Each of these is kept with the sale, with the time you made it.
Money paid to you directly never passes through Much Obliged or Stripe. Much Obliged does not process, hold, refund, reverse, collect, chase or guarantee it, and cannot take part in any dispute about it with a bank or payment app; the protections of a card payment through Stripe and the card networks may not apply to it. Any refund of it is yours to give, under your disclosed terms and applicable law.
A Payment Request paid entirely to you directly uses no Stripe account and creates no Stripe payment. Much Obliged's fee on money paid to you directly is $0; your $8 subscription is the only amount Much Obliged charges you.
Once every stage of a Payment Request is met, by card, by your recording or by both, it is paid in full for the purposes of these terms, including the handoff PIN in section 5.

5. Physical items

If you offer a physical item:

The Buyer receives it by pickup, by your own delivery, or, if Shipping is available to you, by a carrier you choose.
You choose one return policy shown to the Buyer before payment: sold as is with no returns (the Buyer inspects the item at handoff), returns within 7, 14 or 30 days of handoff or delivery, or terms in your own words. Some states limit "as is" sales of consumer goods; you are responsible for your policy and for honoring it.
For pickup and your own delivery, once the full price is paid (by card, recorded by you, or both) Much Obliged gives you a six-digit handoff PIN on that sale's page in your dashboard, with a code the Buyer can scan. When you hand the item over, tell the Buyer the PIN; the Buyer enters it on their payment page, in the browser they paid or confirmed the deal with, and that records the handoff. You can instead let the Buyer scan the code, which opens their payment page with the PIN filled in for them to confirm; it is the same PIN and the same record. Much Obliged stores the PIN encrypted and shows it only to you; the Buyer's page never shows it. After ten wrong entries the Buyer's page stops accepting it for that sale. A recorded PIN entry shows that the Buyer's page took part in the handoff; it is not an inspection of the item and says nothing about its condition. Recording a handoff without a PIN, if Much Obliged offers it to you, is your own statement that you handed the item over; it is weaker evidence if the Buyer later disputes the payment. Shipped items and Services have no handoff PIN.
The Buyer may confirm on their page that they received the item. That confirmation is the Buyer's statement, recorded once.
You must not sell anything the Acceptable Use Policy prohibits, including vehicles, boats or trailers, weapons, alcohol, tobacco or vapes, drugs or prescription products, hazardous or counterfeit goods, and any product under a safety recall. Check cpsc.gov/recalls before you sell a consumer product.
Commissions. A physical item may be one you will make for the Buyer, such as a painting, a sculpture or a piece of furniture they have already agreed with you. You describe what you will make, write your own terms, which are shown to the Buyer before payment exactly as you wrote them, and may state when you expect it to be ready. When you say it is ready, Much Obliged records the date you said so and shows it to the Buyer; Much Obliged did not see or check the work. A commission is one piece of work for one Buyer; it is never a campaign, a crowdfunding or a pre-order of something made for many buyers (see the Acceptable Use Policy). The kind of sale you choose in Much Obliged describes how the sale is handled in the product; it is not a tax classification (see section 11).

6. Services

If Services are available to you and you offer one:

You describe the work, state the total price and the payment structure, record the state where the work is performed (an operational record only; it does not determine any tax), and write your own cancellation and refund terms, which are shown to the Buyer before payment exactly as you wrote them. Much Obliged adds nothing to your terms, including any word such as "non-refundable".
You must be able and legally entitled to perform the work. Licences, permits, insurance and professional rules are your responsibility. Much Obliged does not verify them.
When you mark the work complete in your dashboard, Much Obliged records the date you said so. Much Obliged did not verify the work, does not inspect it, and makes no statement about it to anyone. Marking a service complete does not collect any balance still due.
Services the Acceptable Use Policy prohibits may not be offered.

6A. Series and ongoing services

A series is a set number of sessions your customer accepts once. Its payments are Payment Requests - all up front, a deposit and the exact balance, or one session at a time - and these terms apply to each.
An ongoing service is open-ended: your customer pays the monthly price you set, by card, on your Connected Account, each month until it is stopped. Your customer can stop it from their page, and you can stop it from your dashboard; it then ends at the end of the period already paid for, and no further month is charged. An ongoing service is not a Payment Request, and the limit of two payments in section 7 does not apply to it. Refunds of its payments are yours to decide (section 10), as for any card payment.

7. Deposits and balance payments

If Deposits are available to you and you choose a deposit-and-balance structure:

A Payment Request may have at most two payments: a deposit and a balance. The deposit is a fixed dollar amount you set; the balance is the remainder of the total agreed price. Each is at least $1.00.
A deposit is a real, completed payment to you the moment Stripe confirms it (or, for a deposit paid to you directly, when you record it under section 4A). It is not a card hold, not an authorization, not escrow, not a reservation fee held by Much Obliged, and not financing. Stripe pays it to you like any other payment. Much Obliged never holds it.
The balance is a separate payment through the same link, taken when the Buyer pays it. Much Obliged does not impose a due date. You may state when the balance is due, either a moment (for example, at pickup or when the work is ready) or a date. What you state is shown to the Buyer before they pay the deposit and becomes part of the Payment Request's fixed record; it is your term, not Much Obliged's. Much Obliged adds no interest, no late fee, no financing, no reminder and no automatic charge, never invents a payment schedule, and a Payment Request never has more than these two payments. Much Obliged may show a date you stated on your own dashboard so you can see what is coming up.
Much Obliged does not treat any deposit as non-refundable and gives you no way to mark one as such. Whether a deposit is refundable if the deal does not go ahead is a matter of your disclosed terms and applicable law. If you refund a deposit in full before the balance is paid, or record a deposit paid to you directly as returned, the balance can no longer be paid through that Payment Request.
You may mark a service complete after the deposit is paid; a physical item cannot be recorded as handed over or shipped until the full price is paid. Either stage may be paid by card or to you directly (section 4A), in any combination.

8. Shipping

If Shipping is available to you and you choose it:

You set a fixed shipping charge, which is part of the total price shown to the Buyer (or $0 if you cover it). You set a ship-by date, which is shown to the Buyer before payment and cannot be changed afterwards. You choose which countries you will ship to from the countries Much Obliged permits; the Buyer can only enter an address in those countries. At this time Much Obliged permits shipping to addresses in the United States only.
The Buyer enters the shipping address in Stripe Checkout. Much Obliged records the address once, with the first payment, and shows it to you in your dashboard, in your sales export and in your account export. Use it only to fulfil that sale. The address cannot be changed after payment; if it is wrong, refund the payment and create a new Payment Request.
You buy the postage and ship the item yourself. Much Obliged does not purchase postage, does not create or print labels, does not quote rates, and has no carrier relationship.
You record in your dashboard when you shipped, which carrier you used and the tracking number, and later that you believe it was delivered. A shipment cannot be recorded without a tracking number, so ship with a service that gives you one. Much Obliged shows those records to the Buyer. Much Obliged does not verify the carrier, the tracking number or the delivery with anyone, and says so in any evidence it produces.
If you cannot ship by your ship-by date, record the delay in your dashboard before that date passes and send your Buyer the notice it gives you, the same way you have been talking to them. The notice gives a new ship-by date, or says that you cannot give one and why, and tells the Buyer they may wait or cancel for a full refund. What the Buyer's silence means is set by the law on shipped goods, not by you: for a first delay of 30 days or less it counts as agreeing to wait; for a longer or undated delay, and for any further delay, the order is cancelled unless the Buyer agrees. If the Buyer cancels, or the order is cancelled because they did not agree, you must refund the whole payment, including shipping, within seven working days, and you must not ship the item. Much Obliged records the notice and the Buyer's answer and shows both to you and to the Buyer; it does not send the notice for you and does not issue the refund. If the ship-by date passes and you have recorded neither a delay nor a shipment, the Buyer's page says that the date has passed and tells them how to reach you; Much Obliged does not cancel the sale, refund the Buyer or move any money because the date passed.
You are responsible for shipping within the ship-by date you stated and for what the law requires if you cannot, for customs, duties and export rules on any international shipment, for packaging and for loss or damage in transit, and for returns and refunds of shipped items under your disclosed policy and applicable law.
A refund or a dispute does not unsend a parcel; sort out the return with your Buyer.

9. Quick Sale

If Quick Sale is available to you and you use it:

What it is. Quick Sale is for selling to someone who is with you in person. You open a selling day from your dashboard. A Buyer can scan your QR code or tap your NFC tag and order from your menu on their own phone, or you can ring up an order at the counter and the Buyer pays on their own phone. A Buyer never sets a price. You may add a custom item, with a name and a price you agreed, to an order you ring up; it is added to that order only.
One limit, however it is paid. A single Quick Sale order may not exceed the maximum Much Obliged sets (currently $1,000), whether it is paid through Stripe, in cash or in another way. Larger deals belong in a Payment Request.
Payments through Stripe. A Quick Sale paid through Stripe is charged directly on your Connected Account through Stripe Checkout, using the payment methods Stripe makes available on your account (Much Obliged does not offer card readers or tap-to-pay). You are the merchant of record, your Stripe business name and receipt settings apply, and Much Obliged's fee is $0. Much Obliged marks an order paid only when Stripe confirms the payment. The browser that paid sees an on-screen receipt.
Cash and payments made another way. You may record that a Buyer paid you in cash, or paid you another way outside Much Obliged, with a short note on how if you like. Much Obliged does not process, hold, see or check that money. It is shown as Recorded by you, never as paid through Stripe; it is your own statement, and you are responsible for recording only money you actually received. It is kept apart from Stripe payments: it has no Stripe refund, no Stripe dispute and no Stripe receipt, and it is not counted as money Stripe confirmed.
Paid is not handed over. A payment, however made, does not mean the Buyer has what they bought. You mark an order done when they have it; that is your own record. Quick Sale has no handoff PIN.
Corrections leave a record. A sale you recorded cannot be edited or deleted. If it was wrong, you void it with a reason, and the sale and its history remain, marked void. An unpaid Stripe order can be cancelled. A payment Stripe confirmed is corrected only by a refund in your Stripe Dashboard.
Pausing and closing. Pausing your selling day stops new orders; orders already waiting can still be paid. Closing it cancels orders that have not been paid; an order that was already paid stays paid, and you still hand it over.
Everything else in these terms applies to Quick Sale as it does to Payment Requests, including your responsibilities in section 3, the Acceptable Use Policy, and sections 10 to 12.

10. Refunds, disputes and evidence

Refunds are yours to decide. A card payment is refunded in your own Stripe Dashboard, in whole or in part, at any stage, and Much Obliged records it. Money paid to you directly is given back by you, outside Much Obliged; you may record that you did (section 4A).
Disputes opened by the Buyer's bank are debited from your Connected Account with Stripe's dispute fees, and you respond in your Stripe Dashboard. Much Obliged shows you the dispute and gives you a plain-text evidence summary of what it recorded (for a Payment Request: the request terms shown to the Buyer and the Buyer's confirmation of them, the fixed record of what the Payment Request stated with its fingerprint and the fingerprint of each photo, payment stages, and for each whether Stripe confirmed it or you recorded it, handoff-PIN entry or seller-recorded handoff, any change you made to a pickup or delivery plan, shipment and delivery records, Buyer confirmation of receipt). You can also download a sale record and an evidence packet with the same facts. They present your recordings as your own statements, never as verified. Much Obliged never submits a dispute response for you.
Duplicate or impossible payments. Much Obliged is built so that a unique item cannot be paid for twice. If, despite that, Stripe confirms a payment that no longer fits a Payment Request (for example, a payment on a checkout that was no longer the active one), Much Obliged records it as an anomaly for a person at Much Obliged to review, and may contact you about it. The money is in your Stripe account. Much Obliged does not refund it automatically or on its own authority; any refund is yours to issue.
Much Obliged keeps sales records and evidence for record-keeping, refunds and disputes; retention rules are described in the Privacy Policy.

11. Consumer protection and taxes

Consumer-protection law applies to your sales: truthful descriptions, honoring stated terms, shipping-time rules for goods you ship, product-safety law, and state rules on "as is" sales are yours to comply with. Sales tax on what you sell, and any permit or registration required to sell it, are yours, including for Quick Sales paid in cash or another way. Much Obliged does not calculate, collect or advise on tax for your sales, and the state recorded on a Payment Request is not a tax determination.

12. What Much Obliged is not

Much Obliged is not a marketplace (it does not list, search or recommend one seller's offers to another seller's buyers), an inventory system, a cart, an escrow service, a financing company, a shipping-rate marketplace, a postage-label vendor, a carrier, a verifier of goods or services, or a party to your sale. Much Obliged is the software that lets you request, take and record a payment on your own Stripe account, and keep your own record of payments you received another way. It is not a payment processor, money transmitter or bank for money paid to you directly, and it never holds that money.