Terms and Conditions

1. Who we are and what these terms are

HostelGig ("HostelGig", "we", "us", "our") is an online platform based in Ghana. It includes the HostelGig website at hostelgig.com, hostel booking, SchoolYard (the student community and everything inside it: the feed, StudyRoom, Gigz, the Marketplace and tutoring, the League, the forum and Crimson), the wallet and coins, and the advertiser portal. We call all of this "the Services".

"You" means anyone who visits or uses the Services: a student, a hostel manager, a writer, a seller, an advertiser or a visitor. These terms form an agreement between you and HostelGig. They are an electronic agreement and are valid under Ghana's Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) without a signature.

Some parts have extra rules, such as the Advertising Terms for advertisers and the Privacy Policy for how we handle your information. They are part of this agreement.

2. Who can use the Services

• You must be at least 16 years old. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must know about and agree to your use of the Services, and by using them you confirm that this is so.
• You must give true information (your real name, a working email and phone number) and keep it up to date. Do not pretend to be somebody else.
• One person, one account. Do not sell, share or hand over your account.
• Students who join SchoolYard without a hostel booking on HostelGig must confirm their email with a one-time code every time they log in. This is for everybody's safety.
• We may refuse, suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or puts others at risk.

3. Your account and your security

You are responsible for what happens on your account. Choose a strong password, keep it private and log out on shared computers. Tell us straight away at info@hostelgig.com if you think someone else has got in.

To protect everyone we limit the number of failed log-in tries, end sessions that have been idle for a long time, record the addresses and devices accounts are used from, and may ask you to confirm it is you. You can see your recent sign-ins in Settings > Region.

If you forget your password, use "Forgot password" on the log-in box. We email a one-time link that works once and for one hour.

4. Booking a hostel

• Hostel pages show information supplied by hostel managers. We try to keep it accurate but we do not own, run or inspect the hostels and we cannot guarantee a room, a price or the condition of a hostel.
• When you book, you send a booking request for a room. The hostel manager approves your tenancy; a payment does not by itself guarantee a place until the booking is confirmed. Rooms are shared only under the hostel's gender and capacity rules.
• The booking fee is paid to HostelGig through ExpressPay for processing your booking. The amount is shown at checkout. If we cannot confirm your booking we will refund the booking fee. Otherwise it is not refundable once the booking has been confirmed, unless the checkout or the hostel page says differently.
• Rent, deposits and other charges are agreed with and paid to the hostel under its own rules and tenancy agreement. Always pay into the hostel's official bank account. Never pay rent to a mobile money number you were sent by a stranger, and never because someone on the site asked you to.
• You may keep one booking per hostel per year. You may renew or book another hostel on your own campus from Settings > My Stays. You can tell us which hostel you really live in; that is only a record and does not replace the hostel's approval.
• Hostel managers must give true information, honour confirmed bookings, handle tenants' data properly and follow the law on rentals.

5. Community rules (SchoolYard, Crimson, forum, chat and reviews)

SchoolYard is for students and it should feel safe. Whatever you post, write or send, you must not:

• harass, bully, threaten, stalk or humiliate anybody, or post hate against people for their tribe, religion, gender, disability, sexuality, nationality or background;
• share sexual or violent content, content that sexualises anyone, or anything involving children in a harmful way;
• post anybody's private information (phone numbers, addresses, IDs, photos taken or shared without permission), or reveal who wrote an anonymous confession;
• spread false information that harms people, defame anyone, or encourage cheating in exams or academic fraud;
• sell or promote illegal goods or services, gambling, drugs, weapons, or run scams, "get rich quick" or pyramid schemes;
• spam, post the same thing again and again, chase likes with fake accounts, or use bots or scripts to get coins, points, votes or views;
• copy other people's work as your own, or share things you do not have the right to share;
• try to break, overload, scrape or get around the security of the Services.

Anonymous confessions are text only and hidden from other students, but they are stored with your account so we can act on abuse and obey the law. They never show your name to other students.

You can report a post, comment, article, listing, review or ad. We may hide, remove or restrict anything that breaks these rules, and suspend or close accounts, with or without notice, depending on how serious it is. Serious cases may be reported to the police or other authorities. Ghana's Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038) makes some online conduct a crime.

6. Your content and what you let us do with it

You own what you create. But to run the Services you give HostelGig a free, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, store, copy, resize, display and share your content (posts, photos, comments, articles, listings, reviews, ideas, study material) inside the Services and in our promotion of them (for example showing a Crimson article on the SchoolYard feed, on the HostelGig home page or in a share preview). The licence ends when you delete the content, except for copies that others have reposted, quoted or saved, and for backups kept for a short time.

You promise that you own your content or have the right to use it, and that it does not break the law or anybody's rights. You are responsible for it. Opinions in content are the opinions of the people who wrote them, not ours. If you believe something infringes your copyright, email us the details and we will look at it promptly.

Ideas you post in the forum may be used by us to improve the Services without payment to you. If we build an idea you suggested, we may reward you as described in the forum.

7. Coins, the wallet and the League

• You earn coins by being active (for example daily rewards, quizzes, sharing study material, completing challenges, the daily question, badges and League prizes). You can also buy coins with ExpressPay. Coins are used to unlock features: publishing listings, Crimson articles, passes, contacting sellers and similar.
• Coins have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for money, and cannot be transferred, except for tips: you can tip another student a small amount of coins you earned (not coins you bought), within limits, and part of every tip is kept as a fee. Do not buy, sell or trade coins outside the Services.
• Everything that costs coins costs at least 50 coins. Prices and rewards can change; the price you see when you confirm is the price you pay. If something fails after you were charged, the coins are returned.
• Coins you bought are not refundable except where the law requires or where we made an error. If you paid and your coins did not arrive, email us within 7 days with your payment reference.
• We may remove coins, points, badges and prizes that were obtained by cheating, fraud, bugs or breaking the rules, and close accounts that do this.
• The weekly League, Student of the Week and other contests are run fairly but at our discretion; we decide eligibility and winners, and our decision is final. Prizes are coins unless we say otherwise.

8. Marketplace, tutoring and inventory

• Buyers and sellers (and tutors and their students) agree and settle everything between themselves. No payment for goods or lessons is made on the Services. HostelGig is not a party to any sale or lesson and does not guarantee quality, safety, delivery or payment.
• Meet in public places on campus, check items before paying, and never send money to someone you have not met. Report anyone who asks you to pay in advance or outside the usual way.
• Sellers must describe items honestly, own what they sell and not list banned items (illegal goods, stolen goods, weapons, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, counterfeit items, exam papers or answers, personal data). Listings expire and may need renewing with coins.
• Unlocking a seller's contact details costs coins and does not oblige them to sell to you. Chat messages hide phone numbers and emails until the details are unlocked; do not try to get around this.
• Reviews must be honest and about a real dealing. Fake, paid or retaliatory reviews will be removed.
• The inventory tools (stock, suppliers, invoices, reports) are provided to help sellers keep records. The records are yours. We do not give tax, accounting or legal advice, and you must follow the law that applies to your business, including tax.

9. StudyRoom, study groups, quizzes and AI help

• Upload only material you have the right to share. Do not upload exam questions that are meant to be secret, other people's paid books, or anything that breaks copyright. We remove material when a rights holder asks us to.
• Quizzes, challenges and exams are for fair practice. Cheating (copying, scripts, sharing answers during a timed attempt) can disqualify you.
• AI features create summaries, questions and explanations automatically. They can be wrong, so always check against your course material. Text you send to an AI feature may be processed by an outside AI provider to produce the answer (see the Privacy Policy). Do not put sensitive personal information into it.
• Study groups and class tools are run by the people who create them. Group leaders and teachers are responsible for how they use them.

10. Crimson: writing, approval and earning

• Who can write: students with an account at least 7 days old and enough League points. Writing is original work only; if you use other people's words you must say so and have the right to. No plagiarism, no copied articles.
• Cost and review: sending an article costs coins, depending on who may read it. The team approves it, or sends it back with a reason and returns your coins. If nobody reviews it within 24 hours it goes live automatically. Going live automatically does not mean we agree with, check or endorse the article; the writer remains responsible for it. We can take any article down at any time.
• Where it appears: a live article also appears in the SchoolYard feed as a post, can be liked, saved, reposted and quoted, and may appear on the HostelGig home page if you chose that reach.
• Your responsibility: you are responsible for what you write, including defamation and privacy. Correct mistakes when you learn of them. Live articles can only be edited by our team; you may delete your own articles.
• Earning from ads: ads shown on your own article earn you a share of what the advertiser is charged for those views and clicks, currently 50% (we may change the percentage with notice; the new rate applies to earnings after the change). Ads elsewhere on the Services do not earn you anything. Earnings are for genuine readers only: your own views and clicks, bots, repeated views, bought or tricked traffic and anything that looks like fraud are not counted, and we can remove such earnings.
• Getting paid: earnings can be withdrawn after 7 days, in amounts of GH₵20 or more, by Ghana mobile money to the number and wallet name you save (changing it needs your password and waits 48 hours). We pay by hand and record the mobile money reference. We may delay or decline a payout while we check for fraud or abuse. We are not responsible for payments sent to a number you gave us. You are responsible for any tax on what you earn.
• Writing for Crimson does not make you our employee, agent or partner. We do not promise any level of earnings.

11. Advertising and sponsored content

Ads on the Services are marked Sponsored and are paid for by advertisers. We check ads before they run but we do not endorse the advertiser or its products, and a deal you make with an advertiser is between you and them. You can report any ad with the "Report this ad" link. Advertisers must follow the Advertising Terms. Advertisers pay in advance in Ghana cedis through ExpressPay; views and clicks are counted by our systems and our counts decide what is charged.

12. Payments

• Online payments are processed by ExpressPay. We do not see or store your card or mobile money PIN. Prices are in Ghana cedis (GH₵) unless we say otherwise.
• A payment is complete only when ExpressPay confirms it to us. If you paid and nothing happened, give us the payment reference and we will sort it out. Chargebacks or false payment claims may lead to a suspended account.
• We may change prices, fees, coin packages and rewards. A change never affects something you have already bought.
• You are responsible for the tax and any fees your bank or network charges on your payments.

13. Our property

The HostelGig and SchoolYard names, logos, design, software and everything we create belong to us or our licensors. You may use the Services for yourself as they are meant to be used. You must not copy, resell, republish, scrape or build a competing service from our content or data, and must not reverse-engineer the software. Do not use our name or logo in a way that suggests we approve of you, without our written permission.

14. Links and other websites

The Services link to and show things from other sites and services (advertisers, link previews, payment pages, social networks). We do not control them and are not responsible for them. Look at their own terms and privacy policies. You may link to our public pages as long as the link is honest and does not suggest that we endorse you.

15. Using the Services properly

• Do not interfere with the Services, test their security without permission, send malware, or collect other people's data.
• Do not use automatic tools to log in, post, vote, click ads or collect rewards.
• Do not set up several accounts to get rewards or to avoid a ban. Accounts in the same household or hostel are fine if each is a different real person.
• If you find a security problem, please tell us at info@hostelgig.com before telling anyone else. We appreciate it.

16. Suspending or ending an account

You can stop using the Services any time and ask us to delete your account by emailing info@hostelgig.com. We may suspend or close an account, remove content, and cancel unused coins, points or benefits when someone breaks these terms, risks others, commits fraud, or the law requires. When an account is closed, money owed to a writer (after checks) will still be paid; coins have no cash value and are lost. Some information must be kept for legal, security and accounting reasons, as the Privacy Policy explains.

17. What we promise and what we do not

We work hard to keep the Services useful, correct and online, and we provide them with reasonable care. But they are provided "as they are" and "as available". We cannot promise that they will always work, be free of errors or be safe from attacks, that content from users, hostels, sellers, tutors, writers or advertisers is true or safe, or that you will find a room, a buyer, a tutor, a reader or earnings.

18. Limits on our responsibility

Nothing in these terms limits responsibility that cannot be limited by law (for example for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence). Beyond that, and as far as the law allows, HostelGig is not responsible for losses that come from what other users, hostels, sellers, tutors, writers or advertisers do; from deals between users; from things you chose to post; or from events outside our control such as power, network or payment-service failures. Our total responsibility for any claim connected with the Services is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (or GH₵100 if you paid nothing).

You agree to repay us for losses and claims caused by your breaking these terms or the law, or by content you posted.

19. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Ghana. If you have a problem, write to us first at info@hostelgig.com; most issues can be solved quickly. If we cannot agree, we will try mediation in good faith before going to court. Disputes that cannot be settled are decided by the courts of Ghana. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies.

20. Changes to these terms

We update these terms when the Services or the law change. We will show the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app or by email. Using the Services after a change means you accept it. If you do not accept it, stop using the Services and tell us if you want your account closed.

21. Contact us

HostelGig, Ghana
Email: info@hostelgig.com
Phone / WhatsApp: +233 24 749 3826
For privacy requests see the Privacy Policy.