Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what we do

Mason Lab is an online marketplace operated by [LEGAL_ENTITY] ([JURISDICTION], [REGISTERED_ADDRESS]) on which independent sellers offer digital items to buyers. Except where a listing is explicitly marked as sold by Mason Lab, we are not the seller: the contract of sale is formed between the buyer and the seller, and we act as the marketplace operator and as the custodian of the funds for that order.

Mason Lab is not a party to transactions between users, does not guarantee the quality or lawfulness of listed items, and its liability in relation to any order is limited to the amount held in escrow for that order.

2. Custody of funds, pooling, and what a balance is

Funds held on the Platform — buyer balances, escrowed order amounts, and seller balances — are held by Mason Lab in a pooled custodial arrangement and are recorded as entries on our internal ledger, denominated in USD. They are not segregated per user, do not constitute a deposit, are not insured by any deposit-guarantee scheme, and do not earn interest. A balance is a claim against Mason Lab under these Terms, not money in a bank account. Mason Lab is not a bank and provides no banking, e-money, investment, or exchange service.

Mason Lab may suspend deposits, purchases, payouts, and withdrawals, in whole or in part, where required by a payment provider, by law, or by an ongoing investigation, and may hold, freeze, or set off any balance against amounts owed to Mason Lab or to other users as a result of a breach of these Terms. Funds may be retained for as long as reasonably necessary to complete an investigation or to comply with a request from a payment provider or a competent authority.

3. Accounts and identity

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into these Terms. One person may hold one account, identified by a single Telegram account identifier. We use the numeric Telegram identifier and never the username: usernames can be released and taken over by other people, and reliance on a username is at your own risk. Creating additional accounts, transferring an account to another person, or re-registering after termination is prohibited. An identifier associated with a terminated or deleted account is not released and cannot be used to open a new account.

An email address is not an authentication factor. Where an email address is held on an account it is an optional contact detail only: it cannot be used to sign in, to recover access, or to authorise any operation. Access is recovered by signing in through Telegram again. A password, where offered, is an optional second way to sign in and never a replacement for the Telegram identifier.

You are responsible for all activity under your account and for keeping control of the Telegram account bound to it. Loss of that Telegram account is handled through our published account-recovery procedure, which includes a hold on seller payouts.

4. Notifications

Notifications sent to you through our Telegram bot are part of the protection mechanism of every trade, are mandatory, and cannot be switched off while you hold an account. They include, at minimum: advance warning before escrow is auto-released, delivery of an order, every movement in a dispute, sign-in from a new device, and every operation affecting money. Blocking the bot, or losing access to the Telegram account bound to your account, does not extend any period in §10 and does not create a right to reopen a closed order.

5. Deposits and balance

A buyer funds a Platform balance and pays for orders from that balance. A balance may be used only to pay for orders on the Platform. It is non-transferable between accounts, carries no interest, and is not a deposit, e-money, or any other regulated financial instrument.

Withdrawal of an unused balance is available only to the address the payment came from. An address nominated by the user is never used. Where a balance was funded by several deposits, it is returned to those addresses in the order in which the deposits were received and only up to the amount received from each, less the network fee. See §9 and the Refund Policy.

Status: deposits are not open. No payment provider is connected, no real payment is accepted, and until deposits open there is nothing to withdraw.

6. Orders and escrow

When you place an order, the full order amount leaves your balance and is held by Mason Lab in escrow. The seller is not paid at that moment. Escrow is released to the seller when you confirm the order, when the auto-release period in §10 ends without a dispute, or by decision of an arbiter in a dispute. Opening a dispute keeps the funds locked until the dispute is decided.

Delivery of an instantly delivered item is the moment the item is made available in your account. Mason Lab records whether and when a delivered item was revealed to the buyer and treats that record as evidence of delivery (see §12).

7. Fees

The buyer pays the listed price. There is no buyer fee and no markup at checkout. Mason Lab charges the seller a commission of 10% of the order amount, deducted at the moment escrow is released; the seller receives the remainder. If an order is refunded, no commission is charged and the seller owes nothing. Mason Lab may set a minimum order amount and a minimum commission per order, and may change the fee schedule with prior notice; the schedule in force when an order is placed applies to that order.

Network fees charged by a blockchain or by a payment provider on a deposit, return, or payout are borne by the user receiving the funds and are deducted from the amount sent.

8. Refunds

A refund returns the order amount from escrow to the buyer's Platform balance. It is not a payment to a card, bank account, or external wallet: a balance leaves the Platform only under §9. A refund is issued when a dispute is decided in the buyer's favour, when an order is cancelled before delivery, or when Mason Lab cancels an order — for example, a prohibited listing or a seller who fails to deliver. Full detail is in the Refund Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

9. Money leaves only the way it came in

Funds leave Mason Lab only to the address they arrived from. This applies without exception and to every case: a refund paid out, a withdrawal of an unused balance, a declined deposit, and a balance returned when an account is closed. Mason Lab does not send funds to an address, card, or account nominated by the user, and will not act on a request to do so, whatever reason is given.

Where funds arrived from more than one source, they are returned to those sources in the order in which they were received, and never more to a source than was received from it. The network fee of the outgoing transaction is deducted from the amount returned. If an originating address cannot receive a return — for example, it belongs to an exchange or to a smart contract — the funds are held and released only against instructions we can verify.

This rule exists so that the Platform cannot be used to change where money comes out. It is also why we record the payer address of every incoming payment; see the AML Policy and the Privacy Policy.

Status: this mechanism is not live. Payer addresses are not recorded yet, no payment provider is connected, and no funds can currently be sent out of the Platform by anyone. Mason Lab makes no promise of an external payout to a buyer until this section is in operation.

10. Three periods after delivery

Three separate periods run from delivery. They are independent, and none of them shortens another:

• Auto-release — 72 hours. If the buyer neither confirms nor opens a dispute within 72 hours of delivery, escrow is released automatically. Confirming the order releases escrow immediately.
• Dispute window — 7 days. The buyer may open a dispute for 7 days from delivery. This period is always longer than the auto-release period.
• Replacement guarantee — 14 days. For 14 days from delivery the seller must replace an item that has stopped working through no fault of the buyer.

Auto-release does not put money into the seller's available balance — it moves it into the seller's held balance. The seller can see those funds and cannot withdraw them until the dispute window has closed. A dispute opened after auto-release is settled out of that held balance. That is precisely why a dispute can still be opened after escrow has been released, and why the 7-day window is real and not decorative.

The payout hold attached to a seller tier affects only how quickly a seller may withdraw funds already earned. It is a commercial privilege of the tier. It never shortens the buyer's dispute window or the replacement guarantee. Only one dispute may be opened per order; a dispute the buyer withdraws cannot be reopened.

Status: today a single timer, set by the seller tier, governs auto-release; the separate dispute window and the held seller balance are not implemented yet.

11. Problems with an order: the seller first, a dispute second

If something is wrong with an order, the first step is to contact the seller through the order chat and ask for a replacement. The seller has a fixed period to respond, and the replacement guarantee in §10 exists for exactly this. A seller who does not respond within that period loses the dispute on that ground alone.

A dispute is the second step, available if the seller does not resolve the problem. Both sides submit evidence. An arbiter decides one of: refund the buyer, release to the seller, or split the amount. Dispute decisions of Mason Lab are final.

12. Evidence, and what a revealed item means

Mason Lab records, for every order, whether and when the delivered item was revealed to the buyer. Once an item has been revealed, the burden of proof in a dispute is on the buyer. A revealed secret cannot be un-seen, and a refund after reveal is not the default outcome: the arbiter decides on the evidence, and the buyer must show what was wrong with the item.

It is prohibited to state that an item was not received after it has been revealed; to submit fabricated or altered evidence; to open a dispute in order to obtain an item without paying; or to open a dispute in order to extract an off-Platform payment, discount, or other concession from a seller. Consequences: denial of the claim, forfeiture of amounts obtained through such claims, restriction of the right to open disputes, and account termination.

It is prohibited to operate more than one account, or to act in concert with others, in order to obtain items through repeated disputes or refunds. Mason Lab keeps a refund counter per buyer account and may take account of dispute frequency, refund rate, account age, payment addresses in common, and technical links between accounts when deciding a dispute. Above a threshold, purchases are restricted and every claim is reviewed manually. We may require documentary evidence before granting a refund to an account with an elevated refund rate.

13. Delivered items, revocation, and quarantine

When an order is refunded, any key, code, or credential delivered for that order is revoked and must no longer be used. Continuing to use a revoked item after a refund is a breach of these Terms and, where the item retains value, theft.

A revealed item is never returned to sale. It is destroyed. An item returned to the seller through a dispute is placed in quarantine: the seller may write it off, or return it to stock expressly and at the seller's own responsibility. The number of quarantined items is a quality metric of the seller and is taken into account in moderation and tier decisions.

Reselling, sharing, or otherwise transferring a delivered account, subscription, or credential to third parties is a breach of these Terms and, where applicable, of the vendor's own terms. Loss of access following such a transfer is not a ground for a dispute, and Mason Lab will decide against a buyer who has transferred the delivered item.

14. Seller obligations

Delivery and conformity. Sellers must deliver a working digital item matching the listing description at the moment the order is placed. Delivering an item that is knowingly non-functional, invalid, previously activated, expired, or materially different from the listing constitutes fraud. Mason Lab may suspend payouts, void the seller account, retain funds pending investigation, and share order records with affected buyers and with competent authorities.

Provenance and right to sell. Sellers warrant that they hold the lawful right to dispose of every item they deliver; that the item has not been previously activated, redeemed, or transferred to another person; and that it was not obtained through chargeback, payment reversal, account compromise, data breach, or any other unlawful means. Re-listing an item that has previously been refunded to a buyer by decision of Mason Lab is prohibited.

One item, one buyer. Each instance of a digital item may be listed and sold once only. Listing the same code, key, credential, or file in more than one listing, re-listing an item already sold, or otherwise causing a single instance to be delivered to more than one buyer is treated as intentional fraud. Consequences: immediate account termination, forfeiture of any right to unpaid balances, and disclosure of the relevant records to affected buyers. Item secrets are checked for uniqueness across the whole Platform; a match blocks publication and is referred to an arbiter.

Listing accuracy. A listing must correspond to stock actually available for immediate delivery. Publishing a listing without available stock, and altering images, titles, or the substance of an offer after moderation approval, are prohibited. Mason Lab may unpublish a listing without notice and require re-moderation.

15. Prohibited items

The Platform may be used only for the sale of digital items the seller has the lawful right to sell. Prohibited without limitation: stolen, hacked, cracked, or fraudulently obtained accounts and credentials; account or database dumps; session cookies, session tokens, and authentication tokens; leaked personal data; carded goods; phishing kits; payment instruments; access to third-party systems; and anything unlawful in the seller's or the buyer's jurisdiction or in breach of a vendor's terms.

Submitting a listing requires an express confirmation that you have the right to sell the item. Listings mentioning accounts, subscriptions, logins, sessions, tokens, gift cards, or reseller offers are reviewed by a human before going live. Mason Lab may remove listings, terminate accounts, retain funds, and disclose records to competent authorities.

16. Prohibited conduct

Impersonation. It is prohibited to use, in a store name, listing title, description, image, profile, or message, any designation likely to create the impression that a seller is Mason Lab, its staff, its support service, or its dispute arbiter; or that a seller is an official representative or authorised partner of a rights holder, unless documented and confirmed by Mason Lab. Names containing the Mason Lab designation are reserved. We may rename a store, remove listings, and terminate the account.

Fake transactions and review manipulation. It is prohibited to purchase one's own items, directly or through linked, controlled, or arranged accounts; to arrange reciprocal transactions with other sellers in order to generate sales history or ratings; to buy, sell, or exchange reviews; or to induce a review by a payment, discount, or off-Platform refund. Reviews arising from such transactions are void, accumulated ratings and sales counters are reset, funds from such transactions are withheld, and all participating accounts are terminated. We may treat as indicative of a fake transaction, among other things: an unusual concentration of transactions or reviews with a single counterparty, matching technical identifiers or payment addresses between the parties, an order value materially below the seller's normal price, and delivery data showing that the item was never accessed.

Off-Platform solicitation. It is prohibited to propose or arrange a transaction outside the Platform, or to send or request contact details, external links, or messenger handles in a listing title, description, image, store profile, order chat, or the contents of a delivered item. Transactions concluded outside the Platform are not covered by escrow, are not eligible for dispute resolution, and are not refundable. Repeated attempts result in suspension of payouts and account termination.

Value transfer. It is prohibited to use the Platform to move value between accounts or wallets otherwise than as payment for a genuine sale of a listed digital item. This includes transactions in which no item is genuinely supplied, a listing used as a cover for an off-Platform transaction, a pass-through or transit service provided for third parties, and the structuring of deposits, orders, or payouts to stay below any Platform limit. See the AML Policy.

17. Enforcement

Mason Lab may, at its discretion and without prior notice: withhold or reverse a payout; suspend or terminate an account; void reviews and ratings; unpublish listings; refuse a purchase; and retain funds pending investigation, where it has reasonable grounds to believe these Terms have been breached. We aim to decide a dispute within 72 hours of the evidence period closing; that is a target, not a guarantee, and a complex case takes longer. Dispute decisions are final.

18. Availability, liability, and changes

The Platform is provided as is. We do not warrant uninterrupted availability and may suspend the service for maintenance, security, or legal reasons. To the extent permitted by law, Mason Lab is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profit, or loss arising from a user's breach of a vendor's terms, and our aggregate liability in relation to any order is limited to the amount held in escrow for that order.

We may change these Terms. Material changes are announced through the Telegram bot before they take effect; continued use of the Platform after that date is acceptance. The version in force when an order is placed governs that order.

These Terms are governed by the law of [JURISDICTION], and the courts of [JURISDICTION] have exclusive jurisdiction. Notices to us: [LEGAL_ENTITY], [REGISTERED_ADDRESS], [CONTACT_EMAIL_OR_TELEGRAM].