Acceptable Use Policy

1. Purpose and Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”) describes the activities that are prohibited when using the VerifyLive Service. The AUP is incorporated by reference into the VerifyLive Merchant Services Agreement (the “Agreement”) and applies to all Merchants subscribed to the Shield Lite, Growth+, Founders (Growth / Pro Scale / Pro Elite), and Professional tiers. Merchants on the Business or Enterprise tier are subject to the AUP unless superseded by a separately-negotiated Master Services Agreement. Capitalized terms used but not defined in this AUP have the meanings given in the Agreement.

VerifyLive may update this AUP from time to time. Material changes take effect no earlier than thirty (30) days after notice in accordance with Section 17 of the Agreement, except where a shorter notice period is required by applicable law, regulation, card network rule, or to address an imminent fraud, safety, or security risk.

2. Prohibited Uses of the Service

Merchant shall not, and shall not permit any person to:

• Use the Service to violate any applicable law, regulation, or card network rule in any jurisdiction in which Merchant operates, in which Merchant’s customers are located, or in which VerifyLive operates.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, underlying models, model weights, feature engineering, or proprietary algorithms of the Service, except to the limited extent such restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law.
• Use the Service to train any competing fraud-detection, risk-scoring, or machine-learning system, or to build a derivative service intended to replicate or substitute for the Service.
• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service or its infrastructure, or circumvent any authentication, access-control, rate-limit, or security mechanism, except under a written authorization from VerifyLive (a “Responsible Disclosure Authorization”) or a contractual penetration-testing arrangement.
• Interfere with or disrupt the integrity, performance, or availability of the Service, including by transmitting viruses, worms, Trojan horses, or other malicious code, by flooding the Service with requests, or by conducting denial-of-service activity.
• Resell, lease, sublicense, or otherwise commercially redistribute the Service to third parties without VerifyLive’s express prior written consent.
• Submit to the Service any personal data of a data subject known to be under the age of thirteen (13), or, where applicable, the minimum age of digital consent in the data subject’s jurisdiction.
• Submit to the Service full primary account numbers, card verification values, card expiration dates, PINs, or other sensitive authentication data. The Service does not accept, process, or store this data.
• Impersonate any person or entity, misrepresent Merchant’s identity or affiliation, or misrepresent the nature of Merchant’s business during onboarding or at any time during the Term.
• Use the Service to target, harass, defraud, or exploit any individual, class of individuals, or entity on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, national origin, or protected class status.

3. Prohibited Verticals

Merchant shall not use the Service in connection with any of the product or service categories listed in this Section 3 (each a “Prohibited Vertical”). The categories are grouped below for clarity; grouping has no substantive legal effect.

3.1 Unlawful or Restricted Products and Services

• Products or services that are illegal in the jurisdiction of sale, delivery, or customer residence.
• Firearms, ammunition, regulated weapons, weapon components, and conversion devices, except where Merchant holds all applicable federal, state, and local licenses and where VerifyLive has expressly approved the Merchant in writing.
• Controlled substances, including illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, precursor chemicals, and synthetic drug analogs.
• Cannabis, cannabis-derived products, and CBD products, except where Merchant operates exclusively in jurisdictions permitting the activity, holds all required licenses, and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.
• Prescription drugs, prescription devices, and pharmacy services, except where Merchant is a licensed pharmacy and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.
• Tobacco, e-cigarettes, vaping products, and nicotine delivery devices, except where Merchant operates in compliance with age-verification and jurisdictional sale laws and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.
• Human trafficking, escort services, mail-order-bride services, and any activity involving the commercial sexual exploitation of any person.
• Products or services subject to economic sanctions administered by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, or other applicable sanctions authorities, or transactions involving sanctioned individuals or entities.
• Counterfeit goods, pirated digital media, products infringing third-party intellectual property, and unauthorized resale of copyrighted works.

3.2 Adult Content and Services

• Pornography, adult content, and adult subscription services, whether depicted via image, video, audio, text, or live streaming.
• Adult entertainment venues, escort services, sex work, and solicitation of sexual services.
• Sale of adult novelty items where local law restricts sale to licensed establishments and Merchant is not so licensed.

3.3 Gambling, Speculative, and High-Risk Financial Activities

• Online gambling, sports-book operations, lottery and raffle sales, fantasy-sports-for-prize operations, and casino-style gaming, except where Merchant holds all required licenses and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.
• Binary options, contracts-for-difference, foreign-exchange margin trading sold to retail consumers, and unregistered securities offerings.
• Cryptocurrency exchanges, peer-to-peer crypto marketplaces, initial-coin-offering sales, token sales, NFT mints with speculative return representations, and unlicensed money-transmission activity.
• Payday lending, title loans, high-interest consumer lending (APR greater than thirty-six percent (36%) where not permitted by applicable law), and rent-to-own arrangements offered in violation of applicable consumer-protection law.
• Credit repair services that promise specific credit-score outcomes, debt-settlement services that collect upfront fees prohibited by applicable law, and debt-collection activities that do not comply with applicable fair-debt-collection law.
• Check cashing, money orders, stored-value instrument issuance, and currency exchange, except where Merchant is a licensed money-services business and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.

3.4 High-Fraud-Risk Verticals

• Gift-card arbitrage (purchasing gift cards at or below face value for the purpose of reselling at a profit), peer-to-peer gift card resale or exchange marketplaces, bulk gift-card redemption schemes, and any use of gift cards in a manner consistent with money laundering, structuring, or the evasion of transaction-reporting obligations. Primary-issue gift card sales and authorized third-party retailer gift card sales are permitted subject to Section 4.2 (Gift Card Merchant Conditions).
• Digital-only goods where no physical fulfillment, ongoing service, or verifiable delivery record exists, except where VerifyLive has expressly approved the Merchant in writing.
• Telemarketing sales and outbound-call-center sales that do not comply with applicable Do-Not-Call and TCPA requirements.
• Multi-level-marketing (MLM) schemes that require inventory loading, purchase-to-participate, or distributor-down-line recruitment as the primary revenue source; pyramid schemes; and Ponzi schemes.
• Business-opportunity, work-from-home, and get-rich-quick programs that do not comply with applicable business-opportunity disclosure law.
• Travel clubs, timeshare resale operations, and vacation-club memberships offered with misleading representations about availability, transferability, or resale value.
• Deceptive subscription, negative-option, continuity, and free-trial programs that do not meet applicable disclosure and cancellation requirements (including the FTC Negative Option Rule and equivalent laws).
• “Brushing”, fake-review, engagement-manipulation, and marketplace-reputation-fraud services.

3.5 Misleading, Deceptive, and Harmful Goods

• Unsubstantiated health claims, miracle-cure products, and unapproved therapies marketed to treat, cure, or prevent disease.
• Weight-loss products making aggressive or unsupported claims of rapid or guaranteed results.
• Psychic, astrology, tarot, spell-casting, and fortune-telling services offered for fees that are not refundable on consumer dissatisfaction.
• Essay-mill, ghost-writing, and academic-credential fraud services.
• Products marketed to minors that are unsafe, unregulated, or in violation of applicable product-safety law.
• Animals, animal parts, and endangered-species products offered in violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) or applicable wildlife-protection law.

3.6 Unregulated or Unlicensed Activities

• Any product or service that requires specialized licensing, registration, or regulatory approval that Merchant does not hold at the time of sale.
• Government-issued document replication services (passports, identification cards, visas, driver’s licenses) offered without government authorization.
• Bail-bond services offered in jurisdictions where Merchant is not a licensed bondsperson.
• Legal services, tax-preparation services, immigration-assistance services, and notary services offered by persons not licensed or authorized in the relevant jurisdiction.

4. Approval Process and Special Conditions

4.1 Licensed and Conditionally-Approved Verticals

Several categories in Section 3 are marked “except where Merchant holds all required licenses and has been expressly approved by VerifyLive in writing.” Merchants seeking such approval must submit copies of all applicable licenses, permits, and regulatory authorizations to VerifyLive during onboarding, complete enhanced due diligence as reasonably requested, and receive written approval prior to commencing use of the Service for the conditional activity. VerifyLive approval is discretionary. VerifyLive may require the conditionally-approved Merchant to accept additional terms (including a higher Risk Classification, elevated Chargeback Guarantee exclusions, or a separately-negotiated addendum).

4.2 Gift Card Merchant Conditions

VerifyLive supports two gift card merchant models through a dedicated high-risk workflow. For clarity:

• “Primary-issue gift cards” means gift cards, e-gift cards, store credit, or stored-value instruments issued directly by Merchant and redeemable only against Merchant’s own goods, services, or branded retail locations.
• “Authorized third-party retailer gift cards” means gift cards issued by a third-party brand (for example, a major retailer or open-loop card network) that Merchant is contractually authorized to resell through an authorized channel and in compliance with the issuer’s program terms.

Merchants whose product line includes either model above are subject to the following conditions:

• Merchant must disclose the applicable gift card model(s), SKU families, face-value ranges, and (for authorized third-party retailers) the issuing brand(s) during onboarding.
• Merchant will be classified under the Risk Classification Policy — Primary-issue merchants default to the YELLOW tier; authorized third-party retailer merchants default to the RED tier — with the corresponding risk premium and Chargeback Guarantee cap applied as set forth in that Policy and the Agreement.
• Merchant must operate the identity verification, velocity, and transaction-monitoring controls configured by VerifyLive for the applicable Risk Classification tier, and must not disable, bypass, or attempt to circumvent those controls.
• Merchant must not knowingly facilitate arbitrage, peer-to-peer resale, bulk redemption, or money-laundering patterns through gift card sales, whether by its own conduct or by failing to enforce reasonable end-customer terms.
• For authorized third-party retailer merchants, VerifyLive may require proof of written authorization from the primary gift card issuer and may require periodic recertification.
• VerifyLive may reclassify, suspend, or terminate gift card coverage, in whole or in part, if monitoring surfaces arbitrage patterns, marketplace-like resale behavior, elevated chargeback or fraud rates, or violations of this AUP, in accordance with Section 5 (Enforcement) and the Risk Classification Policy.

Nothing in this Section 4.2 limits the prohibitions stated in Section 3.4 against arbitrage, P2P gift card marketplaces, bulk redemption schemes, and money-laundering patterns, which remain prohibited for all Merchants regardless of tier or approval status.

5. Enforcement

If VerifyLive determines, in its reasonable discretion, that Merchant has violated this AUP, VerifyLive may take any one or more of the following actions, depending on the severity of the violation:

• Issue a written notice of violation and require Merchant to cure within a stated period.
• Suspend the Service in whole or in part, including the Chargeback Guarantee, pending investigation or cure.
• Terminate the Agreement in whole or in part without refund of prepaid Fees, in accordance with Section 14 of the Agreement.
• Void any outstanding Chargeback Guarantee claims on product lines or transactions associated with the violation.
• Reclassify Merchant to the RED Risk Classification tier in accordance with the Risk Classification Policy.
• Report the violation to applicable law-enforcement, regulatory, or card-network authorities as required by law or contractual obligation.

VerifyLive will provide notice of enforcement action to the extent permitted by applicable law. Nothing in this AUP limits VerifyLive’s right to take immediate action to suspend the Service in response to an imminent fraud, safety, or security risk.

6. Reporting Violations

To report a suspected AUP violation by another Merchant or a third party, contact [email protected]. VerifyLive investigates reports in good faith and will not retaliate against a reporter acting in good faith.

7. Changes to this AUP

VerifyLive may revise this AUP from time to time. The effective date of the current AUP appears at the top of this document and on the AUP page at verifylive.net/legal/acceptable-use. Material changes affecting categorical prohibitions or enforcement mechanisms take effect no earlier than thirty (30) days after notice in accordance with Section 17 of the Agreement, except where a shorter period is required by applicable law or to address an imminent risk. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of a revision constitutes acceptance of the revised AUP.

8. Contact

Questions about this AUP should be directed to [email protected]. Notice under Section 17 of the Agreement is required for formal legal communications.

9. Change History

v1.0 — Initial publication, April 22, 2026.

v1.1 — April 22, 2026 (same-day correction to v1.0). Narrowed Section 3.4 gift card prohibition to arbitrage, peer-to-peer resale marketplaces, bulk redemption schemes, and money-laundering patterns. Added Section 4.2 (Gift Card Merchant Conditions) to define the conditions under which primary-issue and authorized third-party retailer gift card sales are permitted. Renamed Section 4 to “Approval Process and Special Conditions” and reorganized into Sections 4.1 and 4.2.