Terms of Service

By using the Service in any capacity — as an Owner, an Employee, or a Customer submitting a ticket — you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

MachineSOS is a software-as-a-service platform for vending and micro-market operators. It lets a Customer scan a QR code on a machine and submit a Refund, Outage, or Suggestion ticket without creating an account, and gives Operators a dashboard to manage those tickets, their locations and machines, their staff, and their subscription billing. MachineSOS is a software provider — we are not a party to, and take no responsibility for, the underlying vending transaction, refund, or product dispute between a Customer and an Operator.

• You must be at least 18 years old to create an Owner or Employee account.
• If you're signing up on behalf of a business, you must have the authority to bind that business to these Terms.
• The information you provide at signup must be accurate, and you agree to keep it up to date.
• MachineSOS supports one Company (one operating business) per account — there is no multi-company or franchise account structure in the current version of the Service.

The person who signs up creates the Company account as its Owner and has full administrative control, including inviting Employees, who see only tickets assigned to them. The Owner is responsible for all activity that happens under the Company account, including anything an invited Employee does.

You're responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for restricting access to your account. Notify us immediately at helpmachinesos@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

• MachineSOS offers three subscription tiers — Hobby, Side Hustle, and Main Hustle — priced by the number of machines included, described in full on our Plans page. Employee seats beyond the Owner are billed as a flat per-seat add-on.
• New subscriptions include a 14-day free trial. A payment method is collected at signup, but you won't be charged until the trial ends unless you cancel first.
• Subscriptions bill monthly or annually, in advance, and are processed by Stripe. Annual plans are offered at a discount and billed as a single up-front payment.
• Fees are non-refundable except where required by applicable law or expressly stated otherwise. If you cancel, your access continues through the end of the period you already paid for — we don't provide partial-period refunds.
• If we increase pricing for your plan, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice before the new price applies to your next billing cycle.
• Fees are exclusive of any taxes that may apply in your jurisdiction; Stripe may calculate and add these automatically.
• If a payment fails, your dashboard access is restricted to the billing page until the issue is resolved — your data isn't deleted, just gated, and full access resumes automatically once payment succeeds.
• You can cancel anytime from the Billing Portal in your dashboard settings.
• Physical QR sticker orders (the dashboard's sticker store) are separate, one-time purchases processed via Stripe Checkout — they are not part of your subscription and don't affect your subscription billing cycle.

You agree not to, and not to permit anyone using your account to:

• Scrape, crawl, or extract data from the Service using automated means outside of any documented, authorized API.
• Attempt to bypass, disable, or interfere with rate limiting, CAPTCHA/bot-verification, or any other abuse-prevention control.
• Submit fraudulent tickets, false refund claims, or impersonate another person, machine, or business.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any account, system, or data not belonging to you, including through hacking, credential theft, or exploiting a vulnerability.
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service, except to the extent applicable law expressly permits it.
• Upload, submit, or transmit content — including ticket photos or descriptions — that is illegal, infringing, defamatory, obscene, or violates a third party's rights.
• Harass, threaten, or abuse MachineSOS staff, Operators, Employees, or Customers through the Service.
• Resell, sublicense, white-label, or otherwise provide third parties access to the Service without our prior written consent.
• Introduce malware, attempt a denial-of-service attack, or otherwise interfere with the Service's normal operation.

We may investigate suspected violations and take action — including removing content, suspending access, or terminating an account — without prior notice where we reasonably believe it's necessary to protect the Service, our users, or the public.

A Customer submitting a ticket through a machine's QR code doesn't create an account, but by submitting, they agree that the information and any photos they provide will be processed according to our Privacy Policy and shared with the Operator who owns that machine.

By submitting content (a description, photos, or other material) through a ticket, the submitter grants MachineSOS and the relevant Operator a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, store, reproduce, and display that content solely to provide and support the Service — for example, showing a submitted photo to the Operator reviewing the ticket. The submitter represents that they have the right to submit that content and that doing so doesn't violate any law or any third party's rights.

Operators are solely responsible for the decisions they make based on ticket content — including whether to approve a refund, how to respond to an outage report, or how they otherwise act on what a Customer submits. MachineSOS provides the software; we are not a party to that underlying transaction and don't guarantee any particular outcome, refund, or resolution.

• The MachineSOS name, logo, branding, website and dashboard design, and underlying software are owned by Cody Brookes, doing business as MachineSOS, or our licensors, and are protected by intellectual property laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of that ownership to you.
• You retain ownership of your own business data — your locations, machines, and the ticket records your Customers generate. We claim no ownership over it; we need only a license to host, process, and display it in order to provide you the Service, which you grant us by using it.
• Subject to these Terms and your subscription remaining in good standing, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the Service for your own internal business purposes.
• If you send us feedback or suggestions about the Service, you agree we can use them freely, without any obligation or compensation to you.

The Service relies on third-party providers, including Stripe (payments), Resend (email delivery), Cloudflare (bot protection), Sentry (error monitoring), and, once launched, Twilio (SMS). Each is governed by its own terms and privacy policy. We aren't responsible for outages, errors, or actions of these third-party providers that are outside our reasonable control.

The Service also lets a Customer specify a refund payout method (Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App) and may present the Operator with a link to that provider's own site or app, prefilled to make paying the refund faster. MachineSOS is not affiliated with Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App, is not a party to any transaction sent through them, and is not responsible for a refund payment that fails, is sent to an incorrect handle, or is otherwise mishandled once it leaves the Service. That transaction is solely between the Operator and the Customer, using tools MachineSOS doesn't operate or control.

The Service also lets an Operator order physical QR stickers, printed and shipped by Prodigi, our print-on-demand fulfillment partner. To fulfill that order, we submit your sticker artwork and the shipping address you provide to Prodigi. Once an order has been submitted for printing, it generally can't be changed or canceled. MachineSOS is not responsible for Prodigi's print quality, production timelines, shipping carrier delays, or lost or damaged shipments — those are governed by Prodigi's own terms — though we'll help you sort out an order that arrives obviously wrong or defective.

The Service is provided on an “as available” basis. We may add, change, or remove features over time. We don't currently offer a guaranteed uptime service-level agreement; if we make a change that materially reduces the core functionality you're subscribed for, we'll give you reasonable notice where practical.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service if you violate these Terms, fail to pay fees when due, engage in fraudulent or abusive activity, if required by law, or after an extended period of account inactivity — with notice where practicable given the circumstances.

You may cancel your subscription at any time through the Billing Portal. When your account is terminated or canceled, your access ends at the close of your current billing period. We retain your data according to the schedule in our Privacy Policy, and will make a reasonable effort to provide a data export if you request one before deletion.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We don't warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or completely secure, or that any fraud-detection or repeat-submitter flagging feature will catch every fraudulent or abusive ticket.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MACHINESOS (CODY BROOKES) WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE'VE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100), OR (B) THE FEES YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE.

Some jurisdictions don't allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless MachineSOS (Cody Brookes) from any claim, damage, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or content submitted through your Company account — including content submitted by your Customers.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles.

Binding arbitration

Except for disputes eligible for small-claims court or claims for injunctive relief to protect intellectual property, you and MachineSOS agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved through binding, individual arbitration rather than in court, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its rules then in effect.

Class action waiver

You and MachineSOS agree that any dispute will be brought only in an individual capacity, not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, or representative proceeding.

Your right to opt out

You may opt out of this arbitration clause by emailing helpmachinesos@gmail.com within 30 days of first agreeing to these Terms, stating clearly that you wish to opt out of arbitration. If you opt out, disputes will instead be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Texas, and you and MachineSOS each waive any right to a jury trial.

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. If a change is material, we'll notify Owners by email or a dashboard notice before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after updated Terms take effect means you accept them; if you don't agree, you should stop using the Service and cancel your subscription.

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, make up the entire agreement between you and MachineSOS regarding the Service.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remain in full effect.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision isn't a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Force majeure. We're not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• Notices to you will be sent to the email on file for your account; notices to us should go to helpmachinesos@gmail.com.

Questions about these Terms can go to helpmachinesos@gmail.com. See also our Privacy Policy.