1. What Borage does
Borage helps buyers and independent professionals organise specialist projects. It brings the brief, proposals, agreed scope, delivery stages, files, decisions and payment status into one workspace. The professional performs the agreed work. The buyer provides the agreed inputs, reviews the work and pays the disclosed price. Borage is responsible for the coordination services it expressly promises.
A useful process does not guarantee a particular business result. Read the actual project agreement before deciding whether the work meets your needs. A professional profile, a matching score or an AI assessment is information to consider, rather than a guarantee of quality, suitability, identity or future performance.
These are proof-of-concept draft terms. Before live commercial use, Borage must identify its UK-registered operator by its full legal name, company number and registered address. The operator and privacy arrangements also need legal review. For this POC, contact projects@support.useborage.com with questions about the service or these terms.
2. Your account, access and authority
You must be at least 18 and have authority to act for yourself or the organisation you represent. Use accurate account and profile information. If you represent a business, check that you may approve its brief, share its materials and agree the project price. Someone else’s access link does not give you permission to act for them.
Workspace access uses role-specific sessions and, in the email access flow, an expiring, single-use verification link. Your email account is part of that protection: keep it secure, do not forward sign-in links and sign out on shared devices. A project or review link may give access to a particular private task, so treat it as private too.
Tell the project desk promptly if a link reaches the wrong person, you notice an unfamiliar action or you think your account has been misused. Include the project reference and a description of the concern. Do not send passwords, complete card details or bank credentials in a support message.
3. What you agree to at each step
Registration opens a workspace; it does not book a professional or authorise a project charge. At first email verification, you confirm the Terms of Use and acknowledge the Privacy Notice. That acknowledgement explains how information is used; it is not blanket consent to every possible use of your data.
When you approve a brief, you approve the identified revision and the stated sharing of project information for sourcing. The professional then reviews a specific proposal and confirms the proposed work and availability. This confirmation remains conditional on selection and the buyer’s agreement. An invitation or a selection result is not permission to begin unpaid work.
The buyer reviews the final offer, including its professional, scope, exclusions, total price, currency, stages, timing, inputs and correction allowance. The buyer explicitly confirms that agreement before continuing to payment. When payments are enabled, required first-stage funding must be confirmed before the project becomes active. The workspace shows the next action.
A revised scope, fee, deadline or professional needs the affected parties’ explicit agreement through the supported flow. A question, silence or an administrator’s selection cannot replace that agreement. Borage records the terms version and exact proposal connected to a browser confirmation. Existing agreements are not silently rewritten by a later website update.
4. Human decisions and the role of AI
Borage is AI-assisted and keeps people responsible for the important decisions. AI can help structure a brief, compare profiles, prepare a proposal, interpret a reply and compare submitted files with the agreed requirements. Some routing, reminders, ranking and selection steps can run automatically within configured rules. An administrator does not personally review every routine automated step.
The buyer approves the brief, decides whether to accept the final agreement and records acceptance of delivered work. The professional agrees their own proposal and availability. Administrators review exceptions and can pause affected workflow steps or payment releases while an issue is investigated. An administrator’s intervention does not manufacture either party’s consent.
AI may misunderstand instructions, miss evidence or produce an incorrect explanation. Read the scope, source files and review notes, and raise an issue when they disagree with your understanding. AI may request a bounded correction for an observable missing requirement before buyer review. Subjective quality and the buyer’s final acceptance remain human decisions.
If a decision is unclear, use the project-desk action in your workspace or contact the desk with the project reference. Explain which requirement, file or decision is in question. Review and escalation depend on the issue and available evidence; these terms do not promise an immediate response or a particular outcome.
5. Price, funding and professional payments
The final offer shows the buyer’s total, currency, disclosed platform charge and stage allocation. The professional sees their agreed fee. Check those amounts before confirming. If taxes, conversion costs or another charge are unclear, ask before paying. A stated currency does not guarantee the same amount in your bank’s local currency.
When enabled, payment and professional onboarding take place through Stripe’s own forms. Borage’s forms do not ask you to enter complete card numbers, bank credentials or identity documents intended for Stripe. Stripe may require verification or apply eligibility restrictions. Successful Borage registration alone does not guarantee a Stripe account or payout.
For a staged project, the buyer funds each stage before work on that stage starts. The professional’s accepted stage payment becomes eligible for a Connect transfer after the stated release period and applicable checks. A recorded issue or administrator hold can pause the affected release. A transfer to a Stripe balance does not guarantee arrival in a bank account on a specific day.
Borage checks provider payment confirmations before treating required funding as received. A successful return from a payment page by itself is not proof that a stage has started. If the workspace shows an unresolved payment, contact the desk rather than paying repeatedly. Refunds, reversals and disputes need their own review and recorded resolution.
Borage does not describe this POC as a licensed escrow service. Clearly identified Stripe sandbox transactions use test details and move no real money. A fictional test project does not create a commercial delivery or real-money obligation. Live commercial payment operations require a separate launch review.
6. Safeguards and their practical limits
Access is restricted by role and project. Buyers and professionals can use their own authorised workspaces and task links; an invitation does not give a professional access to competitors’ private responses. Administrators have broader access for operating and supporting the service. Relevant decisions, messages and workflow actions remain recorded for review.
The secure workspace flow uses expiring access links, revocable sessions and checks intended to reject submissions from an unrelated website. Private task pages ask browsers not to cache them or send their private URL as a referral, and prevent embedding in another site. These measures support access protection; a private link should still be kept confidential.
Payment safeguards include checks on signed provider notifications, the expected transaction, amount, currency and test or live mode. Workflow safeguards include checks on proposal versions, funding prerequisites and administrator holds. They help prevent a stale approval or an unverified payment from advancing the affected step. They do not establish that every file, person or payment is harmless.
Uploads have supported-type and size limits. Those limits are not a guarantee that a file has been scanned for every threat. Do not upload malicious files; use sensible precautions before opening material. The POC does not claim universal malware scanning, an independent security certification or complete protection against fraud.
Security also depends on the deployed service, service providers and participant behaviour. No system can promise that an incident will never occur. Before live use, hosting protection, access administration, monitoring, backups and incident response need deployment-specific review. Report suspected misuse to the desk so that a person can assess the affected access or workflow.
7. Safe, lawful and respectful use
Use Borage lawfully and respectfully. Do not impersonate another person, harass participants, submit unlawful or infringing material, upload malicious code or attempt to defeat access controls. Do not use another person’s credentials or reuse a link for a purpose you have not been authorised to perform.
Supply only material you may share, and describe material restrictions before agreement. The professional must identify important third-party licence restrictions affecting delivery. Participants should raise suspected infringement, unsafe content or dishonest conduct with the desk and identify the affected project or file.
The desk may restrict affected activity while investigating a substantiated concern. It should retain the relevant history and explain the next available step where appropriate. A safety hold does not silently accept work, amend the agreed price or determine a legal dispute. Honest complaints and applicable rights to make reviews or contact authorities are preserved.
8. Project information and confidentiality
Give Borage and the other participants only the information needed for the project. At brief approval, review which materials will be shared with invited professionals. Relevant account and project information may also be processed by configured hosting, email, authentication, AI and payment providers, as explained in the Privacy Notice.
Do not assume that AI-assisted processing happens only inside your own device or country. Project text and files needed for an AI task may be sent to the configured provider. Agree any special confidentiality, restricted-data or sensitive-information arrangement before uploading the material.
Keep non-public project information confidential and use it for the authorised project purpose. A term about confidentiality is a responsibility, not a claim that an upload has absolute secrecy or that a provider is suitable for every regulated category of information. Read the Project Terms for delivery-material and licence responsibilities.
9. Problems, cancellation and responsibility
If work, scope, access or a payment is in dispute, use the project-desk action or contact projects@support.useborage.com. Describe the affected stage, what was agreed, what happened and the resolution you are seeking. Relevant files, decisions and payment references help a person review the issue.
A cancellation or refund request does not by itself reverse a charge, undo a transfer or replace an existing agreement. A proposed resolution needs to explain accepted work, remaining obligations, amounts paid and any financial consequences. Your applicable statutory rights still apply even where the workspace has no automatic action for a particular remedy.
The desk coordinates review and may pause affected activity. It is not a court or a binding arbitration service. These terms do not require you to give up a right to contact a regulator, make an honest complaint or seek a remedy that applicable law provides.
Participants remain responsible for their own promises and conduct, and Borage remains responsible for its own obligations. Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including fraud or death or personal injury caused by negligence, or removes mandatory consumer protections. A draft process description cannot replace rights required by law.
10. People in the United States and other countries
Borage’s UK location does not by itself prevent people in the United States or another country from participating. Availability depends on the actual service configuration, the type of project, applicable law and payment-provider eligibility. These draft terms do not certify a commercial launch in every country or US state.
For US participants, applicable federal and state consumer, privacy, payment and other mandatory protections remain in place. The choice of England and Wales law below does not require you to waive rights that cannot legally be waived or stop you using a court, regulator or complaint route that applicable law preserves.
Privacy rights differ between US states and may depend on the business and processing involved. The Privacy Notice explains how to request help and describes possible rights where they apply. Operator details, the actual participant model and relevant local requirements must be reviewed before live commercial use.
11. Governing law and updates
For this POC, the Terms of Use and Project Terms choose the law of England and Wales, with disputes handled by its courts where legally permitted. Mandatory protections and any right to use local courts that applies to a participant are preserved. UK registration does not remove obligations arising in another country.
Borage identifies the version shown when you explicitly confirm the terms and retains the related receipt. Published versions remain available for reference. Material updates require a fresh acceptance at an appropriate step; they do not retrospectively replace the terms recorded with an existing agreement.
If a particular provision cannot lawfully apply, it does not remove the remaining lawful responsibilities or your mandatory rights. Raise a concern with the desk first if you want help resolving it. You may still use an available independent complaint or legal route. These are draft POC arrangements pending operator details and legal review.