Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the Zenhoko website, applications, and services (collectively, the "Service") operated by Zenhoko LLC ("we," "us," or "our"). You accept these Terms by ticking the box that appears next to them when you create an account. We record that you did so, along with the version of these Terms you accepted.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to create a Zenhoko account. We do not knowingly permit anyone under 13 to register an account or provide us with personal information. By creating an account, you represent that you meet this requirement.

Finders do not need an account. Scanning a Zenhoko tag and messaging an owner requires no registration, and we collect no identifying information from a finder.

Where the Service is Offered

Zenhoko is operated from the United States and is currently offered to users in the United States. We do not currently market or direct the Service to any other country, and prices are shown in US dollars.

We do not restrict where the Service may be reached or where a tag may be scanned, and that is deliberate: a QR tag is only useful if whoever finds your lost property can scan it, wherever they happen to be. Anyone can scan a tag and message an owner with no account and no age requirement, from any country where the Service is accessible. We cannot promise it is accessible everywhere — whether a particular country or network permits access to our site is outside our control. If you choose to create an account from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative, and you are responsible for compliance with your local law.

2. Account Registration

• You must provide accurate and complete information when creating an account.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• You must notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account.
• We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.

3. The Service

Zenhoko provides a platform for users to:

• Register personal belongings and generate unique QR codes for them
• Enable anonymous communication between item finders and owners
• Manage item visibility settings and contact preferences
• Share item access with linked accounts (paid tiers)
• Facilitate the return of lost items through anonymous messaging

Zenhoko is a communication platform. We facilitate contact between finders and owners but do not guarantee the return of any lost item. We are not responsible for the actions, behavior, or reliability of any user.

4. Subscriptions, Billing, and Automatic Renewal

Free tier. You may register up to 5 items at no cost, with no time limit and no payment details required.

Paid plans. Paid plans provide higher item limits and additional features. Current pricing is on our pricing page.

Automatic renewal. Paid plans renew automatically. Before you enter payment details we tell you the price, the renewal interval (monthly or annual), the date of your first renewal, and how to cancel — and we ask you to consent to those renewal terms separately from these Terms. Your subscription will continue and renew at the then-current price until you cancel. We email you an acknowledgment of the renewal terms when you subscribe, and we email you a reminder before each annual renewal.

Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from your account settings, without contacting us. Because you subscribed online, you can cancel online — we will not require you to call or email, and we will not put a retention offer in your way. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then.

If your plan lapses. You have a 7-day grace period before items exceeding your new limit are deactivated. Deactivation starts with your oldest items; nothing is deleted, and reactivating or resubscribing restores them.

Price changes. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email before any price increase takes effect, and you may cancel before it does.

Refunds. If you cancel, your plan remains active until the end of the period you have paid for; we do not refund partial periods by default. If we materially change or discontinue a feature you are paying for, we refund the unused portion — see section 15. For anything else, write to support@zenhoko.com; we would rather sort it out than have you feel stuck.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Register items you do not own or have authority to register
• Attach a QR tag to an item that does not match the registered description and photo — this includes placing tags on items belonging to others
• Share a single QR code across multiple items simultaneously — each QR tag must correspond to one item at a time (exception: items sold as a set, such as shoes, socks, or gloves, may share a single tag)
• Upload inappropriate, offensive, or illegal content (images, descriptions, or messages)
• Harass, threaten, or abuse other users through the messaging system
• Share sensitive financial or government identity numbers (such as bank account, routing, credit/debit card, IBAN, or Social Security numbers) through the messaging system — these are never required to return an item and may be blocked
• Attempt to deceive finders with false item descriptions or photos
• Use the Service for any illegal purpose or in violation of any applicable law
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service, servers, or networks
• Scrape, crawl, or use automated tools to access the Service without permission
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to other users' accounts or data
• Circumvent rate limits, edit cooldowns, security measures, or access controls
• Misuse the abuse reporting system to file false or malicious reports
• Create multiple accounts using email aliases or variations to circumvent tier limits

6. Content and Intellectual Property

Your Content

You retain ownership of the content you upload (photos, descriptions, messages). By uploading content, you grant Zenhoko a non-exclusive, worldwide license to store, display, and transmit that content as necessary to operate the Service.

Our Content

The Zenhoko name, logo, website design, and all associated branding are our intellectual property. You may not use our trademarks without prior written permission.

QR Codes

QR codes generated by Zenhoko are licensed for your personal use with the Service. They encode URLs pointing to zenhoko.com and must not be modified to redirect elsewhere.

Each QR code must be associated with a single item at a time. You may reuse a QR tag on a different item by updating the item's details (category, name, and photo) and physically moving the tag to the new item. Sharing a single QR code across multiple items simultaneously is prohibited. Users found to be sharing QR codes across items may face item deactivation and/or account closure.

6a. Copyright and DMCA

If you believe content on Zenhoko infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent:

Zenhoko LLC — DMCA Agent
2108 N ST
#12321
Sacramento, CA 95816
USA
(650) 764-1520
dmca@zenhoko.com

Your notice must include: your physical or electronic signature; identification of the work you say is infringed; identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough detail for us to find it; your contact details; a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are authorised to act for the copyright owner.

We will remove or disable access to material that is the subject of a valid notice, and notify the user who posted it. That user may submit a counter-notice under 17 U.S.C. §512(g). We terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers.

In practice, that means we close an account after three valid infringement notices within any one-month period. Separately, where a violation of these Terms has harmed another user — for example misusing someone's contact details, or making a fraudulent claim on their item — we issue one warning, and close the account on any further violation. Notices that are withdrawn, successfully counter-noticed, or that concern the same material in the same incident count once, not several times. We may act sooner where the circumstances plainly warrant it.

7. Linked Accounts

• Paid-tier users may invite other users as linked accounts to share access to their items.
• The primary account holder controls all permissions and can revoke access at any time.
• Linked users can only view, edit, or manage items as permitted by the primary holder.
• Both the primary holder and linked user can terminate the link at any time.
• Linked accounts are removed automatically if the primary holder downgrades to a free plan.

8. Ownership Transfers

Zenhoko supports ownership transfer requests for registered items. Transfer requests are subject to the following:

• A signed-in user may request ownership of an item they believe belongs to them.
• The current owner is notified through every channel we have for them, and may approve or deny the request.
• Ownership never transfers automatically, and silence is a refusal. If the current owner does not respond, the item stays with them and the request simply closes. Nothing about the item changes, and no review or escalation follows — an unanswered request is treated as declined.
• One request per person, per item. A user may request a given item once. Twenty days later they may send a single follow-up, which extends the request to forty days. After that the request closes and that user cannot request that item again, whether it was declined, withdrawn, or left unanswered.
• Owners may switch off ownership requests for an item entirely. Once switched off, nobody can request that item — including users who have never asked before. The owner can switch it back on at any time from the item’s page. Releasing or unregistering the item also clears the setting for whoever holds it next.
• We may ask either party for evidence of ownership before completing a transfer, and we may decline any request.
• We may decline to process a transfer request while the item has recent scan activity or an open finder conversation, until that activity is resolved.
• Owners may also permanently block specific users from requesting any of their items.

9. Abuse Reporting and Content Moderation

Finders and users may report items or conversations for inappropriate content, including mismatched descriptions/photos, offensive material, abusive messages, or spam. Reports are reviewed and may result in content removal or account action. Filing false or malicious reports may result in account suspension.

To help enforce these standards, messages are automatically screened in real time by an AI content-moderation system before they are delivered. Messages that appear to contain abusive content, scams, phishing, or sensitive financial or identity numbers (such as bank, card, or Social Security numbers) may be blocked. See our Privacy Policy for details on how this processing works.

If a message is blocked and you believe the assessment was wrong, you can ask us to review the decision by hand and to contest the outcome, by emailing support@zenhoko.com. We aim to respond within two business days. A blocked message is held pending that review rather than discarded.

10. Privacy

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, and protect your information.

11. Disclaimers

• The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied.
• We do not guarantee that lost items will be found or returned.
• We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.
• We are not responsible for the conduct of any user, whether online or offline.
• We are not liable for any loss, damage, or injury arising from the use of the Service.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Zenhoko shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, use, or goodwill, arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability for any claim arising from these Terms or the Service shall not exceed the amount you paid to Zenhoko in the 12 months preceding the claim, or $50, whichever is greater.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Zenhoko harmless from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third party's rights.

14. Account Deletion

You may delete your account at any time through the account settings page. Upon deletion:

• Your account record, email address, and login credentials are removed
• Your items’ names, descriptions, and photos are removed
• Your conversations and messages are deleted
• All linked account relationships are removed
• Your product analytics events are deleted
• Your subscription is cancelled

One exception, and it is narrow. Where the law requires us to keep something, we keep it for as long as that obligation lasts, even though you have asked us to delete your account. In practice this means material connected to a report of serious harm — child safety above all — which federal law requires us to report and to preserve. We cannot lawfully destroy that on request, and we would not want to. It is retained for the legal purpose only: it is not used to run the Service, it is not visible to anyone in the product, and your account is closed either way.

Four things persist, and we want to be clear about them. First, we keep the identifier of each QR code you registered along with a marker that it has been issued and is no longer active, so that a printed or engraved tag cannot be claimed by someone else after you delete your account. The link between that code and your account is severed — the remaining record does not identify you. Second, if you ever subscribed to a paid plan, the record of your agreement to the automatic-renewal terms is kept, because the law that requires us to obtain that agreement also requires us to keep proof of it. Third, if you ever paid by card, Stripe retains payment records associated with the customer — billing country, card details, amounts and dates — for as long as tax and accounting law requires. Those records are held by Stripe rather than by us, and they do not include your name or email address. Fourth, deleted data may remain in encrypted backups for up to 120 days before those backups age out; backups are not restored to the live service except in a disaster-recovery event.

Full details of what we keep and for how long are in our Privacy Policy, section 6.

15. Changes to the Service and These Terms

We may modify these Terms. If a change is material, we will notify registered users by email at least 30 days before it takes effect, and we will update the version identifier and “Last updated” date at the foot of this page. Changes apply only from their effective date forward.

If you do not agree to a change, you may cancel your subscription and delete your account before it takes effect, and we will refund any prepaid period you have not used.

We may also modify or discontinue features of the Service. If we discontinue a feature you are paying for, or discontinue the Service entirely, we will give registered users at least 30 days’ notice and refund the unused portion of any prepaid subscription.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

Zenhoko LLC is a limited liability company organized under the laws of the State of California, United States. These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Sacramento County, California, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

Informal resolution first. Before filing anything, please contact us at support@zenhoko.com and give us 60 days to try to resolve the matter. Most disputes can be settled this way, and we would rather settle them that way.

Small claims. Either party may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court, if the claim qualifies.

Nothing in these Terms limits any right you have under California consumer protection law that cannot be waived by agreement, or any mandatory consumer-protection right of the place you live that applies to you notwithstanding the choice of law above.

Language

These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and the Service are written in English. We may make translations available for convenience, and some of them may be produced by automated translation. If there is any conflict or inconsistency between the English version and a translation, the English version governs.

This does not displace any requirement of law. Where the law requires us to give you something in a particular language, or gives a translated document legal effect, that requirement applies regardless of this section.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms, contact us at support@zenhoko.com.