Terms of Service
Important. Please read these terms carefully. Section 25 is a binding arbitration agreement and a class action waiver. Unless you opt out within 30 days by emailing CONTACTUS@AVERENTIUM.COM, as section 25 explains, you and Averentium each give up the right to go to court and the right to a jury trial, and disputes are decided by an arbitrator on an individual basis only. These terms and the Waiver and Release also release claims against Averentium LLC and the other Averentium Parties, including claims based on their negligence, to the fullest extent the law allows. Help does not run background checks. This contract contains a binding arbitration provision which may be enforced by the parties.
Effective date: 2026-10-05
These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and AVERENTIUM LLC ("Averentium") about Help, the service Averentium operates through the Help app and at averentium.com. If you visit averentium.com without a Help account, only sections 17 and 18 apply to your use of the site.
1.How you accept
You accept these Terms and the Payment Agreement by checking the boxes on the agreement screen in the Help app or on averentium.com and tapping "Agree and continue", or, for an updated version, by checking the boxes and tapping "Confirm". You accept the Waiver and Release in the same way on its own screen, and a worker accepts the Independent Contractor Agreement in the same way on the Working on Help screen. Each of these actions is your electronic signature. It has the same effect as signing a paper copy, under the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. 7001 and following) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act as adopted in your state (in Florida, section 668.50, Florida Statutes). If you do not agree, do not check the boxes and do not use Help. If for any reason there is no record of your signature, using Help after these Terms were shown to you is also acceptance of them.
2.The Agreement, the Averentium Parties and consideration
"Help" means the Help app, averentium.com and the services Averentium provides through them. A "poster" is a person who posts and pays for a job. A "worker" is a person who accepts a job and does it. A "helper" is a person with their own Help worker account whom a worker has added to a job in Help. A "job" is work posted and accepted through Help. "User" means anyone with a Help account.
These Terms, the Waiver and Release of Liability, Assumption of Risk and Indemnity (the "Waiver and Release"), the Payment Agreement and, for anyone who works or helps on jobs, the Independent Contractor Agreement, each as you accepted it, form one agreement between you and Averentium (the "Agreement"). Sections 25 and 26 of these Terms govern every dispute under any of them, and no other document or message changes them unless it expressly says it amends section 25. If the documents conflict, section 25 controls, then the Waiver and Release, except that section 10 of the Payment Agreement and sections 9 and 21 of the Independent Contractor Agreement control any recovery of money from a worker, then the Payment Agreement, then the Independent Contractor Agreement, then the rest of these Terms.
The Privacy Policy and the Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy are notices. They explain how Averentium handles information. You acknowledge the Privacy Policy when you accept these Terms, but neither notice is part of the Agreement or any other contract.
"Averentium Parties" means AVERENTIUM LLC and its past, present and future owners, members, managers, officers, operators, employees, contractors, administrators and moderators (including anyone acting as a Help admin), agents, affiliates, successors and assigns. No poster, worker or helper is an Averentium Party because of anything they do as a user of Help; in particular, a worker or helper is not Averentium's contractor or agent for any purpose of the Agreement. The Waiver and Release calls them the "Released Parties". Each Averentium Party is an intended third-party beneficiary of the Waiver and Release, of sections 15, 16 and 21 to 25 of these Terms, and of every other part of the Agreement that limits liability or requires arbitration, and may enforce them directly. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as section 29 describes. No one else is a third-party beneficiary of the Agreement.
When the Agreement says Averentium may do something, Averentium may, but has no obligation to, do it; doing it once does not oblige it to do it again or in another case.
In exchange for access to Help and the mutual promises in the Agreement, including each party's promise to resolve disputes under section 25, you and Averentium agree to the Agreement.
3.What Help is and what Averentium does
Help introduces people who want a short job done at their home (posters) to people who are willing to do it (workers). When a worker accepts a job, the poster and the worker make a contract with each other for that job (the "Job Contract", described in section 2 of the Payment Agreement). Averentium is not a party to any Job Contract. Averentium does not employ, select, endorse, recommend or vouch for any poster, worker or helper, and does not supervise, direct or control any job. Averentium acts only as each worker's limited payment collection agent, as section 1 of the Payment Agreement describes. Payments are processed, held and transferred by Stripe, as section 16 of the Payment Agreement describes. Averentium does not provide escrow, banking, stored-value or money-holding services.
4.Workers act for themselves
A worker, and any helper, is not an employee, agent, representative, partner or franchisee of Averentium. A worker has no authority to make any statement or promise for Averentium, and does not act on Averentium's behalf. The Help name and logo identify the software you are using, not the person doing a job. When you post a job and a worker accepts it, you engage that worker directly. Averentium does not choose, endorse, recommend or vouch for any user, job description, profile, photograph, rating or message. That content comes from users; Averentium does not create it and does not confirm that it is true.
5.No background checks
Help does not run background checks. Averentium runs no background, criminal, sex-offender, driving-record, reference or licence checks on anyone, and does not check any user's history, skills, licences, insurance, health, character or suitability for any job or for entry to any home.
Stripe collects identity information from workers to open payout accounts and to meet payment and tax laws. Those checks are for payments and legal compliance. They are not background checks and are not checks of anyone's character or history. A worker's own promises in section 12 of the Independent Contractor Agreement are not checked by Averentium and are not shown to posters. Ratings and reviews are other users' opinions. The rating Help shows for an account that no one has rated yet is not a rating by anyone, as section 17 explains.
You alone decide whether to post or accept a job, whom to let onto your property and whether to go to any address. You have not relied, and will not rely, on Averentium or on any feature of Help to keep you from harm, or on any statement about another user that is not in the Agreement.
6.Help is not a safety service
Location check-in, maps and directions, the worker's position shown to a poster, completion photographs, ratings, messages, calls, reports and blocking exist to arrange, record and pay for jobs and to enforce the Agreement. Averentium does not monitor jobs, no one at Averentium watches messages, calls or positions as they happen, Averentium may be alerted to some reports but no one is on duty to respond to them, and Averentium does not respond to emergencies. Averentium does not protect any user from any other user or from any person or condition at an address. Averentium may, but is not required to, review a report, hold a payment, remove content or restrict an account. Anything it does or does not do in one case is not a promise to do the same in another.
Maps, directions, distances, arrival times and positions shown in Help come from phones and from other companies' services. They may be wrong, late or missing, and a route shown in Help is not a route anyone must take. A worker's position is shown to a poster only so that the poster knows where the worker is and about when they will arrive.
In an emergency call 911 from your phone. Calls made inside Help cannot connect to emergency services.
Averentium does not report crimes to the police for you. If you are a victim of or witness to a crime, contact the police.
7.Who may use Help
To use Help you must:
(a) be at least 18 years old and old enough under the law of the state where you live to make a binding contract on your own, which is 19 in Alabama and 21 in Mississippi;
(b) live in one of the 50 states of the United States or in the District of Columbia;
(c) tell Averentium truthfully which state you live in, and change it in Help if you move;
(d) give your true legal name and date of birth; and
(e) use Help as an individual, for yourself and your own home or household. A business may not post jobs on Help.
You may have one account. Only the adult named on an account may use it, post from it or work through it. You may not share, sell or transfer your account. You are responsible for everything done through your account and for keeping your password and your sign-in method secret. Tell Averentium at once at contactus@averentium.com if you believe someone else has used your account.
No job may be done by anyone under 18. If a person under 18 will be at the address during a job, the poster or another adult, other than the worker, must be there the whole time.
Averentium may rely on the date of birth you give, and may close or restrict any account that appears not to meet this section. Misstating your age or your state of residence is a breach of the Agreement and is covered by the indemnity in section 23.
8.Posting a job
When you post a job, you confirm and promise that:
(a) you own the address or lawfully control it, and may have the work done there;
(b) the job is lawful and is not work that section 10 says Help does not allow;
(c) you have described honestly and completely, in the job, any hazard a worker would not see for themselves, and you will tell the worker about it in person as well;
(d) you will keep animals secured and away from the work, and give the worker clear access to the work area;
(e) you have told the worker about anyone at the address who may pose a risk, and about any camera or device that records sound where the worker will be; and
(f) you have described the result you want, not how to do the work, and you will not direct or control how the worker does it.
As between you and the Averentium Parties, you alone are responsible for the address and its condition; for the members of your household, your guests and anyone else at the address, and for your animals; for any crime committed at the address; for any access, accommodation or assistance a worker needs to do the job at your address; and for any duty the law places on you as the person having the work done, including any household-employer, payroll, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, written-contract or payment-timing duty. Averentium is not your employer, your payroll agent or your insurer. Averentium does not arrange, provide or pay for any accommodation.
Your homeowner's or renter's insurance may not cover injury to people working at your home or damage they cause. Check with your insurer.
Posting a job authorises the charge for it, as section 4 of the Payment Agreement describes. The job amount is released to the worker when the worker marks the job finished in Help, as section 7 of the Payment Agreement describes; you are not asked to confirm completion. Help then asks you to rate the worker. If the work was not done as posted, you may report it from that screen within 72 hours after the worker marks the job finished, as section 8 of the Payment Agreement describes.
Extra work that was not in the posted job is not part of that Help job. Post it as a new job, or agree it separately with the worker as other work under section 13.
9.Doing a job
When you accept a job, or help on one, you promise to:
(a) be the account holder who accepted it or was added to it, and bring only helpers who have their own Help worker account and have been added to the job in Help, as section 5 of the Independent Contractor Agreement describes;
(b) start the job only when you are at the address, and mark it finished in Help only when the work is done and while you are still at the address, after taking the completion photographs Help asks for;
(c) hold any licence, permit or registration the work needs;
(d) not be under the influence of alcohol or drugs;
(e) not display or use a weapon in a threatening way;
(f) not enter any part of the property the job does not need;
(g) not take, use or photograph anything that is not part of the job;
(h) not record anyone's voice without their consent;
(i) leave at once if you are asked to do anything that section 10 or section 11 does not allow; and
(j) obey traffic laws on the way to and from a job, including any law about using a phone while driving.
A worker may use Stop for safety to end a job at any time, for their own safety, without penalty. A worker may withdraw from a job before checking in, without penalty. Section 9 of the Payment Agreement says what happens to the payment in each case.
Help may show a worker a map of the way to a job they accepted. The worker chooses their own route, how they travel and when they set off, and their travel is their own responsibility.
You are responsible for any injury, loss or damage that you or your helper causes. The Independent Contractor Agreement governs the work of workers and helpers.
10.Work Help does not allow
A job posted on Help must not include:
(a) electrical, plumbing, gas, heating or air-conditioning, roofing or structural work;
(b) cutting down or removing trees near buildings or power lines;
(c) pest control with chemicals;
(d) any work on a roof, or more than 6 feet above the ground;
(e) driving, or carrying goods or people in a vehicle for hire (loading, unloading and moving things within a home are allowed);
(f) childcare, eldercare, medical care or personal care;
(g) anything involving firearms or ammunition;
(h) hazardous materials or hazardous waste;
(i) work that needs a licence, permit or registration the worker does not hold, or that needs a building permit; or
(j) anything illegal.
Posting or accepting such a job is a breach of the Agreement. Averentium may remove the job and deal with its payment as section 13 of the Payment Agreement describes. The person who posts such a job and the person who accepts it are each responsible for any penalty, loss or injury that follows.
11.Illegal activity and zero tolerance
Help may be used only to arrange lawful, in-person odd jobs at a home. You must not use Help, a job, a conversation, a call, a photograph or a payment made through Help to offer, ask for, arrange, advertise, disguise or pay for any of the following, whatever the job description says:
(a) sexual activity or sexual content of any kind, including prostitution, escort or companionship services, sensual or nude massage, "sugar" arrangements, sexual images and sexual conversation;
(b) controlled substances, including marijuana and THC products, prescription drugs not prescribed to the person holding them, and drug paraphernalia, or entering, cleaning, guarding or delivering to or from any place used for them;
(c) firearms, ammunition, explosives or other weapons, including buying, selling, transporting, storing or modifying them, and any threat with or display of a weapon;
(d) human trafficking or forced or coerced labour, including a job done by anyone other than the account holder and the helpers added to it in Help, or a job whose earnings another person controls;
(e) anything that harms, exploits or endangers a person under 18;
(f) stolen or counterfeit property, entering property you do not own or lawfully control, repossession, lock-outs, or removing an occupant's belongings;
(g) receiving, holding or sending money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, cheques, packages or goods for another person, or any job whose real purpose is a financial transaction;
(h) driving or transporting a person for pay;
(i) work that needs a licence, permit or registration the worker does not hold;
(j) dumping or disposing of hazardous waste;
(k) harassment, threats, stalking, hate speech, or discrimination because of race, colour, ethnicity, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability (including use of a service animal or mobility aid), or any other characteristic on which the law forbids discrimination;
(l) sharing an intimate image of anyone without their consent, or any sexual image of a person under 18;
(m) paying, or asking to be paid, outside Help for a job arranged through Help;
(n) fraud, identity theft, false reports, or using another person's account or payment method;
(o) anything else that is illegal where the job takes place; or
(p) hacking, unauthorised access to any account or system, bots, scraping, reverse engineering, or any attack on Help or its users.
A job described as one thing but used to arrange another is a prohibited use.
Zero tolerance. Averentium has zero tolerance for illegal activity, for objectionable content and for abusive users. Zero tolerance is Averentium's rule for enforcing these Terms. It is not a promise about the conduct of any user, and section 6 still applies. Objectionable content includes anything that is sexual or sexually explicit; sexualises, exploits or endangers a child, including child sexual abuse material; threatens, harasses, bullies, stalks or intimidates anyone; promotes violence, self-harm or terrorism; is hateful or discriminatory toward any person or group; is a scam or fraud, or asks to be paid or to pay outside Help; discloses another person's private information; infringes another person's rights; or is unlawful. Any illegal activity or objectionable content may lead to the permanent removal of the person responsible from Help, without warning, strike or prior notice. You can report other users from inside Help, as section 12 describes, and you can block them.
A ban applies to the person, not only the account. It covers the email address, phone number, legal name and date of birth on the account, and the payment cards and bank accounts used with it. Creating or using another account while banned is a breach of the Agreement.
Misuse is yours alone. If you use Help to arrange, disguise or pay for a prohibited use, you alone are responsible for it and for everything that follows from it, including to the other person on the job, to anyone harmed and to the authorities. Averentium does not take part in, approve or knowingly profit from any prohibited use, and a job's appearance on Help is not a statement that it is lawful. To the fullest extent permitted by law, AVERENTIUM LLC and its owners, operators and administrators, and every other Averentium Party, are not liable for any user's illegal activity or for any loss it causes. Averentium may deal with the money for a prohibited job as section 13 of the Payment Agreement describes.
Averentium does not file police reports on anyone's behalf. It may preserve records and respond to valid legal process, and it makes the reports the law requires, for example to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
12.Reports, closures and other enforcement
Anyone may report a post. Only a party to a job or a conversation may report a person, a job or a conversation. The parties to a job are its poster, its worker and any helper added to it; the parties to a conversation are the two people in it.
Severe reports. When a party reports illegal activity, sexual harassment or assault, threats or violence, a child's safety, or an intimate image shared without consent (a "severe report"), the reported account may be closed at once, automatically and without warning. A closure made automatically stays in force, with no end date, until an administrator decides the case. Its posts may be hidden, its conversations and calls ended and its payments held. Averentium may make the closure permanent. A closure for a severe report is reversed only if Averentium decides, on the record, that charges were dismissed, that the person was found not guilty, that an investigation cleared them, or that the conduct reported was clearly not illegal.
Other reports. For any other report, Averentium may review the record and may warn, suspend or close the account. Before it decides, it may ask the account holder for their side. A worker may respond to a payment report as section 8 of the Payment Agreement describes. A refund decided on a payment report because the worker did not do the job as posted, or for damage the worker caused, counts as a strike against the worker's account. One strike is a warning. A second strike suspends the account automatically until an administrator reviews it. Averentium aims to review reports of objectionable content and abusive users within 24 hours and, where it finds a breach, to remove the content and the user responsible. This is a moderation practice, not a promise to any user.
Filing a report you know to be false, or filing one to harm someone, is itself a breach of the Agreement and may lead to closure of your account. Averentium may limit how many reports anyone files. Averentium does not promise any particular outcome or time for a review, and not acting on a report is not approval of the conduct reported.
Declining or ignoring a job is never a breach of the Agreement. Ratings are other users' opinions and are not a standard of work.
Sections 7 and 10 of the Privacy Policy explain how automatic closures work and which records are kept when an account is closed after a severe report.
If your account is closed, you may ask once for a review, from the closed-account screen in the Help app where it offers one, or by email to contactus@averentium.com, within 30 days after the closure. Averentium may, but has no obligation to, change its decision.
13.Keeping Help jobs in Help
A job posted and accepted through Help, and its payment and any tip, must be paid through Help. You and another user are free to deal directly with each other for any other, separate work. That work is not a Help job: the Payment Agreement, the report process and Help's other processes do not apply to it, and Averentium has no part in it. Nothing in the Agreement stops you from working for, or hiring, anyone you met through Help.
14.Conduct off Help
The Agreement also covers how you treat anyone you met through Help, including after a job ends and away from the address. Averentium may act on reports of harassment, threats, violence, sexual misconduct or other conduct the Agreement does not allow toward such a person. Averentium is not a party to, and is not responsible for, any meeting, arrangement, payment or relationship that takes place outside Help.
15.Disputes between users; release
Each user is solely responsible for their own acts and omissions, on Help and off it, including at the address, in a vehicle, in a conversation and at any later meeting. A claim that one user injured, harmed, defrauded, stole from or damaged the property of another is a claim between those users, and you agree to bring it against the person responsible and not against any Averentium Party. Averentium is not a party to disputes between users and has no duty to resolve them.
When a poster reports a finished job, or a payment is held, an administrator may review the record of the job to decide under section 8 of the Payment Agreement whether the poster is refunded, and under section 10 of that agreement what is recovered from the worker, and section 12 says when that decision counts as a strike. That decision is not a finding of legal liability, does not decide any other claim, and does not stop either user from pursuing the other.
To the fullest extent the law allows, you release the Averentium Parties from every claim, known or unknown, arising out of or relating to any dispute with another user, including claims arising from crimes committed by other users and any decision about a report, a refund, a recovery or held money made in good faith on the record of the job.
You waive the benefit of California Civil Code section 1542, which says: "A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party." You also waive the benefit of any similar law of any other state.
This section does not release any user. Nothing in the Agreement releases a poster, a worker or a helper from any claim by another user. This section is subject to section 24 and to section 11 of the Waiver and Release.
16.Information about other users
Information about another user that you receive through Help, including a name, address, location, messages and photographs, may be used only to arrange and do the job it relates to, to resolve an issue about that job, to keep evidence of, report or make a claim or complaint about conduct you believe is unlawful, or as the law requires. You may not copy, publish, sell, keep or use it for any other purpose. A worker's position shown to a poster may be used only to know where the worker is on the way to and at the job, and may not be recorded, shared or used to follow the worker. Averentium does not control, and is not responsible for, what another user does with information you give them. To the fullest extent the law allows, and except for rights that cannot be waived or limited, the Averentium Parties are not liable for another user's misuse of information.
17.Your content, ratings and reviews
You keep ownership of what you submit to Help, such as job descriptions, photographs, messages, ratings, reviews and support messages. You grant Averentium a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, copy, display and use that content as needed to operate Help, to keep the record of a job, to handle reports and to comply with the law, for as long as Averentium keeps the content as the Privacy Policy describes.
After a job, the poster and the worker may each rate the other from one to five stars and may add a written comment. A rating can later be raised, but not lowered, and a written comment cannot be changed once it is sent. Help shows an account that has not been rated as 5.0 and new; that figure is not a rating or review by anyone. Once an account has been rated, Help shows the average of the ratings it has received, as a poster and as a worker, with how many there are. A written comment is shown only to the person who wrote it, the person rated and Help's administrators. A written comment may be refused, as a rating or review may be removed, under the rules in the next paragraph.
Nothing in the Agreement restricts your right to post an honest review, rating or other statement about Averentium, Help, a poster or a worker, in Help or anywhere else, and no fee or penalty applies for doing so. Averentium may remove a rating or review from Help, but only under rules that apply equally to favourable and unfavourable ones: where it contains personal, confidential or financial information; is libellous, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit or discriminatory; is unrelated to the job; is clearly false or misleading; or is unlawful or contains malicious code.
18.Help's software and your licence
Help, its software, design, text, graphics and marks belong to Averentium or its licensors. Averentium gives you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the Help app on devices you own or control, and averentium.com, as Help offers them, for your own use under the Agreement. You may not copy, modify or distribute Help's software; scrape Help or use bots or other automated means to access it; reverse engineer it, except to the extent the law allows despite this limit; interfere with or disrupt Help; test Help's security without Averentium's written permission; or access any account that is not yours. Averentium may end this licence for anyone who breaks this section.
19.Taxes
Workers are in business for themselves and are responsible for their own taxes, as the Independent Contractor Agreement provides. Posters are responsible for any tax the law places on them as buyers, as the Payment Agreement provides, and for any household-employer duty, as section 8 provides. Averentium files the information returns, and collects or pays the taxes, that the law requires Averentium itself to file, collect or pay, and undertakes no other tax obligation to any user. Nothing in Help, including earnings screens, summaries and tax forms, is tax, legal or accounting advice. The choice of Florida law in section 26 does not change which state or local tax laws apply to you or to a job.
20.Electronic records and communications
You agree that Averentium may give you electronically every agreement, notice, disclosure, receipt, statement and other record relating to your account, your jobs and your payments, for as long as you have an account and afterwards for records about it. Averentium may deliver them in the Help app, on averentium.com or by email to the address on your account, and may ask you to sign agreements electronically. Electronic delivery satisfies any requirement that they be in writing.
To open and keep them you need: a device that runs the current version of the Help app, or a current web browser; an email account; and the ability to open and save PDF files. You can save or print any record, and nothing in Help stops you from keeping a copy of any agreement or record.
You may ask for a paper copy of any agreement or record at any time, free of charge, by emailing contactus@averentium.com. You may withdraw this consent at any time by emailing the same address. Because Help works only electronically, withdrawing it ends your use of Help. Withdrawal does not affect records already given to you or anything done before it.
Keep your email address current in Help. A notice sent to the email address on your account, or shown to you in the app, is received when it is sent.
Your consent to receive official tax forms electronically is separate. It is given only in the tax information screens inside Help, as section 17 of the Independent Contractor Agreement describes.
Messages about your account, sign-in, jobs, payments, security and legal matters are part of Help and are sent by email, in the app and by push notification. You can turn push notifications off in your device's settings, and turn message previews off in Help's notification settings. Help sends no text messages (SMS) and no marketing email or marketing push notifications.
21.Disclaimers; no insurance; no guarantee
Help is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, Averentium disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. Averentium makes no promise that Help will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that any job will be posted, accepted or completed, that any user is who they say they are, that any map, direction, distance, arrival time, position, rating, balance or payout date shown in Help is accurate or current, or about the quality, legality or result of any job.
No insurance and no guarantee. Averentium does not insure any user, job, address, tool, vehicle or property. Nothing in Help is insurance, a guarantee or a warranty, including a payment hold, a refund or a decision on a report.
Your homeowner's, renter's, vehicle, health or other insurance may not cover a job arranged through Help. Check with your insurer. You are responsible for any insurance the law requires of you.
22.Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, the Averentium Parties are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, earnings, data or goodwill, arising out of or relating to Help, any job or the Agreement, however caused and under any theory of liability, including negligence, even if advised of the possibility.
To the fullest extent the law allows, the total liability of the Averentium Parties to you for all claims together is limited to the greater of (a) the Help service fees you paid Averentium in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the first claim and (b) one hundred United States dollars.
The exclusions and the cap in this section do not apply to money that the Payment Agreement says is to be paid, released, refunded or returned to you, such as a job amount you have earned, a tip, a refund due to you or an amount kept for you under section 18 of the Payment Agreement. For that money, Averentium's liability is the amount itself, with any interest the law requires, and it is not counted toward the cap.
If you are dissatisfied with Help in general, you may stop using it and close your account. This does not limit a claim that Averentium has broken the Agreement or the law, which is subject to the rest of this section and to sections 24 and 25. This section is subject to section 24 and to the state-specific terms in section 11 of the Waiver and Release.
23.Indemnity — including where an Averentium Party is said to be negligent
You will indemnify and hold harmless the Averentium Parties, and, if Averentium asks, defend them with counsel reasonably acceptable to Averentium, against every claim, demand, investigation, loss, liability, fine, penalty, judgment, settlement and cost (including reasonable legal fees and the cost of answering subpoenas, warrants, preservation requests and other legal process) brought, assessed or incurred by anyone other than you, including the other party to a job, members of your household, your guests, anyone you bring to a job, helpers, your heirs, estate and next of kin, insurers and anyone else claiming through you, payment partners and government authorities, that arises out of or relates to:
(a) a job you posted, accepted, performed or helped with;
(b) the condition of an address you own, occupy or control;
(c) your acts or omissions, including any crime, and those of anyone you bring to a job or allow at an address;
(d) your content;
(e) any prohibited use under section 10 or section 11 of these Terms;
(f) your breach of the Agreement or of any law, including tax and licensing law; or
(g) misstating your age or your state of residence.
This applies even if the loss was caused in whole or in part, or is said to have been caused, by the negligence of an Averentium Party. It does not apply to the part of any loss caused by that Averentium Party's gross negligence, recklessness, fraud or wilful misconduct, or by its breach of a duty imposed by statute or regulation that the law does not allow to be shifted to you.
This indemnity does not cover: (1) a refund, chargeback, reversal or payment-processing fee, which is dealt with only as sections 10, 11 and 13 of the Payment Agreement describe; (2) any claim, tax, fine or penalty that arises because Averentium is said or found to be the employer of any worker or helper, or that the law places on Averentium itself; or (3) a claim that an Averentium Party has broken a promise it makes in the Agreement.
The indemnity for a claim brought by your heirs, estate or next of kin, or by a member of your household, is a separate promise; if it is held unenforceable in any case, the rest of this section still applies. This section never requires you to indemnify an Averentium Party against a claim by or for a person under 18 for that person's own injury, to the extent the negligence of that Averentium Party caused it.
Where a law about contracts for the construction, alteration, repair or maintenance of a building or structure does not allow a person to be indemnified against their own negligence, or against their sole negligence, this section does not require that for a job to which that law applies, and it still applies to the rest of the loss.
Averentium may control the defence and settlement of any claim. You are not required to pay for a settlement that Averentium makes without your consent, which you will not unreasonably withhold. You may not settle a claim in a way that imposes any obligation or admission on an Averentium Party without Averentium's written consent. This section covers claims brought or assessed by others, not claims between you and Averentium, and it is subject to section 24. Section 23 of the Terms of Service and section 8 of the Waiver and Release are the same indemnity, in the same words except for the name each gives the Averentium Parties and its references to other sections; together they are one obligation, and you do not pay twice for the same loss.
24.Where these limits do not apply
Nothing in the Agreement releases, excludes or limits any Averentium Party's liability for its own fraud, wilful or intentional injury, gross negligence or recklessness, or for breach of a duty imposed by statute or regulation that the law does not allow to be released in advance.
Each of the following paragraphs applies if you live in the state it names, or if the job or the injury is in that state.
(a) LOUISIANA. No release, waiver, assumption of risk, exclusion or limit of liability in the Agreement, including sections 11, 15, 16 and 22 of these Terms and sections 2, 5, 6 and 7 of the Waiver and Release, excludes or limits liability for physical injury, or for intentional or gross fault. Section 23 of these Terms and section 8 of the Waiver and Release do not require a Louisiana resident to indemnify an Averentium Party for that Averentium Party's own fault causing physical injury to that resident. The cap and the exclusion of consequential damages in section 22 still apply to economic loss.
(b) MONTANA. No release, waiver, assumption of risk, exclusion or limit of liability in the Agreement, including sections 11, 15, 16 and 22 of these Terms and sections 2, 5, 6 and 7 of the Waiver and Release, applies to claims for personal injury or death caused by negligence, to claims for violation of law, whether wilful or negligent, or to claims for fraud or for wilful injury to a person or property.
(c) VIRGINIA. No release or assumption of risk in the Agreement, including section 15 of these Terms and sections 2, 5 and 6 of the Waiver and Release, releases or bars a claim for personal injury or death caused by an Averentium Party's negligence. They still cover property damage and economic loss.
(d) CALIFORNIA. Nothing in the Agreement exempts anyone from responsibility for fraud, wilful injury to a person or property, gross negligence or violation of law, and the cap in section 22 does not apply to those claims or to intentional torts. The waiver of California Civil Code section 1542 is in section 15 of these Terms and section 7 of the Waiver and Release. Requests for public injunctive relief and representative claims under the California Private Attorneys General Act are dealt with in section 25(k).
(e) New Jersey residents. If you live in New Jersey, or the job or the injury is there: (1) section 5 of the Waiver and Release does not cover gross negligence, recklessness, intentional conduct, or duties imposed by statute or regulation; (2) sections 5 and 6 of the Waiver and Release and section 15 of these Terms do not bar a wrongful-death claim that New Jersey law gives your heirs in their own right; (3) section 22 of these Terms does not apply to claims for personal injury or death; (4) the exclusion of punitive damages and the cap in section 22 do not apply to claims for which the New Jersey Punitive Damages Act or the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act provides a remedy; and (5) you are not required to indemnify an Averentium Party for that Averentium Party's own negligence toward you. Every other provision applies to you in full.
Section 11 of the Waiver and Release sets out the same state-specific terms for the Waiver and Release, and adds a sentence for Arizona and Oklahoma. Every other provision of the Agreement applies in these states.
25.Arbitration agreement and class action waiver
Please read this section carefully. It affects your rights.
(a) Court and jury. For every dispute this section covers:
You and Averentium are each giving up the right to sue in court and to have a judge or jury decide these disputes, except in small claims court.
(b) What this section covers. You and Averentium agree to resolve by binding individual arbitration any dispute, claim or controversy between you and any Averentium Party arising out of or relating to Help, any job, any payment, your account, your classification as an independent contractor, or the Agreement, including disputes that arose, or are based on events that occurred, before you accepted the Agreement or any earlier version of it. This section does not stop you from filing a charge, claim or complaint with, or taking part in a proceeding of, a federal, state or local government agency, or from receiving any award an agency makes; any claim for your own relief that the agency does not decide is arbitrated under this section.
(c) The law that governs this section. This section is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1 and following. If a court decides that the Federal Arbitration Act does not apply to a dispute, this section is governed by the Revised Florida Arbitration Code, chapter 682, Florida Statutes.
(d) Notice of Dispute and informal resolution. Before starting an arbitration or a small claims case, the party raising a dispute must send the other a written Notice of Dispute. Each Notice of Dispute must describe the dispute and the relief sought. Your Notice of Dispute must be individual to you and signed by you (a typed full name is enough), and must give your name, your Help User ID and the email address on your account. Send it to contactus@averentium.com. Averentium's Notice of Dispute is signed by a manager of Averentium and sent to the email address on your account. You and Averentium will then try in good faith, for 30 days, to resolve the dispute. Every limitation period that applies to the dispute is tolled (paused) from the day the Notice of Dispute is sent until an arbitrator is appointed, a small claims case is filed, or 60 days after the 30-day period ends, whichever comes first.
(e) Who decides. The arbitrator decides all questions about the existence, formation, scope, validity, enforceability and arbitrability of this section, except that a court decides: (1) whether the class, collective and representative action waiver in (l) is enforceable; (2) whether a request for public injunctive relief must be decided in court under (k); (3) any question that 9 U.S.C. 402(b) reserves to a court; and (4) any dispute about the mass-filing procedures in (i).
(f) Rules and fees. The American Arbitration Association (AAA) administers the arbitration under its Consumer Arbitration Rules or, for a dispute about work you did or helped with through Help or about your classification, its Employment/Workplace Arbitration Rules, whichever the AAA decides apply, each as in effect when the arbitration is filed (published at adr.org) and as this section modifies them. Averentium pays any filing, administrative and arbitrator fees that those Rules do not assign to you, unless the arbitrator finds your claim frivolous or brought for an improper purpose, in which case the Rules decide who pays. A single arbitrator decides the dispute and may award the same individual relief a court could award. The arbitrator may allow the exchange of information and discovery that is adequate for the claims and defences, and gives a reasoned written award.
(g) Where the hearing takes place. Any hearing takes place by video or in the county where you live, as you choose.
(h) Small claims court. Instead of arbitrating, either you or Averentium may bring an individual claim in small claims court in the county where you live or the county where the job took place, if the claim qualifies.
(i) Mass filings. If 25 or more demands raising substantially similar claims are filed against or by an Averentium Party by or with the assistance of the same or coordinated counsel or organisations within 180 days, the AAA Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules apply, and the demands are administered in batches of up to 100, each assigned to a single arbitrator who decides each claim in it individually and issues a separate award for it. No claimant is bound by the outcome of any other claimant's arbitration. The limitation period for each claim is tolled from the day its Notice of Dispute is sent until its arbitrator is appointed. If a demand has not been assigned to an arbitrator within 180 days after it is filed, either party may ask the AAA to appoint an arbitrator for that demand alone.
(j) Sexual assault and sexual harassment. If you allege conduct that is a sexual assault dispute or a sexual harassment dispute as defined in 9 U.S.C. 401, you may choose to bring your case in court instead of arbitration, and the class and collective action waiver will not be enforced against you in that case, as 9 U.S.C. 402 provides; a court decides whether this applies. Nothing in the Agreement prevents you from discussing or disclosing conduct you believe is unlawful, including sexual assault or sexual harassment, or from reporting it to law enforcement or any government agency. The Agreement contains no confidentiality or non-disparagement term that applies to such a dispute.
(k) Public injunctive relief and representative claims. If you seek public injunctive relief and a court decides that the law that applies to you does not allow that request to be waived or arbitrated, the request will be decided by a court in the county where you live after all individual claims and remedies have been arbitrated, and it is stayed until then. If any non-individual representative claim under the California Private Attorneys General Act cannot lawfully be waived, it is severed and stayed in court until the individual claims have been arbitrated.
(l) Class, collective and representative action waiver. You and Averentium each agree to bring claims only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims and may not preside over any form of class, collective or representative proceeding; batches under (i) are not consolidation, because each claim in them is decided separately. If this waiver is found unenforceable as to any claim, that claim may proceed only in court under section 26, is stayed until all individual claims have been arbitrated, and may never be arbitrated on a class, collective or representative basis.
(m) Your right to opt out. You may opt out of this section within 30 days after you first accept any version of it, by using the "Opt out of arbitration" form in the Help app (Profile, then Documents) or by emailing contactus@averentium.com from the email address on your account with your name, your Help User ID and a statement that you opt out of arbitration. If you accept the Independent Contractor Agreement more than 30 days after you first accepted this section, you may also opt out within 30 days after you first accept that agreement, in the same ways. If you accepted an earlier version of this section, you may instead reject the changes to it as section 27 describes, and an opt-out you made in time under an earlier version still applies. Averentium confirms each opt-out in the app and, where the account has an email address, by email. Opting out does not affect any other part of the Agreement. This section, and any opt-out, survives the closure or deletion of your account.
26.Governing law and courts
The Agreement and any dispute between you and an Averentium Party are governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, other applicable federal law and the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. This choice does not take away any right given to you by a law of the state where you live that cannot be waived by agreement. Any claim that is not arbitrated under section 25 may be brought only in a state or federal court for the county where you live or the county where the job took place, and you and Averentium consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
27.Changes to the Agreement
Averentium may publish a new version of any document in the Agreement with a new effective date. Before a new version that affects your rights takes effect for you, Averentium will tell you in the app or by email and ask you to accept it. A new version does not apply to you until you accept it, and it applies only to your use of Help, and to jobs and events, on or after the date you accept it; the version you accepted earlier continues to govern everything before that date. No change applies to a dispute that you or Averentium has already raised in a Notice of Dispute or filed. If you do not accept a new version, you may stop using Help and close your account.
If Averentium changes section 25, you may reject that change within 30 days after you accept the new version, by using the "Reject the arbitration changes" form in the Help app (Profile, then Documents) or by emailing contactus@averentium.com from the email address on your account with your name, your Help User ID and a statement that you reject the changes to the arbitration section. The version of section 25 you last accepted then continues to apply to you.
28.Suspension, closure and survival
You may close your account at any time in the Help app (Profile, then Account Management, then Delete account) or at https://averentium.com/help/delete-account. Averentium may suspend or close any account, or refuse anyone access to Help, at any time, for a breach of the Agreement, for conduct that puts others at risk, or where the law, Stripe, Apple or Google requires it. A decision made in good faith stands unless Averentium changes it on review under section 12; this does not limit your rights under section 25. Averentium may also stop offering Help, everywhere or in any state, or close any account without cause, giving any notice the law requires; for a worker, section 20 of the Independent Contractor Agreement applies. When Averentium ends the Independent Contractor Agreement without cause, section 20 of that agreement applies, including its 7 days' notice.
If your account is closed, amounts you earned for jobs done as described and not connected with a breach are paid to you as the Payment Agreement provides, after any hold that the law, Stripe or an open matter requires.
These survive the closure or deletion of your account and the end of the Agreement: sections 5, 6, 11, 12 (as to records), 15, 16, 19, 21 to 26 and 28 to 32 of these Terms; the Waiver and Release; and every payment, tax and record-keeping obligation.
29.Apple and Google
If you got the Help app from Apple's App Store:
(a) the Agreement is between you and Averentium only, not Apple, and, as between Averentium and Apple, Averentium, not Apple, is solely responsible for the Help app and its content;
(b) your licence to use the Help app is a non-transferable licence to use it on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that it may also be accessed and used by other accounts associated with you through Family Sharing or volume purchasing, but any such use is subject to section 7, and only an adult who meets section 7 may hold or use a Help account;
(c) Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the Help app;
(d) if the Help app fails to conform to any warranty that applies to it and is not effectively disclaimed, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app, if any, to you; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the Help app, and, as between Averentium and Apple, any other claim, loss, liability, damage, cost or expense attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty is Averentium's responsibility, subject to the Agreement;
(e) as between Averentium and Apple, Averentium, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claim by you or a third party relating to the Help app or your possession or use of it, including product-liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to any legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer-protection, privacy or similar law; this allocation does not enlarge Averentium's liability to you, which the Agreement limits;
(f) as between Averentium and Apple, Averentium, not Apple, is responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of any claim that the Help app, or your possession and use of it, infringes a third party's intellectual property rights;
(g) you represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a United States Government embargo, or that the United States Government has designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any United States Government list of prohibited or restricted parties;
(h) questions, complaints and claims about the Help app go to AVERENTIUM LLC at contactus@averentium.com, and a postal address is available on request to that address;
(i) you must comply with any third-party terms that apply when you use the Help app, such as your wireless data service agreement; and
(j) Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and once you accept them Apple has the right, and is deemed to have accepted the right, to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.
Google is not a party to the Agreement and has no responsibility for Help.
30.Language
The Agreement is written in English. Any translation is for convenience only, and the English text controls to the extent the law allows.
31.General
The Agreement is the entire agreement between you and Averentium about Help and replaces any earlier agreement about it, except that an earlier version you accepted continues to govern what section 27 says it governs. If any provision of the Agreement is held unenforceable in whole or in part, it is enforced to the maximum extent permitted and reformed only as much as necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining provisions stay in full effect. The previous sentence does not apply to the class, collective and representative action waiver, which section 25(l) governs. Averentium's not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign or transfer the Agreement; Averentium may assign it to a successor of its business. Nothing in the Agreement creates a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship between you and Averentium, except the limited payment collection agent role described in section 1 of the Payment Agreement. You have not relied on any statement, promise or representation about safety, screening, earnings, availability of work or the quality of any job or user that is not set out in the Agreement. Averentium acts through its owners, managers and administrators, who act only on Averentium's behalf.
32.Contact and notices
AVERENTIUM LLC. Legal notices, notices of dispute, arbitration opt-outs, privacy requests and requests from law enforcement: contactus@averentium.com. Support: the Support screen in the Help app, or averentium.com. A postal address for notices is available on request to contactus@averentium.com.
Notices to you are sent to the email address on your account or shown to you in the app, and are received when sent.