Pledge Terms

1. Who your pledge is with

Your pledge is a contract between you and WKSolutions GbR (“we”, “us”), represented by its partners Dr. Jan Philip Wahle, Lars Benedikt Kaesberg, Siedlungsweg 24, 37124 Rosdorf, Germany. These Pledge Terms add to our Terms of Use. If the two differ on a pledge, these Pledge Terms apply.

Pledges are only open to consumers who are 18 or older and only for their own conduct.

2. What a pledge is

1. A pledge is your independent promise to pay a contractual penalty (selbständiges Strafversprechen, Section 343(2) German Civil Code, BGB). You promise to pay the amount you chose if a forfeiture event under section 6 occurs during the pledge term and you are responsible for it.
2. During the pledge term we provide the Clearing protection and verification service: Screen Time shields, the Clearing DNS filter, the Mac filter, check-ins, notices and human review of appeals. The service runs until your free-by date or until a forfeiture event is verified, whichever comes first.
3. A pledge is not a game of chance. Nothing is paid out to you or anyone else, and the outcome depends only on your own conduct. The best outcome is that your money stays yours.
4. We never hold your money. Nothing is reserved or blocked on your card while a pledge runs. At most one charge can happen, and only under sections 6 to 8.
5. An honor pledge follows the same rules without a card and without any payment.

3. How a pledge is made

1. In the app you choose what to quit, the amount and the duration. The app shows the rules in section 6 and your free-by date.
2. You save a payment card with our payment provider Stripe, or use Apple Pay. Your bank may ask you to confirm this step (3-D Secure). Nothing is charged at this point.
3. Directly above the confirmation button the app shows: “You will only be charged if a relapse is verified or protection stays off for more than 24 hours, and only after a 48-hour notice with the right to appeal.” You confirm these three statements:
   • “I have read the Pledge Terms and the Withdrawal Policy.”
   • “I ask Clearing to start the pledge now and understand my right of withdrawal ends if a forfeiture event occurs before 14 days have passed.”
   • “I confirm I am 18 or older.”
4. The contract is concluded when you tap “Confirm pledge with obligation to pay”. For an honor pledge the button reads “Confirm honor pledge”. Until then you can go back and correct every entry.
5. We confirm the pledge by email and attach these Pledge Terms as a PDF. We store the contract text together with the version number shown at the top of this page. The current version is always available on this page.
6. The contract language is English or German, as chosen in the app.

4. Amount and limits

• The amount is a whole number from 10 to 500 in euros, US dollars, pounds sterling or Swiss francs. The currency follows your device region.
• For gambling pledges the maximum is 100.
• The amount is fixed for the whole term. It cannot be raised.
• You can have one active pledge per account.
• The amount is the whole penalty. We add no fees, interest or collection costs. Your card issuer may charge its own fees, for example for currency conversion.

5. Term, devices and end of a pledge

1. A pledge runs for 30, 60 or 90 days from activation. The app and the confirmation email show the free-by date.
2. The pledge covers every device on your account at activation. Devices you add later join automatically. You need at least one protected device, or you choose an honor pledge.
3. A pledge ends: (a) on the free-by date without a charge (“completed”); (b) when you withdraw; (c) when a hardship release or an appeal is granted (“waived”); (d) with the one charge after a forfeiture event; or (e) if a charge cannot be collected (section 8(5)).
4. A pledge never renews. A new pledge needs a new confirmation. After a charge you can start a new pledge after 7 days. We will not prompt you to.

6. Forfeiture events

These are the rules shown in the app before you confirm, word for word:

Details

1. Self-reports. After tapping “Unlock & forfeit” or “Report a relapse” you can undo the report in the app within 10 minutes.
2. Two independent signals. An automated relapse needs two signals from different sensors on your account within 15 minutes of each other: either at least one strong signal (for example the Mac filter seeing an app use a blocked service for more than 60 seconds), or two probable signals from different sensors (for example repeated blocked lookups in the DNS filter plus a Mac signal). A single automated signal is never enough. Lookups of social media domains alone never count, because other apps load social content in the background.
3. Protection switched off. We tell you by push notification, email and on your other devices. You then have 24 hours to restore protection. Once it is back on and verified, nothing happens.
4. Devices that go silent. Being offline is not a forfeiture event. Only if a protected device sends no signal at all for 72 hours during a pledge, and you have not declared travel, do we treat protection on that device as switched off: we notify you and the 24-hour restore window starts. In the app you can declare travel for up to 7 days, twice per pledge. Silence from a Mac alone never leads to a charge.
5. Grace periods. The first 30 minutes after setup or after a system update are ignored. Gaps shorter than 15 minutes are only logged.
6. Fault. The penalty is only due if you are responsible for the event. If your device was lost, stolen, broken or used by someone else, or a technical fault caused the event, say so in your appeal. We do not charge in these cases.
7. Coverage. Time in which no device could be verified never leads to a charge by itself. If less than 85 % of the pledge time was verified, the pledge still ends as completed; the app only shows the lower coverage.

7. Notice, appeal and human review

1. Before any charge we send you a notice by push notification and email. It shows the type of event, the device, the time, the category and a summary of the signals (never URLs), the amount, the last four digits of your card, the earliest time of the charge (48 hours after the notice) and how to appeal. We remind you 24 hours before the notice period ends.
2. You can appeal in the app (Pledge → Appeal), through the link in the notice email, on useclearing.com/account or by email to [email protected]. An appeal sent before the notice period ends stops the charge until a decision is made.
3. A person reviews every appeal, including the evidence and your explanation. We email you the decision. If the event is upheld, the charge follows. If not, nothing is charged and the pledge ends without a charge.
4. If you only notice a charge afterwards, contact us anyway. If our review finds the charge was not justified, we refund it in full.

8. The charge

1. If no appeal is made within 48 hours, or the appeal is not granted, we charge the amount once to your saved card through Stripe, based on the mandate in section 9.
2. Your statement shows WKSOLUTIONS PLEDGE. We email you a receipt. Notifications, email subjects, the statement and the receipt never name what you are quitting.
3. A pledge is charged at most once. With the charge the pledge ends and your streak resets.
4. If your bank asks you to confirm the payment, we ask you to do so in the app or by email. If a charge fails for lack of funds, we retry at most twice, after 3 and after 7 days. We never retry a charge your bank has refused for other reasons.
5. If the amount cannot be collected within 14 days, we send you a payment link and you cannot start a new pledge until it is settled. We do not pass claims to debt collection agencies.
6. An honor pledge is never charged. It ends as forfeited.

9. Payment mandate

When you save your card, you give this mandate. The app fills in your amount and the free-by date:

“I authorise WKSolutions GbR to instruct my card issuer to take a single payment of {amount} if a forfeiture event is verified under the Clearing Pledge Terms before {date}.”

Stripe stores your card. We only see the card brand, the last four digits, the expiry date and the issuing country. After the pledge ends you can remove the card in the app or by writing to us.

10. No early cancellation, withdrawal and hardship release

1. A pledge can’t be cancelled early. You can withdraw within 14 days, or request a hardship release. There is no ordinary termination during the fixed term, and there is no way to end a pledge by paying.
2. Withdrawal. You can withdraw from a pledge free of charge within 14 days of confirming it, in the app (“Withdraw pledge”) or with the button “Vertrag widerrufen” on our withdrawal page. Because you ask us to start the pledge immediately, your right of withdrawal ends early if a forfeiture event occurs before the 14 days are over.
3. Hardship release. At any time during a pledge you can ask for a hardship release, in the app (Pledge → Request hardship release), on useclearing.com/account or by email. Examples are serious illness, a mental health crisis, the loss of your income or starting treatment. A short explanation is enough. A person decides within 3 business days. If the release is granted, the pledge ends without a charge. While a request is open, nothing is charged.
4. Your statutory right to terminate for good cause (Section 314 BGB) remains unaffected.

11. Age

You confirm that you are 18 or older. If we learn that a pledge was made by someone under 18, we end it without a charge and refund any charge already made.

12. Your obligations

• Pledge only about your own conduct and protect only devices that you use yourself.
• Keep protection switched on during the pledge (see section 6).
• Keep notifications and your email address working, so notices reach you.
• Tell the truth in reports and appeals.

13. Evidence and how long we keep it

For every charge we keep an evidence record: time of consent, IP address, app and terms version, mandate text, the result of any 3-D Secure check, the payment setup reference, the forfeiture event (type, device, time, signal summary without URLs), the notification log, the appeal log, the reviewer’s decision and the receipt. We use it to answer card disputes and keep it for 18 months after the charge, in pseudonymised form if you delete your account. Device signals are kept for the pledge term plus 30 days. Details are in our Privacy Policy.

14. Card disputes

Please appeal with us first: it is faster, and a person reads it. If you dispute a charge with your bank, we send the bank our evidence record. Your statutory rights remain unaffected.

15. Reduction of an excessive penalty

Under Section 343 BGB a court can, at your request, reduce a disproportionately high penalty to an appropriate amount. This is no longer possible once the penalty has been paid. The limits in section 4 and the fact that you choose the amount yourself are meant to keep every pledge proportionate.

16. Changes to these Pledge Terms

The rules are fixed for each pledge: the version you accepted applies until that pledge ends. Changes only apply to pledges confirmed after the change.

17. Applicable law

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer living in another country, the mandatory consumer protection rules of that country still apply to you. We do not take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

18. If you live in the United States

The amount is a conditional payment you agree to make if a forfeiture event occurs. It is not damages for breaching a duty, and it is not a price for the app. There is no subscription, no automatic renewal and no negative option. You can withdraw within 14 days and request a hardship release at any time.

19. Contact

Questions about a pledge: [email protected]. Full company details are in our imprint.