Terms and Conditions

These Terms are the agreement between you and SamChar. By creating an account or using SamChar you accept them and our Privacy Policy. If you do not accept them, please do not use the service. Nothing here is a substitute for your rights under Bhutanese law, and nothing here takes those rights away.

1. Who can use SamChar

You must be at least 13 years old to register. Only users aged 18 or over may have their responses included in a dataset shared with or sold to another organization. Organizations must be genuine, must give accurate details and are subject to review by a SamChar administrator before anything they create becomes visible to citizens.

2. Your account

Give accurate information and keep it current. One account per person, enforced as one account per national identity number. Keep your password confidential; you are responsible for what happens under your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has used it, and we will help you secure it.

3. Acceptable use

Do not create multiple or fake accounts. Do not manipulate points, rewards or survey results. Do not submit false, copied or low-effort responses in order to earn rewards. Do not harass or impersonate anyone, or upload unlawful content. Do not try to reach data you are not entitled to, and do not scrape, disrupt or reverse-engineer the service.

4. Points

Points are a record of participation on SamChar. They are not money, not currency, not a stored-value instrument and not redeemable for cash. SamChar does not pay citizens in money and does not transfer money to a citizen's bank account. Points have no value outside SamChar and cannot be sold or transferred to anyone other than another SamChar citizen through the transfer feature in the app, which is subject to daily limits and anti-abuse checks.

Points do not expire. Every survey states the points it pays before you open it. A response that passes the automated quality check is paid immediately; a response held for review is paid when the organization approves it, and pays nothing if the organization rejects it. We may withhold, adjust or reverse points and rewards obtained through fraud, error, or breach of these Terms, and we will tell you why when we do.

5. Rewards and vouchers

Points are spent in the rewards catalogue. Each reward states what it costs in points, what the voucher is worth in Ngultrum, who honours it, any limit on where it can be used, and how it reaches you. The Ngultrum figure is the face value the issuer honours, not a sum you can withdraw.

Claiming a reward deducts the points immediately and creates a redemption we then fulfil. If we cannot fulfil a redemption we cancel it and return the full points to your balance; a cancelled redemption never costs you points. Rewards depend on stock and on our arrangements with the issuers, so the catalogue changes and a reward may be withdrawn from it. That never affects a voucher already issued to you.

Once we have issued you a voucher code, keep it to yourself: like cash, whoever holds the code can use it, and we cannot reissue a code that has been used or shared. Vouchers are subject to the issuer's own terms, including any expiry date, which we state on the reward.

6. Surveys and content

Citizens are responsible for the answers they give. Organizations own the surveys they create and are responsible for their content and lawfulness. By submitting a response you grant SamChar a licence to process it in order to operate the service and to produce anonymous aggregate insights, as described in the Privacy Policy. You keep every other right in what you write.

7. Rules for organizations

Run lawful surveys. Do not use SamChar to collect prohibited or excessive personal data. Honour the reward you set, and review responses held for your decision within a reasonable time rather than leaving respondents waiting. Respect every respondent's consent choice. Meet your wallet and payment obligations. Do not attempt to identify an individual respondent from an aggregate.

8. Organization pricing and the platform fee

Organizations set their own reward per response and their own response target. There is no rate card. When a survey is activated we charge the organization's SamChar wallet once, for the entire reward budget for that survey plus the platform fee. The exact figures are shown in the survey builder before you activate anything.

The reward budget is held against that survey and is used only to pay respondents. Whatever is not paid out is returned to the wallet when the survey is closed or deleted, less any amount still reserved for responses awaiting the organization's review; rejecting one of those responses later releases its share. The platform fee is charged once, at activation, and is not refundable. The current fee percentage and minimum appear in the survey builder and in the guide. We may change them, and a change applies only to quotes made afterwards; nothing already charged or already held against a live survey is ever recalculated.

9. The data marketplace

Only anonymous aggregate results may be listed or bought: verified responses, from consenting adults, with any group of fewer than five people withheld. Individual answers are never listed and never sold. SamChar deducts a commission from each sale, shown to the seller before they list. Buyers must use purchased data lawfully and must not attempt to re-identify any individual, or combine datasets in order to do so. Breaking this ends marketplace access.

10. Organization wallets and payments

Organizations hold a wallet balance used to fund surveys and buy datasets. Wallet credit is added by bank transfer and verified against our bank statement before it is credited; each bank transaction can be claimed once. Every charge is shown before it is made. Except where the law requires otherwise, and except for the reward-budget return described in clause 8, payments and platform fees are not refundable. Wallet credit is not a deposit, earns no interest, and is not redeemable for cash.

11. Our intellectual property

SamChar, its software, design and content are owned by us or our licensors. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the service in line with these Terms. The SamChar name and mark stay ours.

12. Availability and disclaimers

We work to keep SamChar available and correct, but the service is provided as it is. We do not guarantee that survey data is accurate, representative or fit for a particular purpose, that the service will be uninterrupted, or that a third-party voucher issuer will remain available. Where the law gives you a guarantee that cannot be excluded, nothing here excludes it.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law permits, SamChar is not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or for loss of data, profits or goodwill, arising from your use of the service. Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for anything else that cannot be limited under Bhutanese law.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify SamChar against claims arising from your misuse of the service or your breach of these Terms. This does not apply to anything caused by us.

15. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these Terms or the law, or where we must do so to protect the service and the people using it. Except where the breach is serious or we are legally prevented, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. If we close your account, points you earned honestly and had not yet spent are not forfeited: contact us and we will help you claim a reward with them. You may close your account yourself at any time.

16. Complaints and disputes

If something has gone wrong, email us first at samchar.bt@gmail.com. We will acknowledge a complaint within 7 days and aim to resolve it within 30. Most disputes about points, a survey rejection or a voucher are settled far faster than that, and asking costs you nothing.

17. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Kingdom of Bhutan, and disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Bhutan.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will post the new version here with a new version number and date, and for any change that materially affects you we will notify you before it takes effect. Continuing to use SamChar after that means you accept the updated Terms; if you do not, you can close your account.

19. Contact

SamChar, Bhutan. samchar.bt@gmail.com. See also our Privacy Policy.