Payout & Escrow Terms — Social Bounty

1. Overview

These Payout & Escrow Terms describe how money moves through the Platform and supplement the main Terms of Service. Where this document and the main Terms of Service disagree, the main Terms of Service take precedence for contract formation and dispute-handling, and this document takes precedence for the mechanics of custody and payout.

All money on the Platform is held by TradeSafe Escrow (Pty) Ltd (TradeSafe), a registered South African digital-escrow service. It moves in two stages:

Funding (when a bounty goes live). The brand tops up its own TradeSafe wallet — a token wallet held by TradeSafe in the brand's name — for the whole cost of the bounty: the rewards, the platform fees, and a small refundable processing buffer (see clause 5). No escrow transaction exists yet. While the bounty is live, that funded amount is locked so the brand cannot withdraw it out from under open claims (see clause 8).
Payout (when a submission is approved). When the brand approves a submission — or when it is deemed approved at the end of the 14-calendar-day review window under clause 11 of the Terms of Service — a fresh single-claim TradeSafe escrow transaction is created that names that specific hunter as the beneficiary, is funded instantly from the brand's wallet, and is released to the hunter.

Across both stages the roles are the same three-party model TradeSafe uses:

The brand that funds the bounty is the BUYER.
The hunter who claims the bounty, submits compliant proof, and is named on the escrow transaction created at approval is the SELLER.
Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd acts as AGENT — once validation is complete and the submission is approved, we instruct TradeSafe to create, fund, and release the per-claim escrow, and we are paid our fees through the same mechanism.
TradeSafe is the custodian — it holds the brand's wallet balance and every escrow transaction in its regulated environment, from top-up to release.

Social Bounty does not receive, hold, or re-transmit bounty funds in its own bank account at any point, and it does not hold any balance on your behalf. The wallet is TradeSafe's, in the brand's name; the escrow transactions are TradeSafe's; we only ever instruct.

2. Not banking, not lending, not investment

The service described in these Terms is a commercial escrow service: a funded pool per bounty, with a per-claim escrow transaction created at approval. It is not any of the following, and nothing on the Platform should be read as offering any of the following:

It is not a deposit-taking service. Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd is not a bank and is not registered as such under the Banks Act 94 of 1990. We do not take deposits, and we do not hold any balance on your behalf. Where these Terms refer to a brand's TradeSafe wallet, that wallet is held by TradeSafe, in the brand's own name, as part of its regulated escrow service — it is not a Social Bounty account and it is not our money. You top the wallet up, and you instruct payouts and withdrawals from it, entirely inside the Social Bounty app; but the funds sit with TradeSafe throughout, never with us. Social Bounty keeps no customer balances and offers no "withdraw your Social Bounty balance" facility, because we hold nothing to withdraw.
It is not a credit or lending service. No credit is extended by us to any participant. Nothing in these Terms constitutes a "credit agreement" for the purposes of the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 (NCA).
It is not a financial-advice or intermediary service. We do not give financial advice and we do not act as an intermediary in a financial product for purposes of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act 37 of 2002 (FAIS). The Platform does not offer investment, savings, or yield features.
It is not an investment scheme. Funding a bounty is payment for a specific promotional deliverable; it is not the purchase of a security and carries no expectation of return beyond the content described in the brief.

TradeSafe's own regulatory status as a digital-escrow service is set out on its website. The brand's wallet, and every per-claim escrow transaction, are held within that regulated TradeSafe service. Our arrangement with TradeSafe does not extend its licences or registrations to Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd.

3. How funds move

The end-to-end flow for a single bounty is:

The brand creates a bounty, sets a reward per claim (a minimum of R56.00 per claim applies) and how many claims it wants to fund, and is quoted a single total charge that covers the rewards, the brand admin fee, the global platform fee, and a refundable processing buffer (see clause 5).
The brand tops up its own TradeSafe wallet for that total, via TradeSafe's hosted checkout. TradeSafe captures the payment into the brand's wallet. No escrow transaction is created at this point.
Social Bounty confirms the wallet top-up, records it in its internal ledger, and earmarks the funded amount as a reserve against that bounty's open claims. It then flips the bounty to live so it can accept submissions. While the bounty is live, that reserved amount is locked: the brand cannot withdraw it from the wallet (see clause 8).
Hunters claim the bounty, submit proof, and (where the brief has checkable rules) their submissions are automatically verified.
After validation is complete, the brand approves a submission in the brand review tool — or, where the brand takes no review action within the 14-calendar-day review window, the submission is deemed approved under clause 11 of the Terms of Service. In either case Social Bounty (as AGENT) then instructs TradeSafe to create a fresh single-claim escrow transaction that names the approved hunter as the beneficiary, fund it instantly from the brand's wallet, and release it. Brands and hunters never interact with TradeSafe directly.
On release, TradeSafe pays the hunter's net payout straight to the hunter's registered South African bank account, and the platform fees are settled to Social Bounty through the same transaction. If the hunter has not yet registered verified banking, no release happens until they do (see clause 4).
Social Bounty records both the wallet funding and the release in its internal double-entry ledger and writes an audit-log entry for each. Any rewards left unclaimed when the bounty closes, together with the unused part of the processing buffer, stay in the brand's wallet as reusable credit or can be withdrawn to the brand's bank (see clauses 7 and 8).

4. Payment methods

Inbound payments are captured through TradeSafe's hosted checkout. TradeSafe controls the payment methods available to each payer at checkout, which may include card, bank-transfer, mobile-presentment, instalment, or manual-deposit options where TradeSafe enables them.

Card payments presented by TradeSafe checkout
Bank-transfer options presented by TradeSafe checkout
Mobile-presentment options presented by TradeSafe checkout
Instalment options presented by TradeSafe checkout
Manual-deposit references presented by TradeSafe checkout

The exact list available at checkout is controlled by TradeSafe and may change without notice. Foreign-issued cards may be declined by the issuing bank for South African merchants; that is a matter between you and your issuer.

Outbound payouts to hunters are made by EFT to a South African bank account registered on the hunter's TradeSafe SELLER token. We do not currently support payouts to mobile-money wallets, foreign bank accounts, or crypto wallets. We only create and release a hunter's escrow once verified banking is registered against their SELLER token: if a hunter has not registered a verified bank account, no release happens, and the reward stays reserved in the brand's wallet until the hunter registers banking or the bounty closes. Once banking is registered, TradeSafe pays the released funds straight to that bank account within its settlement window — a hunter's payout is not left sitting in a wallet.

Safeguard. In the rare case where a released amount ever lands in a hunter-side TradeSafe wallet instead of reaching the bank (for example a settlement edge case on TradeSafe's side), Social Bounty will trigger a withdrawal of that balance to the hunter's registered bank account. Any such balance that is still undrawn is swept to the hunter's bank within 30 days. A hunter's earnings are never left dormant in a wallet.

5. Fees recap

Fees deducted from each bounty comprise:

a 20% hunter commission (Free plan), deducted from the reward before the hunter is paid;
a 15% brand admin fee (Free plan), added to the brand's checkout total;
a 3.5% global platform fee, charged separately on each side of the transaction.
a refundable processing buffer, collected into the brand's wallet at funding to cover TradeSafe's per-payout processing and banked-settlement charges — currently 0.75% of the reward-plus-fee amount, plus VAT, per claim, together with a R5.75 per-claim banked-settlement reserve. The buffer is a cost cover, not a platform fee: whatever is not used to cover actual TradeSafe or banking charges stays in the brand's wallet as credit, or can be withdrawn to the brand's bank (see clauses 7 and 8).

Banking or payment-method charges imposed by TradeSafe or the paying bank are covered by the processing buffer above and disclosed at checkout. Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd is not currently VAT-registered (our turnover is below the R1 million compulsory-registration threshold under the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991), so no VAT is charged on our own fees. The full numeric example is in clause 8 of the Terms of Service.

6. Clearance & settlement

The per-claim escrow attaches to a specific hunter at approval, not at funding. When the brand approves a submission — or when it is deemed approved at the end of the 14-calendar-day review window (clause 11 of the Terms of Service) — the escrow transaction naming that hunter is created, funded from the brand's wallet, and released in one automatic step. The time between approval and the funds landing in the hunter's bank account has two components:

Platform clearance — a hold we apply on the hunter's side, set by the hunter's plan, to absorb reversal-within-window scenarios (see clause 7). Current plan terms are published on the Platform and recorded on each transaction at the moment of approval. The plan in force at that moment is the one that applies, even if the hunter's plan changes later.
TradeSafe settlement — the time TradeSafe takes to move the funds from its escrow account to the hunter's bank. TradeSafe's own service-level commitments apply; in typical operation this is same-business-day after the release instruction. TradeSafe's settlement timings are controlled by TradeSafe and are not guaranteed by Social Bounty.

Automatic payout releases scheduled on weekends or public holidays may settle on the next business day. If your bank has its own inbound-deposit hold, the funds may be visible but not yet cleared in your account for a further period — that is a matter between you and your bank.

7. Refunds & reversals

A bounty-funded payment may be refunded or reversed in the following scenarios. In each case we write an audit-log entry and (where you are affected) notify you by email with a short reason.

7.1 Submission rejected, or bounty cancelled, before approval

Before any submission is approved, no escrow transaction exists — the money is sitting in the brand's own TradeSafe wallet under the pool lock described in clause 8. If a brand rejects every submission to a bounty, or cancels the bounty before any submission is approved, we simply release the pool lock: the reserved rewards, together with the unused part of the processing buffer, stay in the brand's wallet. From there the brand can reuse the credit to fund another bounty, or withdraw it to its registered South African bank account (see clause 8). There is no charge-back to an "original payment method", because the funds never left the brand's wallet. A withdrawal to the brand's bank is made by TradeSafe on our instruction and settles within TradeSafe's settlement window.

7.2 Post removal in breach of a visibility requirement

Where a bounty brief requires the hunter's post to remain publicly accessible for a set duration (a fixed maximum of up to 90 days), our scheduler re-checks the post on a regular cadence. If two consecutive re-checks at least six hours apart both find the post unreachable, and the failures are not attributable to a known third-party outage, we treat the post as removed. The consequence depends on whether the payout has already been released.

Before payout. If the removal is detected while the payout is still within the clearance hold and has not yet reached the hunter's bank, we automatically reverse the per-claim escrow by posting a compensating ledger entry, and the value is returned to the brand's wallet. No money has reached the hunter, so the brand is made whole for that submission.

After payout — released funds cannot be reversed. Once a payout has been released to a hunter's bank account, the EFT is final and cannot be reversed. In the normal case the hunter is paid straight to bank, so there is no hunter-side wallet balance for us to debit either. (The platform-triggered withdrawal and 30-day sweep described in clause 4 exist only to move any stray wallet balance to the hunter's bank — a protection for the hunter, not a way for us to reverse a completed payout.) If a hunter removes the post in breach of the visibility requirement after the payout has been released, the hunter becomes liable to Social Bounty for the net amount they were paid for that submission. We will ask the hunter to restore the post within 7 days, withhold and set off the hunter's future bounty earnings toward the amount owed, and suspend or permanently close the account if the hunter does not comply. This obligation is a restitution of value the hunter agreed to deliver and then withdrew — not a penalty — and it is governed by clause 12 of the Terms of Service.

Important for brands. A brand is reimbursed only to the extent that Social Bounty actually recovers funds from the hunter. The maximum amount we can recover from a hunter and reimburse to you is the net sum that hunter received — which is less than the total you paid for the bounty, because platform fees (the brand admin fee, hunter commission, and the global platform fee) are earned at the moment of payout and cannot be reversed. We do not guarantee that recovery will succeed, and we do not fund any shortfall from our own resources. If a hunter never earns again on the Platform, recovery by set-off may not be possible at all. There is no automatic, unconditional post-payout refund.

We notify both brand and hunter by email before and at the point of any reversal or when a liability is opened. A hunter who believes a removal finding was a false positive (for example the post is live but geo-blocked to the scraper, or the host platform removed it) may appeal through our complaints process; where the appeal is upheld we reinstate the payout or cancel the liability and reverse any set-off already applied.

7.3 Dispute decided in the brand's favour

Where a formal dispute is decided in the brand's favour following review, and the payout for that submission has not yet reached the hunter's bank, the per-claim escrow may be reversed by compensating entry and the value returned to the brand's wallet as credit. Where the payout has already settled to the hunter's bank it cannot be reversed, and the position is the same as the after-payout case in clause 7.2.

7.4 Financial Kill Switch

During a suspected financial-integrity incident a super-admin may activate the Platform's Financial Kill Switch, which halts new payouts and new ledger postings while the underlying cause is investigated. Pending instructions to TradeSafe are held in the queue rather than cancelled. Once the incident is resolved, the queue is released. The Kill Switch is a last-resort control and is fully audit-logged.

7.5 Super-admin correction

Where a ledger error is identified that cannot be fixed by ordinary flows, a super-admin may post a balanced compensating entry to correct the error. Compensating entries require a typed confirmation and a written reason, and a full audit-log row is written with the actor identity and the correction rationale. They are reviewed post-hoc through our Finance dashboards.

8. Brand wallet terms

Because a brand funds bounties through its own TradeSafe wallet, a few terms apply to that wallet specifically. The wallet is held by TradeSafe in the brand's name; Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd holds no balance and is not the custodian of the funds.

8.1 Pool lock while a bounty is live

When a bounty goes live, the amount needed to cover its open claims and their processing buffer is reserved against the brand's wallet in our ledger and cannot be withdrawn while the bounty is live. This "pool lock" is how we protect hunters between submission and approval: it is a platform-enforced reserve that stops a brand pulling funds out from under work that is already in progress. It is honest to say that, before approval, this is not a named, per-hunter escrow allocation — a per-hunter escrow transaction is only created when a submission is approved (clause 6). Wallet funds that are not locked against a live bounty are the brand's to withdraw at any time.

8.2 Wallet credit and reuse

Money that is left over — rewards for slots that were never filled, the unused part of the processing buffer, and value returned under clause 7 — stays in the brand's wallet as credit. A brand can apply that credit toward funding its next bounty. Wallet credit is the brand's own money held by TradeSafe; it is not a Social Bounty account balance and does not represent a deposit with Social Bounty.

8.3 Withdrawing to the brand's bank

A brand can withdraw its available (unlocked) wallet balance to its own registered South African bank account. Withdrawals are started inside the Social Bounty app and carried out by TradeSafe on our instruction; the brand does not need a separate TradeSafe login. We can only withdraw to a bank account registered and verified in the brand's name, and only the unlocked balance — funds reserved against a live bounty must wait until that bounty closes.

8.4 No interest

No interest accrues to the brand, or to Social Bounty, on any wallet balance. The wallet is a means of funding and settling bounties, not a savings or investment account, and holding funds in it earns nothing. This is part of why the arrangement is not deposit-taking, not credit, and not an investment scheme (clause 2).

8.5 Minimum reward per claim

Each claim must carry a reward of at least R56.00. This minimum follows our escrow partner's per-transaction rules and is disclosed to the brand when it creates a bounty.

8.6 Dormant balances

We do not want brand money to sit idle. If a brand closes its account, or leaves a wallet balance untouched with no live bounties, we will prompt the brand to withdraw the balance to its registered bank account, and we may trigger that withdrawal on the brand's behalf where the brand's banking is registered and TradeSafe's rules allow. Hunter-side balances are handled by the separate 30-day sweep in clause 4.

9. TradeSafe's own terms

TradeSafe Escrow (Pty) Ltd has its own service terms, privacy notice, and fee schedule that apply in addition to these Terms. Your use of TradeSafe (as BUYER to fund a bounty, as SELLER to receive a payout) is governed by those TradeSafe terms, which you will be asked to accept when you first interact with the TradeSafe hosted checkout or beneficiary-capture flow.

You can read TradeSafe's service terms, privacy notice, and fee schedule at tradesafe.co.za. Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd is not responsible for TradeSafe's own policies, but we choose our escrow partner with care and we will tell you if we change it.

10. Outages & retries

If TradeSafe is unreachable when a brand tries to fund a bounty or when we try to release a payout, the relevant instruction is held in the queue and retried on an exponential backoff. Brands will see a clear error and can retry; hunters will see the payout as "release initiated — waiting for escrow partner" until TradeSafe confirms.

For release instructions, our system is idempotent: a retried instruction will not cause a double release. The TradeSafe webhook replay protections and our own double-entry ledger prevent duplicate postings even if multiple retries reach TradeSafe.

If an outage lasts more than 24 hours for any single instruction, we will proactively email the affected user with a short update and an ETA where we have one.

11. Tax

Hunters are responsible for their own income tax. Payouts to a hunter are payments for services rendered; they are not employment income and we do not withhold PAYE or UIF. If you are unsure of your tax position, speak to a SARS-registered tax practitioner.

We may be required to report aggregated payout information to the South African Revenue Service under the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011. Where we do so, we act as required by law and in line with the disclosure commitments in our Privacy Policy.

VAT. Social Bounty (Pty) Ltd is not currently VAT-registered under the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991, as our taxable supplies are below the R1 million compulsory-registration threshold. No VAT is charged on our fees and no VAT invoices are issued. If our turnover reaches the threshold we will register, display our VAT number on the Platform, and give at least 30 days' notice before adding VAT to any fee.

Record retention. We retain financial records for at least five years from the date of the transaction, in line with section 29 of the Tax Administration Act, and for longer where another law requires it. Deleting your account does not delete financial records within that window.

12. Contact

For questions about payouts, escrow, or any item in this document, email us at legal@socialbounty.cash. To raise a formal complaint, use our Complaints & Dispute Resolution process.