1. Who we are

Silkro is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace operated by Silkro Rental Marketplace Inc., based in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. We connect people who want to rent out personal property ("Lenders") with people who want to rent it ("Renters"). Silkro facilitates the connection. We're not a party to any rental transaction between users.

Silkro is built for individual, peer-to-peer lending. We don't offer a separate commercial or business lender category right now, and these Terms apply equally to every Lender no matter how often they list items. This may change as Silkro grows, and we'll update these Terms if it does.

2. Acceptance of terms

By using Silkro you confirm you're at least 18 years old, you're a resident of Canada or accessing the platform lawfully, you've read and agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy, and you have the legal authority to enter into a binding agreement.

3. How Silkro works

Silkro is a technology platform, accessible through our mobile app, where Lenders list items and receive payment, Renters browse listings and book items, and both sides can message and manage a transaction. Silkro doesn't own or lease any listed items. Every rental agreement is directly between the Lender and the Renter.

4. Account registration and verification

You need to give accurate information when you register, complete government ID verification through Stripe Identity before your first transaction, keep your login details confidential, and tell us right away at hello@silkro.app if your account is compromised. We may suspend accounts that provide false information or break these Terms.

You can also ask us to delete your account anytime, as long as you don't have an active booking. We'll anonymize your personal details (name, email, phone, profile), while keeping transaction, dispute, and review records tied to other users, since those are needed for legal, tax, and safety recordkeeping.

5. Lender responsibilities

As a Lender you confirm you own the items you list, your descriptions and photos are accurate, the item is in the condition described, you won't list anything stolen, counterfeit, dangerous, or illegal, and you'll report any damage within 24 hours of getting the item back.

Before you can file a damage or non-return claim on a booking, you need to confirm handoff with at least one fresh photo of the item's condition, taken through the app's camera, not pulled from your photo library. That protects both sides. No claim can be filed on a rental where nobody documented how the item looked to start.

6. Renter responsibilities

As a Renter you agree to treat rented items with reasonable care, return them on time, never sub-rent or hand them off to someone else, and take responsibility for any damage, theft, or loss during your rental.

7. Payments, fees, deposits, cancellations, and late returns

Stripe processes all payments. Silkro charges a Lender fee of 11% of the rental price (minimum $3.00) and a Renter service fee of 7% of the rental price (minimum $2.00). Combined, that's roughly 18% per transaction.

A security deposit, set by the Lender when they list the item, gets held on the Renter's card before the exchange happens. It's not charged unless a late fee, damage claim, or non-return claim gets approved, and it's released in full once the item comes back on time. If a listing doesn't need a deposit, or a Renter skips that step, both sides see that clearly. We never quietly treat a missing deposit as if it were actually held.

Late returns. Returning up to an hour late costs nothing. After that, we charge hourly, based on the listing's daily rate divided by 24, for every hour late. Past 3 hours late, we add a flat $5 fee. This comes out of the deposit and never exceeds the amount actually held.

Cancellations.

• Cancel 24 hours or more before pickup, and you get a full refund, service fee included.
• Cancel less than 24 hours before pickup, or just don't show up, and you're refunded the rental fee minus one day's rate. The service fee isn't refunded.
• If a Lender cancels a confirmed booking for any reason, the Renter always gets a full refund, service fee included.

We'll tell Lenders directly about payout timing as our payment infrastructure develops.

8. Taxes

Each Lender handles their own taxes on rental income, including registering for GST/HST if their taxable income goes over $30,000 CAD in a year. Silkro doesn't collect or remit tax on a Lender's behalf. We show a running earnings total and a tax reminder in the app as a helpful nudge, not tax advice. We can't give legal or tax advice, so check with an accountant if you're unsure.

9. Listing standards and prohibited items

These are never allowed on Silkro, no exceptions: illegal substances, counterfeit or stolen goods, items you don't own free and clear, hazardous materials, underwear or swimwear, off-platform transactions, fake listings or reviews, harassing other users, commercial resale, or trying to get around our verification systems.

A few other categories are allowed but get flagged for a quick team review, before or shortly after a listing goes live, since they carry more risk: firearms and weapons, on-road motorized vehicles, real property, alcohol, prescription drugs or medical devices, and live animals. We can approve, reject, or restrict any of these at our discretion.

We can remove, reject, or restrict any listing at our discretion, whether or not it falls into a category above.

10. Content you share with us

When you upload something to Silkro, listing photos, descriptions, handoff and return photos, reviews, you're giving us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and display it as part of running the platform. That includes showing your content to other users, like displaying a listing's photos or a review you wrote.

You're confirming you own the rights to whatever you upload, or have the right to give us this license.

11. Keeping the platform trustworthy

We track cancellations and non-return incidents on every account. Accounts that repeatedly cancel confirmed bookings, or don't respond to an item-not-returned claim, get automatically flagged for review. That can delay or block future bookings until we take a look.

12. Restrictions on use

You can't modify, copy, distribute, sell, or exploit any part of the Services without our permission. You can't scrape, index, or use automated tools to access the platform outside of normal use through the app. You can't try to gain unauthorized access to our systems, accounts, or data, or interfere with how the platform runs.

13. Damage and non-return claims

There are two kinds of claims a Lender can file, and they work differently.

Damage claims. The Lender names an amount, up to the deposit held, and explains what happened. The Renter has 24 hours to respond with their side. If they don't respond in time, nothing happens automatically. The claim just stays open until a Silkro admin reviews it.

Item-not-returned claims. These are always for the full deposit. A Lender can't ask for less. The Renter gets 48 hours to respond, longer than a damage claim, given they're at risk of losing the entire deposit. If they don't respond in that window, the claim resolves automatically in the Lender's favour. The full deposit gets paid out, and the Renter's account is flagged for review before their next booking.

Either way, a real Silkro admin makes the final call, whether or not the Renter responded. They can approve the full amount, approve part of it, or deny the claim and release the deposit back to the Renter, with a short note explaining why. Once decided, any approved amount comes out of the deposit right away, and the Lender's payout goes out the same way any payout does, rental fee plus whatever was approved, minus Silkro's fee. Every transaction like this gets recorded in our financial records, and every admin decision gets logged separately.

If a booking has no real deposit, because the listing didn't need one, or the Renter never finished the deposit payment, there's nothing for a claim to draw from. If the item comes back on time, the Lender just closes out the booking as normal. If it's never returned, the Lender can't recover money through Silkro for that rental, but the Renter's account still gets flagged under the same review process above.

This resolution is final for releasing the deposit. It doesn't stop either party from pursuing the dispute process in Section 17.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

The platform and everything Silkro provides comes "as is" and "as available," with no warranties of any kind. That includes implied warranties like merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement. We don't promise the platform will run uninterrupted, securely, or error-free, or that any listed item is safe, suitable, or fit for its intended use. Silkro isn't a party to, guarantor of, or insurer for any rental between a Lender and Renter, and we don't independently verify an item's safety, legality, quality, or condition beyond what the Lender tells us.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Silkro, its officers, employees, and affiliates aren't liable for any claim, loss, injury, or damage arising from: damage to, theft of, or loss of any item rented through the platform; personal injury, death, or property damage from using, or from a defect or misuse of, any listed item; the actions, negligence, misrepresentation, fraud, or misconduct of any user, online or in person; disputes between users; unauthorized access to an account or data; or any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages of any kind, even if we were told such damages were possible.

Silkro's total liability to you, across every claim related to the platform, won't exceed the greater of CAD $100 or the total fees you paid Silkro in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing here limits or excludes liability that can't lawfully be limited under Ontario or Canadian federal law, including liability for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud committed directly by Silkro.

16. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Silkro, its officers, employees, and affiliates from any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the platform, any item you list, your breach of these Terms, your interactions or transactions with other users, or your violation of any law or someone else's rights.

17. Resolving a dispute with Silkro

This section covers disputes between you and Silkro directly. That's different from Section 13, which covers claims between a Lender and a Renter over a specific rental.

If you have a dispute with Silkro, contact us first at hello@silkro.app and give us a real chance to sort it out informally. Both sides agree to try good-faith, informal resolution for at least 30 days before going any further.

If that doesn't work, either party can take the matter to Ontario courts, as set out in Section 19. Given Silkro's liability limits in Section 15, most disputes will fall within Ontario's Small Claims Court, a simple, low-cost venue built for exactly this kind of claim, no lawyer required.

Nothing here stops you from filing a complaint with a government agency where the law allows it.

18. Severability

If any part of these Terms turns out to be invalid or unenforceable, that part gets removed and the rest stays in effect.

19. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada. Disputes fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of Ontario courts.

20. Termination

We can suspend or end your access to the Services anytime, including automatically for repeated cancellations, non-return incidents, or other violations of these Terms. Sections that should naturally survive termination, like Limitation of Liability, Indemnification, and Dispute Resolution, keep applying after your access ends.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at hello@silkro.app

1. Information we collect

We collect what you give us directly: your name, email, phone, profile photo, government ID (verified by Stripe, not stored by us), payment info (also handled by Stripe), your listings and photos, and any messages or dispute submissions. We also collect some things automatically: device and browser data, usage data, city-level location for local search, and your transaction history.

2. How we use your information

We use it to run your account, verify your identity, facilitate rentals, process payments and deposits, provide support, send booking confirmations and platform updates, keep the platform safe, follow Canadian law, and enforce our Terms of Service. With your consent, we also use your email and phone number to send marketing, covered in Section 3 below.

3. Marketing communications

With your consent, we may use your email and phone number to send promotional offers, product updates, local availability alerts, and other marketing about Silkro. Transactional messages, like booking confirmations, verification codes, deposit notices, and dispute updates, aren't marketing. Those keep coming regardless of your marketing preferences, since they're how we run your account.

Every marketing email has a working unsubscribe link, and you can withdraw consent anytime through that link or by contacting hello@silkro.app. We process unsubscribe requests within 10 business days, under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). We don't currently send marketing by SMS. If that changes, we'll get your separate express consent first and update this Policy.

4. How we share your information

With other users. Your first name, profile photo, and rating show up to whoever you're transacting with. Your government ID and contact details never get shared with other users.

With service providers. Stripe handles payments and ID verification. SendGrid sends our emails. Supabase stores our data and photos securely. We don't currently use SMS or third-party analytics tracking, and we'll update this Policy if that changes.

For legal reasons. When the law, a court order, or user safety requires it.

In a business transfer. We'll give you advance notice.

5. When your information crosses borders

We're based in Canada, but some of the companies we work with, Stripe, SendGrid, and Supabase, may store or process your information outside Canada, including in the US. When that happens, your information can become subject to that country's laws, including access by courts, law enforcement, or government authorities there.

We take reasonable steps to make sure our providers protect your information properly, wherever it's processed.

6. How long we keep your information

We keep account data for 7 years after you close your account, to meet Canadian tax and legal requirements. Transaction records get the same 7 years, as required by the Canada Revenue Agency. Marketing preferences stick around until you opt out or close your account.

7. Automated decisions and account flags

Silkro uses a few automated processes to keep the platform fair and safe:

• Late return fees get calculated automatically, based on how a rental's timing plays out.
• Accounts get flagged for review automatically after a pattern of repeated cancellations or unreturned items.
• A security deposit gets released to a lender automatically if a renter doesn't respond to an item-not-returned claim within 48 hours.

These processes work off the booking and transaction data in Section 1, not outside data broker information, and they exist to apply our Terms consistently to everyone. Questions about how an automated decision affected your account? Reach us using the details in Section 14.

8. Your rights under PIPEDA

As a Canadian resident, you can access your personal information, ask us to correct anything inaccurate, withdraw consent to non-essential processing, request a portable copy of your data where that's technically feasible, and file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. To use any of these rights, contact us at hello@silkro.app. We respond within 30 days.

9. Cookies

We use cookies to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and catch fraud. You can turn off cookies in your browser settings, though that might affect how the platform works for you.

10. Data security

We use HTTPS encryption everywhere, Stripe for PCI DSS Level 1 compliant payment handling, restricted access to personal data, and regular security reviews. No method of sending data over the internet is 100% secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security, but we take every reasonable precaution.

11. If there's ever a privacy breach

If we ever discover a privacy breach that creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we'll notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as PIPEDA requires, and take reasonable steps to contain it and figure out what happened.

12. Third-party links

Our platform may link to third-party sites or services we don't control, including payment and ID verification flows hosted by Stripe. This Policy doesn't cover those third parties. Whatever you share with them falls under their own privacy practices.

13. Children's privacy

Silkro isn't meant for anyone under 18. We don't knowingly collect information from minors. If you think a minor has given us information, please contact hello@silkro.app right away.

14. Contact our privacy officer

Silkro has a designated Privacy Officer who handles privacy inquiries, requests, and complaints. Reach them at hello@silkro.app with the subject line "Privacy Inquiry." We acknowledge within 5 business days and respond fully within 30. Not satisfied with our response? You can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376.