ToS, do you read it before using new platforms?

[hd49728]

What is ToS?

It is Term of Service, abbreviated as ToS.
On some platforms, there is another term that used for the same purpose, called as a User Agreement.

There are lots of things presented in ToS, but there are some vital parts that you must read them carefully before doing deposits to your accounts. Because if you are not careful, you might lose your money, and those platforms have rights to reject your deposit returns when you fraud them, or violate their rules in ToS.

Don't take risks and waste your time by trying to cheat them with VPS, multiple accounts. Eventually, you will be found, and you will lose your money (original capital or profits from tradings/ gamblings).

Like in the forum, you can not break rules, plagiarise, then ask for forgiveness after being permanent banned. On exchanges/ casinos, you can not cheat/ abuse/ break their rules and ask for supports or forgiveness.

• Restrictions, such as restricted locations
• Number of allowable accounts: allow multi accounts/ linked-accounts or not.
• Restricted activities (discover by yourself)
• Identities verification (discover by yourself)
• More things

Another method to fastly get them (but you might miss some details) is reading FAQs

almost never read them I just read their FAQs and helpdesk section
faqs usually points out the important things from the ToS
and helpdesk Q and A contains further information on specific instance case

Restricted locations
I give some examples from some exchanges and casinos

Bittrex

2.2
You may not use the Services if you are located in, or a citizen or resident of the United States. You may not use the Services if you are located in, or a citizen or resident of any state, country, territory or other jurisdiction that is embargoed by the United States, or if you are on any trade or economic sanctions lists, such as the United Nations Security Council Sanctions List, or if you are restricted or prohibited from engaging in any type of trading by the European Union, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, Office of Foreign Asset Control or any other administrative law enforcement agencies.
[ ... read more]

Poloniex

37. LEGAL COMPLIANCE
The Services are subject to all applicable export control restrictions, and, by using the Services, you represent that your actions are not in violation of such export control restrictions. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use the Services if (i) you are a resident, national or agent of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or any other country to which the United States, the United Kingdom or the European Union embargoes goods or imposes similar sanctions (“Restricted Territories”); (ii) you are a member of any sanctions list or equivalent maintained by the United States government, the United Kingdom government or by the European Union (“Restricted Persons”) or (iii) you intend to transact with any Restricted Territories or Restricted Persons.

Cloudbet

5.1.3. You agree that at all times when using the Website you are not a resident of any of the following countries:

• the United States of America and its territories;
• United Kingdom;
• Hong Kong;
• Singapore;

Sportsbet.io

3.3. You are aware that the right to access and use the website and any products there offered, may be considered illegal in certain countries. We are not able to verify the legality of service in each and every jurisdiction, consequently, you are responsible in determining whether your accessing and using our website is compliant with the applicable laws in your country and you warrant to us that gambling is not illegal in the territory where you reside. For various legal or commercial reasons, we do not permit accounts to be opened or used by customers resident in certain jurisdictions, including the United States of America (and her dependencies, military bases and territories), Australia, United Kingdom, Estonia, or other restricted jurisdictions (“Restricted Jurisdiction”) as communicated by us from time to time. By using the Website you confirm you are not a resident in a Restricted Jurisdiction.
 
3.4 When attempting to open an account or using the Website, it is the responsibility of the player to verify whether gambling is legal in that particular jurisdiction. If you open or use the Website while residing in a Restricted Jurisdiction: your account may be closed by us immediately; any winnings and bonuses will be confiscated and remaining balance returned (subject to reasonable charges), and any returns, winnings or bonuses which you have gained or accrued will be forfeited by you and may be reclaimed by us; and you will return to us on demand any such funds which have been withdrawn.

Identities verification
Bittrex

3.3
You may be required to provide Bittrex with certain personal information, including, but not limited to, your name, address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, taxpayer identification number, government identification number, photograph of your government-issued ID or other photographic proof of your identity, and information regarding your bank account.

Binance

5.b. User Identity Verification
The identity verification information we request may include, but is not limited to, your: Name, Email Address, Contact Information, Telephone Number, Username, Government Issued ID, Date of Birth and other information collected at the time of account registration. In providing this required information, you confirm that it is accurate and authentic. Post-registration, you must guarantee that the information is truthful, complete and updated in a timely manner with any changes.

Number of allowable accounts
There are platforms allows multiple/linked accounts, but there are some platforms don't allow multiple accounts. Please be careful and read ToS.

Cloudbet

5.1.9.2. Only one account per customer/IP/household is allowed. If you attempt and/or successfully open more than one account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any bitcoin credited to your account frozen.

Sporstbet.io

3.5.      You are allowed to have only one Member Account. If you attempt to open more than one Member Account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any funds credited to your account/s will be frozen.

That one is a good example (we simply assume that user tells the truth).
SPORTSBET.IO / SPORTS BET IO ... SCAMMED ME FOR $150K USD +
He is a UK citizen, but tried to created and used multi-accounts on Sportsbet.io - that does neither accept UK cititzens nor allow multi-accounts.

FortuneJack

According to our Terms and Conditions, we reserve the right to terminate all the accounts onto the same IP. The rules apply to the accounts, coming from the same family, household, relative or a connected person that might be somehow linked with the acc.

I would also recommend the following site: https://tosdr.org/ - Terms of Service; Didn't Read. It essentially provides easy to read and understand summaries of what you are agreeing to when you sign up to various sites. Unfortunately it doesn't have much crypto cover yet (Coinbase is the only site on there as far as I am aware), but a good resource nonetheless.

My favorite things I usually do when I have intention to join new platforms, in orders of priority, is:
- Reading FAQs
- Reading Term of Service/ Term and Conditions/ User agreements. The exact phrase will depend on each platform.


Pay your attention and keep you updated with changes on KYC requirements

Search on KYC when register account is good but not enough. Companies change their policies and KYC is one of possible changes. I know some people don't log in their accounts or don't revisit company websites when they feel disappointed with loss. It is a bad behavior because risks of freeze on inactive accounts or KYC requirements.

Please see the announcement of Bitmex: Announcing the BitMEX User Verification Programme. This change is applied for international users, globally and not only in the US.

Another information need to be noted is window time of KYC verification, on Bitmex, you will be allowed to finish KYC till 12 Feb. 2021. Furthermore, pay your attention on window time to withdraw your fund if you don't want to do KYC.

The User Verification Programme will go live from 00:00 UTC on 28 August 2020. It will be mandatory for all BitMEX users to have completed identity verification by 12 February 2021 at 00:00 UTC in order to continue trading on our platform.

You can take a glance at the service from Pmalek and do your own double checks on ToS or FAQ pages of the casino you are interested in.

Which casinos have IP blocks in place for restricted countries?

Casino	Restricted Countries	Active IP Ban
_____________________________	_____________________________	_________________
1.Roobet.com 2. Coins777.com 3. Stake.com 4. btb88.com 5. PlayBitcoinGames.com 6. Chips.gg 7. JacksClub.io 8. 7XL.co 9. Sportsbet.io 10. Betcoin.ag	Germany, USA, Netherlands No Info Available France, UK, USA Germany, Switzerland, Turkey No Info Available USA, UK, Netherlands No Info Available No Info Available USA, Germany, Netherlands USA, UK	Germany - NO USA - YES Netherlands - NO - France - YES UK - NO USA - YES Germany - YES Switzerland - YES Turkey - YES - UK - NO Netherlands - NO USA - NO - - USA - YES Germany - YES Netherlands - YES USA - NO UK - NO
_____________________________	_____________________________	_________________

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278411.msg55269011#msg55269011

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[bL4nkcode]

Most of them are too long to read, so that's obvious that most users never read this page before they register the site or read it after the support messaged the account holder related of breaking such terms. And mostly I did it too and read it some time after I registered. Nonetheless, if the site is related to finance the high chance that I read them first.

[The Cryptovator]

Usually I tried to read terms of service when I use any website especially if its related with money. Sometimes I read before registration and sometimes read after registration but obviously before send any funds to them. But I believe most of people's doesn't bother to read terms of service and eventually they fall in problem and make scam accusations if he/she is forum user.

So everyone should read terms of service or terms of conditions before or after registration, but before use them.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Here's your missing quote from Sportsbet:

3.5.      You are allowed to have only one Member Account. If you attempt to open more than one Member Account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any funds credited to your account/s will be frozen.

Nobody reads all the Terms and Conditions, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, User Policy, EULA, and so forth that they should. You would never be able to leave the house if you did. Every component in your computer has tons of legal jargon to go with it, as does the service which built your computer for you, your operating system, your browser, the websites you use, your ISP, your electricity provider, and so forth. It would take you a week just to be able to log on to this website if you insisted on reading the legal terms of everything you needed to use to get here. Companies have previously hidden cash prizes in their EULAs or similar, and it has taken months for them to be claimed despite thousands of downloads. There's also one of my favorites hidden in the Amazon Web Services Terms:

However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

I would also recommend the following site: https://tosdr.org/ - Terms of Service; Didn't Read. It essentially provides easy to read and understand summaries of what you are agreeing to when you sign up to various sites. Unfortunately it doesn't have much crypto cover yet (Coinbase is the only site on there as far as I am aware), but a good resource nonetheless.

[Herbet Fry]

I do. I always do just to make sure I am never denied anything or that I do nbot make a mistake or something and not get paid or just genrally get myself into a situation I don't want to be in.
As soon as I see the words KYC I am gone. No need for that crap. All KYC is , is a way to monitor and control us. Take our money and make sure they try to tax us. They make a ppectical of it as if money laundery in crypto is so common (which btw it is not, it is actually not east to launder money using any method, money is laundered through fake fronts and made up over seas companies that hide behind overseas laws and stuff like that)
So that rendered KYC useless and not necessary.

People are so interested in getting your KYC but have you ever asked for theirs? Why must I give my KYC so some stranger and they won't even tell me their first name?

I also check for VPN connection. If they uptight about using a VPN for no good reason I won't use their service. (one day you login with a VPN by mistake and they close your account) rather not give them a reason.
Payment methods and withdraw restrictions.

If it is a site I fond work on I want to as least have some idea who I am working for or what I am working for if it is a company, so I research it. No point working and it turns out to be a scam.
I scrutinize projects usually ^^ Hey man my time is precious. So many of these bounty platforms are full of crap as well. You have to be so careful

Anyway, that is my experience.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

The fact that the Terms of service of different platforms are very lengthy. I never usually bother reading everything. To me its like a waste of time. Imagine you are trying to sign up quickly and then you first have to agree to you have read the ToS  

What i usually do is pick up the vital parts such as identity verification, country restrictions, conditions concerning deposits, withdrawals and the fees. That's enough for me to get started.

[Velkro]

Most of them are too long to read, so that's obvious that most users never read this page before they register the site or read it after the support messaged the account holder related of breaking such terms. And mostly I did it too and read it some time after I registered. Nonetheless, if the site is related to finance the high chance that I read them first.

Because its shady practices to include some important informations hidden in walls of text.
If company is honest and we can trust it, they provide most important informations in very short version aside from TOS.
Its good business practices, thats why its not needed often to read TOS.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I never usually bother reading everything. To me its like a waste of time. Imagine you are trying to sign up quickly and then you first have to agree to you have read the ToS  

This is risky behavior, especially with a site you plan to perform KYC on, despoit money to, or both. If you are breaking their ToS, even without realizing it, they usually have a clause saying they will shutdown your account and you will forfeit whatever funds were in it at the time. You also really want to know how they are going to handle your documents if you plan on undergoing KYC with them (which, as always, I would advise against).

The recent Binance document hack was because of lax security at a third party service which they were using to process documents for them. Their ToS clearly stated they could send users' documents to third parties for processing, although I bet the vast majority of users didn't know this. Perhaps they would have thought twice before undergoing KYC had they known. There is also no telling just how many third parties they used - one was hacked, why not the others? And of course, because these users agreed to this (even if they didn't read it) when they signed up to Binance, they have essentially zero chance of any legal recourse.

[tranthidung]

Because its shady practices to include some important informations hidden in walls of text.
If company is honest and we can trust it, they provide most important informations in very short version aside from TOS.
Its good business practices, thats why its not needed often to read TOS.

It is rights of companies to integrate advantageous terms of service for their platforms, to protect themselves in worst cases. I don't see anything wrong with that, but that fact reminds customers that they have to protect themselves, by reading ToS carefully. Especially, important terms that directly relates to their accounts, and their balance in accounts (will they be allowed to withdraw after making deposits), from VPS, or without KYC?

Personally, I can create my account on exchanges without reading ToS at first, because I don't lose money if I don't send money to account.
Nevertheless, after creating accounts I will do read limited withdrawals per day, with and without KYCs (I do prefer exchanges that allow withdrawals without KYCs, even at limited amount of BTC per day); then check that they include my locations in restricted location list that they reject to serve or not.

Another important thing to consider is how long inactive accounts will be frozen.

Lastly, I will find out that they accept linked accounts or not (but it does not vital thing). I will check this one only if after a period of using that platform, I fall in love with it, and want to trade on it with bigger fund.

[nakamura12]

Usually I tried to read terms of service when I use any website especially if its related with money. Sometimes I read before registration and sometimes read after registration but obviously before send any funds to them. But I believe most of people's doesn't bother to read terms of service and eventually they fall in problem and make scam accusations if he/she is forum user.

So everyone should read terms of service or terms of conditions before or after registration, but before use them.

Reading terms of service on a site is a must especially if there is money related in the site so in the future you'll know what to do and you can avoid not getting your money from the site which happens to some people especially from a gambling site that a gambler played.

[Thirdspace]

almost never read them I just read their FAQs and helpdesk section
faqs usually points out the important things from the ToS
and helpdesk Q and A contains further information on specific instance case
I'm pretty sure majority of us here don't bother reading the ToS
although some people might skim over the ToS to find specific information

[Kharz]

Number of allowable accounts: allow multi accounts/ linked-accounts or not.

I am interested in this point.
As far as I know, one person only can make one account to make it fair and avoid cheating.
So, can you give me an example of platforms that allow multi accounts?

[GreatArkansas]

This is some , I really admit that I also didn't read those ToS of every platform. I am just reading it once I got encountered some problems regarding with my accounts or other people who have a question about their accounts.

And I know there's also a lot of people who are just contacting the support of particular website arguing about the problem they encountered and once the support quoted their TOS before creating an account, what a really huge facepalm 

[gentlemand]

Because its shady practices to include some important informations hidden in walls of text.
If company is honest and we can trust it, they provide most important informations in very short version aside from TOS.
Its good business practices, thats why its not needed often to read TOS.

If I were running a site with that type of thing I wouldn't do that. I'd rather keep the info all at the same level. If you didn't then you might run the risk of customers screaming about being caught out by one of the things not highlighted enough.

If I'm risking money I do read the TOS. For everything else, of course not.

[hugeblack]

Unfortunately, smaller rules may cost you a lot. For example, the company reserves the right to add any new rule without alerting users.
Based on this rule, any new rules can be added and then impose (KYC & AML) or even conditions to ban and freeze accounts.
The more transparency the more respect to the platform. Therefore, the platform highlights basic and clear conditions before allowing users to log in, as well as put some exercises to ensure knowledge of TOS.

[Theb]

On the legal point of view sadly terms of services, user agreements, and terms and conditions are legally enforceable once both parties (the service and the user) agreed on the online list of conditions given by the service itself. What is unenforceable though is if the conditions are only listed in the FAQs section of their website and is not listed anywhere on the original terms and conditions. I say “original” because once the service have altered their own terms and conditions the user has to re-agree with it or else the new one isn't enforceable or bindable to them.

[hatshepsut93]

I usually check the faq if it is present, it often has the most important parts of the ToS. If I do have to read ToS, I use ctrl + f and search for keywords like KYC, country restrictions, transaction limits and so on. I already have some small amounts of coins stuck on exchanges that allow deposit for everyone, but require KYC to withdraw - a very scummy practice if you ask me.

[hd49728]

I already have some small amounts of coins stuck on exchanges that allow deposit for everyone, but require KYC to withdraw - a very scummy practice if you ask me.

Lol, some platforms allows deposits, but reject withdrawals because of users come from restricted locations. Hence, reading ToS, major parts or reading FAQ with supports from keywords are good practice to avoid stupid losses due to laziness and carelessness.

[gentlemand]

If I do have to read ToS, I use ctrl + f and search for keywords like KYC, country restrictions, transaction limits and so on.

That's something of a dangerous game. Their terminology may not match the norm.

These days I assume everywhere KYCs unless proven otherwise. And plenty of places I've visited certainly don't deserve my lovely documentation.

[DimitrisLodirogas]

Always, do it! Reading 'manuals ' has changed my workflow totally. Yes it takes more time but you get so much better insight if taking a few minutes before starting exploring. A good examples of such platforms: Coingy, Tradedash, Newscrypto... thank me later!