Terms of use

Last updated October 6, 2026

These terms are an agreement between you and Tallon Simmons about using HelloShelf at helloshelf.app. By creating an account or using HelloShelf you agree to them. The Privacy Policy explains what we do with your information.

Who runs HelloShelf

HelloShelf is run by Tallon Simmons in Rockford, Michigan. In these terms, “we” and “us” mean Tallon Simmons.

HelloShelf is for people in the United States only, and it’s in beta.

Who can use it

HelloShelf is for BoardGameGeek members. You need a BGG account to sign up, and you must verify it, by putting a one-time code in your BGG profile, before you can trade. You must be 18 or older. Each person may have one account, signed in with their own email address. You’re responsible for what happens on your account, so keep your email and passkeys to yourself.

What HelloShelf does

Members list the games they’d trade away and the games they want, with points for each. HelloShelf shows each member the trades where everyone gets a game they want on terms they set, from two-person swaps to trades among up to five people. A member who wants one of those trades proposes it, which counts as their acceptance, and the others then accept or decline. Nothing is agreed until everyone in a trade accepts it. If you turn on automatic acceptance for one of your one-for-one offers, any trade of exactly those two games is accepted for you.

Members then meet at a public place to swap, or ship to each other on labels bought in the app. HelloShelf never holds, sees or inspects the games. We don’t buy or sell games, and members don’t pay each other: games are traded for games.

Points

Points say what a game is worth to you, from 0 to 200. HelloShelf suggests points from what the game has sold for used on BoardGameGeek’s marketplace, at about $10 a point, and you can set any number you like. Points aren’t money. They can’t be bought, sold or cashed out, and they only decide which trades work for you.

A want with 0 points doesn’t trade. It stays out of every trade until you set points for it.

Prices

Your first 3 trades are free, and so is your first math trade, however many games you get in it. A trade counts toward the 3 once everyone has accepted it, and stops counting if it falls through. A math trade counts once its results give you a game. Free trades don’t need a payment method.

After that, trading takes the yearly pass: $14.99 for a year of trades and math trades. It’s charged when you buy it, to a payment method you save with Stripe, our payment processor (a card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Link).

• The pass renews automatically each year, on the date you bought it, for the price then. We’ll remind you a week before it renews, and tell you at least a month ahead if the price changes. You can turn renewal off in Account at any time; the pass then lasts until the end of the year you paid for. If a renewal payment doesn’t go through, the pass ends and you can buy it again.
• We don’t refund part of a year, including when you turn renewal off or delete your account.
• For a trade by mail, you can buy your shipping label in the app or use your own label and enter its tracking number. A label bought in the app costs the carrier’s rate plus $1, except in your free trades, where it’s the carrier’s rate with nothing added. Your bank may ask you to confirm the payment.
• You can pay the postage for a game sent to you: by setting the most you’ll pay to make a trade work, or by offering on a trade. Once a trade includes it, it’s a promise you can’t take back. Your saved payment method is charged the label’s price (plus $1 outside your free trades) when the sender buys it in the app, and a sender whose postage you pay buys the label in the app. If your payment doesn’t go through, the sender may pay it themselves.

Trade fees charged before October 6, 2026 that didn’t go through are still owed, and you can’t accept trades until they’re paid.

Prices are in US dollars.

Cancelling a trade

Every trade proposed to you meets the terms you published. Declining one pauses the games you would have given until you reconfirm or change their terms, and counts against your acceptance rate, which other members can see. You can withdraw before everyone has accepted without a strike. Once a trade is confirmed, withdrawing gives you a strike.

Refunds

The yearly pass isn’t refunded, in whole or in part. Trading with other members is at your own risk.

A label is refunded in one case: when a trade falls through and the carrier never scanned it. We void the label, and once the carrier has refunded it to us, which usually takes 2 to 3 weeks, its postage and the $1 go back to the payment method you paid with. If the carrier won’t refund the label, neither can we.

If we charge you for a label and then can’t buy it, we refund the whole charge right away. If you paid and the label wasn’t bought, for example because the app closed during the purchase, we refund the whole charge after about 15 minutes.

Nothing else is refunded, including a completed trade, a meetup nobody checked in to, a label the carrier scanned, and a trade closed because the carrier lost a parcel. HelloShelf doesn’t insure parcels. [Decide whether labels include insurance.]

Refunds go through Stripe straight away, and banks usually take 5 to 10 business days to show them.

To ask about a charge or a refund, email hello@helloshelf.app from the address on your account and tell us which trade it was. We answer within [number] business days. Please write to us before disputing a charge with your bank.

Shipping

A trade by mail ships only on a label bought in HelloShelf. Labels come from EasyPost, and a carrier such as USPS carries the parcel. You measure and weigh your package, pack the game so it arrives in the condition you described, and hand it to the carrier. HelloShelf isn’t a carrier and never handles parcels.

Ship within 5 days of the trade being confirmed. A shipment with no carrier scan is overdue at day 7. At day 14 the trade fails and whoever didn’t ship gets a strike. A parcel counts as shipped at the carrier’s first scan.

If the carrier reports a problem, returns a parcel, or doesn’t scan it for 10 days, nobody gets a strike for that. If it’s still unresolved after 14 days and everything else in the trade has arrived, the trade closes as a carrier loss.

When a parcel is delivered, the recipient confirms its condition and rates it. If they don’t, receipt is confirmed automatically 7 days after delivery. Your shipping address is printed on the label the member shipping to you buys.

Meetups

Meetups happen at public places members choose in the app, such as game stores and libraries. Check in with “I’m here” from 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after the start time, within about 150 meters of the place. HelloShelf uses your device’s location only for that check.

Inspect the game before you enter the other member’s handoff code. Entering the code means you accept the game as it is, and you can’t dispute its condition later. Meetups are between members, and you go at your own risk. You’re responsible for your own safety and belongings. HelloShelf doesn’t check members’ identities, doesn’t vet the places, and isn’t at the meetup. Meet in the open, bring someone if you like, and leave if something feels wrong.

Math trades

A math trade is run by an organizer with two deadlines and rules they set, shown on the trade’s page: whether photos are required, whether several copies of a game or sweeteners can go in, whether members’ postage limits count, and whether cash or gift cards are allowed. Until offers close, you choose which of your games go in. Until wants close, every title left ticked for a game is a promise to trade that game for it. Once the results are final they’re binding: you send each game the results say to send, with any sweeteners you added, by the date shown, and pay its postage. A math trade takes the yearly pass, except your first one, which is free. If a game you send is lost or damaged in the mail, you’re responsible for delivering it or a suitable replacement, whatever the carrier does.

If the organizer allows cash, members can offer money for games and sell games for cash offers. Payments go directly between members by the methods the payer offered; HelloShelf never holds or sends the money and can’t refund it. If the organizer allows gift cards, members can put in gift cards they have, which can buy games and, if the organizer allows it, go for another member’s card of equal or lower value. You pay or send a gift card within the days the organizer set (not doing so is a strike). A gift card you mail goes to the address we show you for it; a code you type in is shown only to the member it goes to. If a game of yours goes for cash or a gift card and the organizer requires it, list the sale on BoardGameGeek’s GeekMarket at that price, mark it sold, pay BGG’s fee, and add the sale’s link in HelloShelf; the payment isn’t settled until you do. For a swap meet, you bring the games you’re giving (or send someone with them) and check in at the place. Not shipping, or not coming to a swap meet, is a strike for the whole math trade. The organizer can remove members, keep a list of members they won’t take in their trades, start a leftovers round for games that didn’t trade, and run the trade again before results are final, and decides anything the rules don’t cover.

Your listings and photos

List only games you own and are free to trade, and describe them honestly: condition, language, edition, whether anything is missing or damaged, and any wear. Disclaimers such as “not inventoried” or “no guarantee” aren’t allowed. Other members can ask about your listings, and questions and your answers are shown with the listing. Photos must show your own copy. You keep the rights to your photos. You give us a free, non-exclusive license to store, copy, resize and show them to other members in HelloShelf while the game is listed.

Other members see your name, the games you offer with their photos and condition, your wants, your standing and the ratings you’ve received. The Privacy Policy lists what they never see.

How members behave

• Answer trades other members propose to you in the time you’ve set in your account (1 to 3 days). Missing one pauses all your offers until you resume them, and missing three in 30 days is a strike. If you’ll be away, pause your offers from your account first.
• Do what you accepted: ship on time or show up.
• Be honest about your games and yourself. Use only your own email and your own BGG account.
• Use another member’s details only for your trade with them.
• Don’t harass, threaten or defraud anyone.
• Don’t copy HelloShelf’s data in bulk or try to get around its limits.

Standing, strikes, disputes and suspensions

Your standing comes only from what happens in your trades. New members trade two-person swaps of up to 2 games a side, with 1 trade in progress (2 with a verified BGG account at least a year old). After 1 completed trade with no active strikes you’re Established: trades of up to 3 people and 3 games a side, with 3 in progress. After 5 completed trades, with at least 90% shipped on time, at least 95% rated as described and no active strikes, you’re Trusted: up to 5 people and 3 games a side, with 6 in progress.

Strikes are recorded for these events:

• Withdrawing after a trade is confirmed: 1 point.
• Not showing up at a meetup when someone else checked in: 2 points.
• A “not as described” dispute about your game, upheld by a moderator: 1 point.
• Three of your disputes dismissed within 12 months: 1 point.
• Not shipping within 14 days of confirmation: 2 points.
• Not shipping after receiving a game in the same trade: 3 points and a ban.

Strikes expire after 12 months. With 1 active point you trade at the New limits. With 2 you’re suspended for 30 days from your latest strike: no new trades, though you still finish the ones under way. With 3 or more, or after keeping a game without shipping yours, you’re banned and can’t trade.

When a recipient marks a game “Not as described”, a moderator reviews it and either upholds the dispute or dismisses it. Declining a trade never counts against you. We may also suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. If you think a strike or a suspension is wrong, email hello@helloshelf.app. [How appeals are handled.]

BoardGameGeek

HelloShelf uses game names, cover art and marketplace prices from BoardGameGeek (BGG). HelloShelf isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by BoardGameGeek. Game names and box art belong to their publishers.

A linked BGG account is required to sign up, and a verified one to trade. You verify it by putting a one-time code in your BGG profile. Your use of BGG is covered by BGG’s own terms.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from Account in the app once you have no trade in progress. Trades waiting for an answer are declined. Your shelf, wants, address, photos and sign-in are removed, and your past trades stay in other members’ history as “Former member”. Deleting your account doesn’t refund fees already charged. The Privacy Policy explains what we keep.

Using HelloShelf at your own risk

You use HelloShelf because you choose to, and at your own risk. Trades are between members. We aren’t a party to them, we don’t own, hold or check the games, and we don’t vouch for any member. Whether to trade, meet someone or ship a game is your decision.

HelloShelf as it is

HelloShelf is a beta. It will change, and it may have mistakes or be unavailable at times. We provide it “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. We don’t promise that it will be accurate, available, secure or free of errors, that suggested points or prices are right, or that any trade will happen.

What we aren’t responsible for

We aren’t liable for:

• the games members trade, their condition, or whether they arrive;
• anything a member does or doesn’t do, in the app, by mail or at a meetup;
• carriers, Stripe, EasyPost, BoardGameGeek or any other service HelloShelf relies on;
• lost data or lost profits, or any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages.

You release us from all claims arising from your trades, your meetups and your dealings with other members. A dispute with another member is between you and them.

Our total liability to you, for all claims together, is limited to the fees you paid HelloShelf in the 12 months before the claim.

These limits apply to the fullest extent the law allows. The law doesn’t let anyone limit some kinds of liability, such as for fraud or deliberate wrongdoing, and nothing in these terms limits those.

Claims against us because of you

If someone makes a claim against us because of your listings, your trades, your conduct or your breaking these terms, you’ll cover our resulting costs, including reasonable legal fees.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We’ll post the new version here with a new date, and tell members in the app before a change to fees or refunds takes effect. If you keep using HelloShelf after a change, the new terms apply.

Law

Michigan law governs these terms, along with US federal law. Disputes go to the state or federal courts in Kent County, Michigan.

A claim must be brought within one year of when it arose, or it can’t be brought at all. Claims can be brought only individually, not as part of a class or representative action, and both you and we give up a jury trial. These apply to the fullest extent the law allows.

If a court finds any part of these terms unenforceable, that part is limited as little as needed and the rest still applies.

Contact

Email hello@helloshelf.app, or write to Tallon Simmons, [street address], Rockford, MI 49341.