Usalama Escrow — Terms of Service

1. What Usalama Escrow is

Usalama Escrow is a payment protection service for people buying and selling goods in Tanzania. A buyer pays for goods into escrow, the seller ships them, and the seller is paid only once the buyer confirms the goods arrived.

We do not buy, sell, inspect, store, ship or guarantee any goods. We are not a party to the sale. The agreement to buy and sell is between the buyer and the seller alone, and we take no position on whether goods are genuine, of acceptable quality, or as described.

What we do is arrange for the payment to be held safely by our payment partner, and instruct its release or return according to these terms.

2. Who holds your money

Usalama Escrow does not hold customer funds.

Money paid into escrow is held by NEDA Labs Limited, our regulated payment partner, within their nTZS payment infrastructure operating under the oversight of the Bank of Tanzania. We instruct movements of that money according to the rules in these terms. We do not lend it, invest it, or use it for any purpose other than completing or reversing your transaction.

Two things follow from this, and you should understand both.

Your money is not exposed to the financial position of Usalama Escrow. It sits with a regulated partner, separately from anything we own or owe.

And we depend on that partner. If their systems, or the mobile money networks they use, are unavailable, payments and payouts may be delayed. We will tell you when this happens, and a delay on their side does not change what you are owed.

3. Who may use Usalama Escrow

You may use this service if you are 18 years or older, resident in Tanzania, hold a valid National Identification Number, and hold a mobile money account registered in your own name.

You must verify your identity before you can buy or sell. This is a legal requirement, not a preference.

You may not use a mobile money number that is not yours. Payouts go to the number registered on your account, and we check it against your identity. An account found using somebody else's number will be suspended.

4. How an order works

Creating an order. A seller enters what they are selling and the price they want to receive. We generate an order code. The seller shares that code with their buyer.

Paying. The buyer enters the code and pays the total: the seller's price plus the protection fee. The money is held and neither party can take it.

Shipping. The seller sends the goods and marks the order shipped. A photograph of the parcel is required, and is kept as evidence.

Confirming. The buyer confirms the goods arrived. The seller is paid immediately. This cannot be undone.

If the buyer does nothing, the seller is paid automatically 48 hours after the order is marked shipped. This protects sellers from buyers who simply go quiet. Check your goods before this time runs out.

If the seller does not ship within 5 days of payment, the order is refunded to the buyer automatically.

If nobody pays within 24 hours of an order being created, the code stops working.

5. The protection fee

The buyer pays a protection fee on top of the seller's price. The seller receives their price in full.

The fee is 4.5% of the sale price, rounded to the nearest shilling. There is no minimum or maximum fee.

Sale price	Protection fee	Buyer pays
10,000 TZS	450 TZS	10,450 TZS
30,000 TZS	1,350 TZS	31,350 TZS
100,000 TZS	4,500 TZS	104,500 TZS
500,000 TZS	22,500 TZS	522,500 TZS

The exact amount is always shown before you pay.

The fee is not refundable. If an order is refunded, the sale price is returned to the buyer and the fee is retained. The fee paid for a service that was delivered: your money was held safely and returned to you rather than lost to a stranger. It also covers costs we have already paid to collect and return it.

Your mobile money provider may charge you their own fee for sending money. That charge is theirs, not ours, and we receive no part of it.

6. Reporting a problem

A buyer who believes something is wrong may freeze the payment before confirming receipt. Freezing stops the payment. It does not return it.

When an order is frozen, no money moves until we decide. We will read what both parties tell us, look at the parcel photograph and any evidence provided, and reach a decision. We aim to decide within 3 business days, though complex cases may take longer.

We may release to the seller, refund the buyer, or ask either party for more information.

Our decision is final as between the parties for the purposes of releasing the escrowed funds. This does not remove any right you have to pursue the other party directly through the courts of Tanzania.

We decide on the evidence available to us. We cannot inspect goods, and we were not present at the sale. A seller who provides a clear parcel photograph and a delivery record will usually prevail against an unevidenced claim. A buyer who describes precisely what they received will usually prevail against a seller who provides nothing.

7. Your account and your access

Your PIN. You choose a four-digit PIN. It is required to sign in, to unlock the app, and to approve the release of money. Keep it to yourself. We will never ask you for it.

If you forget it, you can set a new one by proving you hold your registered phone number. Doing so signs you out on every other device. If your phone has been taken, this is how you lock somebody out.

Your session. Signing in on a device keeps you signed in on it until you sign out, change your PIN, or we suspend the account. The app locks itself after a period in the background and requires your PIN or biometric to reopen.

Biometrics. Where your phone supports a fingerprint or face unlock, you may use it instead of typing your PIN. Your fingerprint or face never reaches us — it is compared inside your phone's secure hardware, which tells us only yes or no. Your PIN always remains available.

8. Closing your account

You may close your account from within the app, provided you have no open orders. We will not allow it while money is held, because doing so would strand the other party and their money.

Closing removes your name, business name, PIN, payout number, and your profile as anybody else sees it. You are signed out everywhere.

It does not delete your transaction records. We are required to keep financial records, and the other party to a completed trade has their own record of it. Those records, and the identity verified against them, are kept for seven years and then destroyed. See our Privacy Policy.

You may return. Signing up again with the same number reopens your account, with its trading history — including any disputes.

9. What we are not responsible for

We are not responsible for the goods. Not their quality, authenticity, legality, fitness for purpose, or whether they match what was described.

We are not responsible for delivery. We do not ship anything and have no control over couriers, buses, or whoever the seller uses.

We are not responsible for disputes unconnected to the payment — disagreements about warranty, after-sales service, or anything agreed between you outside this service.

We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by mobile money networks, our payment partner, internet outages, or events outside our reasonable control.

Our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the protection fee you paid on the order in question, except where the law does not permit such a limit, and except where money held in escrow has been lost through our own negligence — in which case we are liable for that money.

We are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, or any indirect or consequential loss.

10. What you must not do

You must not use Usalama Escrow to buy or sell anything illegal under the laws of Tanzania. This includes narcotics, weapons, stolen goods, counterfeit goods, protected wildlife or their parts, and human remains.

You must not use this service to move money that is not connected to a genuine sale of goods. Creating orders between accounts you control, or with a counterparty who is not really buying anything, in order to move funds, is money laundering. We monitor for it, we will freeze it, and we will report it.

You must not provide false identity information, use another person's identity documents, or operate more than one account without telling us.

You must not attempt to interfere with our systems, or to obtain another customer's information.

11. Suspending accounts

We may suspend an account, or freeze an order, where we reasonably believe these terms have been broken, where we are required to by law or by a competent authority, or where we suspect fraud or money laundering.

Where an account is suspended and money is held in escrow, that money is not forfeited. It is returned or released according to these terms once the matter is resolved, unless a lawful order requires otherwise.

12. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. Where a change materially affects your rights, we will tell you in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect, and orders already in escrow will complete under the terms that applied when they were created.

13. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the United Republic of Tanzania, and the courts of Tanzania have jurisdiction.

If you have a complaint, contact us first at support@usalamaescrow.co.tz. We will acknowledge within 2 business days and aim to resolve within 14 days. Most problems are settled faster by talking to us than by any other route.

14. Contact

USALAMA ESCROW LIMITED Mwanjelwa Sokoni, Room No. 257, Mbeya · P.O. Box 2817, Mbeya, Tanzania support@usalamaescrow.co.tz