Minute Wars Terms of Service

1. What Minute Wars Is

Minute Wars is an online auction marketplace where approved sellers may list items and buyers may place bids in timed auctions. Minute Wars provides the platform, auction technology, payment processing tools, marketplace rules, and dispute review process.

Unless otherwise stated, Minute Wars is not the seller of third-party items listed by marketplace sellers. Sellers are responsible for their listings, item descriptions, item condition, legal right to sell, shipping, and fulfillment.

2. Account Requirements

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, bid, list an item, or otherwise use Minute Wars. By creating an account, you represent that you meet this requirement.

You must provide accurate account information and keep it updated. You are responsible for activity under your account. You may not use another person's account, create false accounts, manipulate bids, interfere with auctions, or use the platform for unlawful activity.

Minute Wars may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, create risk, abuse the platform, or harm buyers, sellers, or Minute Wars.

To close your account, contact support@minutewars.com. Administrators process closures after reviewing your account. Closing your account does not cancel obligations you already incurred — pending orders, active listings, and open payment obligations must be resolved first. Any remaining wallet or reward balance is forfeited on closure unless applicable law requires otherwise (see Section 9 for wallet balance and withdrawals).

3. Auction Format

Minute Wars auctions are time-based. Unless otherwise stated:

• Auctions start at $1.
• Live auctions last 60 seconds.
• The timer does not extend because of bids.
• All bids are final.
• No bid cancellations are allowed.
• The winning bidder is determined by the server-confirmed auction result.
• The displayed winner and final price are subject to backend verification.

Minute Wars may cancel, pause, void, or correct an auction if there is fraud, technical failure, payment failure, platform error, suspicious activity, prohibited activity, or a legal/compliance concern.

4. Pre-Bids and Live Queue

Minute Wars runs a live auction queue. By default, queued items go live in first-in, first-out (FIFO) order for a timed live minute. Paid featured listings get a gold border and jump once to the front of the queue when featured; afterward they follow normal FIFO order. Featured placement is a paid promotional product, subject to availability and Minute Wars' platform rules, and does not guarantee a sale. If a live minute ends with no bids, the item typically returns to the back of the queue.

Items in the queue may accept pre-bids before they go live. A pre-bid sets or raises the opening bid when the live minute starts. Pre-bids are optional under the default FIFO rules; Minute Wars may enable a pre-bid requirement in some configurations.

A pre-bid is a bid commitment. If your pre-bid becomes the leading bid when the item goes live and remains the winning bid at auction close, you are responsible for completing the purchase.

5. Bidding Rules

By placing a bid, you agree that:

• You are making a binding offer to buy the item.
• You have reviewed the listing, price, fees, shipping, and applicable terms.
• You are authorized to use your selected payment method.
• You will pay if you win.
• You will not manipulate bidding, use bots, collude with others, or interfere with auction integrity.

Before bidding, Minute Wars generally requires a verified email, a phone number, a verified shipping address, and a default saved payment method. Stripe Connect is not required to bid or buy; Connect is required to submit listings for sale (see Section 8).

Minute Wars may reject, remove, or void bids that appear fraudulent, abusive, mistaken due to platform error, or inconsistent with these Terms.

6. Buyer Charges

If you win an auction, you agree to pay the final order total to Minute Wars (as merchant of record) promptly after winning. The order total may include:

• Winning bid / hammer price
• Buyer's premium
• Applicable tax
• Shipping
• Any other clearly disclosed fees

Buyer payment is charged on Minute Wars' platform payment account. It is not a direct charge to the seller and is separate from any later Stripe Connect transfer of seller proceeds (see Section 8).

Shipping on the order total is the flat shipping amount disclosed for the listing or at checkout. It may differ from the carrier's actual label or postage cost. See Section 12.

Applicable tax is calculated for your shipping address (see Section 16), not a flat marketplace percentage, once a verified address is available.

Buyer reward discounts, when available, apply only to the buyer's premium unless Minute Wars states otherwise. Reward discounts do not reduce the hammer price, seller payout, shipping, or tax.

Payment is due promptly after winning. Non-payment triggers an automatic penalty charge and the item may be re-offered to another bidder — see Section 20 for the specific timeline and mechanics.

7. Buyer's Premium

Minute Wars may charge a buyer's premium on winning auction orders. The buyer's premium is charged to the buyer and retained by Minute Wars. The buyer's premium is separate from the hammer price owed to the seller.

The buyer's premium is generally a percentage of the hammer price (currently 20%), but is charged at a flat minimum amount (currently $1.50) instead whenever that percentage would come out lower — for example, on a low-dollar win. This means the premium can be a larger share of the total on inexpensive items than the percentage alone would suggest. The exact amount is always shown before payment.

8. Seller Payouts

Minute Wars is the merchant of record for buyer payments. When a buyer pays for a win, Minute Wars charges the buyer's payment method for the full order total on the platform's payment account. Seller payouts are a separate Stripe Connect transfer from Minute Wars to the seller's connected Express account. Connect is governed by Stripe's terms in addition to these Terms.

Sellers must connect a Stripe Connect Express account before submitting an item for approval. Connect is not required to bid or buy.

Unless otherwise stated, eligible seller proceeds for a completed sale are the hammer price plus the buyer-paid flat shipping amount on the order. The buyer's premium is retained by Minute Wars. Collected tax is remitted by Minute Wars through its tax providers and is not paid to the seller. Ordinary Stripe card-processing fees on buyer charges are absorbed by Minute Wars and are not deducted from the seller's Connect transfer amount.

The net Connect transfer may be reduced by shipping true-ups and label-related adjustments described in Section 12, and by seller-side fees, reserves, adjustments, reversals, offsets, or amounts owed. Actual net proceeds can therefore differ from the hammer price alone or the shipping amount shown on the listing or at checkout, including because of label costs, true-ups, refunds, disputes, chargebacks, and other amounts Minute Wars is entitled to withhold or recover under these Terms.

Seller payouts are generally released automatically as a Connect transfer after the order is paid and shipping is confirmed delivered (or an administrator approves release), provided payout eligibility requirements are met — including no open refund, dispute, or chargeback blocker, and a Connect account with payouts enabled. This is a seller payout hold, not an escrow service. Minute Wars may also delay release for fraud review or other platform requirements.

Minute Wars does not offer Instant Payouts. After a Connect transfer, funds typically become available in the seller's Stripe Express balance and are paid out to the seller's linked bank account according to Stripe's Express payout schedule and the seller's Stripe settings.

Minute Wars may delay, reverse, offset, or withhold seller payouts if an order is canceled, refunded, disputed, charged back, fraudulent, not shipped, not as described, prohibited, or otherwise violates these Terms.

9. Wallet Balance and Withdrawals

You may hold a Minute Wars wallet balance, funded by card top-ups, approved refunds credited to your wallet, or other credits Minute Wars applies to your account. Wallet balance may be applied automatically toward eligible purchases, including auction order totals, when your available balance is sufficient to cover the amount due.

You may withdraw available wallet balance to a linked bank account. Withdrawals use the same Stripe Connect Express account and onboarding described in Section 8; you must link and verify a Connect account with payouts enabled before withdrawing. The minimum withdrawal amount is currently $5.00. Minute Wars may set or change reasonable withdrawal minimums, limits, or processing requirements at any time.

Withdrawal timing depends on Stripe's transfer and payout processing and your bank, and is not guaranteed to complete instantly. Minute Wars does not currently charge a separate fee to withdraw wallet balance; standard Stripe and banking fees, if any, are governed by Stripe's terms.

Wallet balance is not a bank deposit, is not FDIC-insured, and does not earn interest. As described in Section 2, any remaining wallet balance is forfeited if your account is closed, unless applicable law requires otherwise.

10. Seller Listings and Responsibilities

Sellers must provide accurate listings, real item photos where required, correct condition descriptions, truthful pricing and shipping information, and timely fulfillment.

Sellers may not list counterfeit, stolen, unsafe, illegal, prohibited, recalled, infringing, or misrepresented items.

Sellers are responsible for ensuring they have the legal right to sell each item and that their listings comply with all applicable laws and Minute Wars policies.

Sellers may be able to create draft listings in bulk using a batch import tool. Batch-created drafts are not published and must still be submitted individually and go through the same listing review and approval process as any other listing.

The Prohibited Items Policy is part of these Terms. Sellers may not list items that are illegal, stolen, counterfeit, recalled, hazardous, unsafe, restricted for shipping, misleading, or otherwise prohibited by Minute Wars.

11. Reserve Price

Sellers may have the option to set a reserve price where supported. If a reserve is enabled, the seller may be charged a reserve-related fee as disclosed at listing creation.

If the reserve price is not met, the item may not sell, even if bidding occurred. Minute Wars may mark the auction as reserve not met and follow the applicable reserve-not-met flow.

Reserve fees are seller-side fees and are not charged to buyers unless clearly disclosed otherwise. Once charged, a reserve fee is non-refundable, including if the item is later withdrawn, rejected, or does not sell.

12. Shipping

Sellers must ship sold items within the timeframe stated in the listing or marketplace rules. Sellers must provide valid tracking where required.

Buyers are responsible for providing a complete and accurate shipping address. Minute Wars and sellers are not responsible for delays or failed delivery caused by incorrect buyer address information.

Listings may show a flat shipping amount charged to the buyer at checkout. That amount is a marketplace shipping charge set for the listing (including amounts suggested by Minute Wars estimate tools). It is not a guarantee that the carrier label or postage will cost exactly that amount. Actual shipping costs vary based on package size and weight, origin and destination, service level, carrier rates, surcharges, and other factors.

Minute Wars may provide shipping-estimate tools and label-purchase tools (including through third-party carriers or shipping platforms). Estimates are informational only. Sellers remain responsible for selecting an accurate shipping amount, packing the item correctly, and fulfilling orders on time.

When a seller buys a shipping label through Minute Wars, the seller's saved payment method is generally charged for the actual label or postage cost at the time of purchase (prepaid). That charge is separate from the buyer's checkout payment. Buyer payment to Minute Wars does not itself pay the carrier; the seller typically advances postage on their own card until the seller Connect transfer is released.

Shipping true-up (prepaid labels): If the buyer-paid flat shipping amount exceeds the actual label or postage cost for an order fulfilled with a Minute Wars label, Minute Wars retains that excess at seller payout by transferring a lower net amount to the seller. If the actual label or postage cost exceeds the buyer-paid shipping amount, the seller generally bears that shortfall through the prepaid label charge. Buyer-paid shipping is not an escrow for postage and does not create a right for the buyer or seller to receive any unused shipping difference unless Minute Wars expressly states otherwise or a refund is approved under these Terms.

For older orders where Minute Wars fronted label postage on the seller's behalf, Minute Wars may recover that label cost by deducting it from the seller Connect transfer.

Accordingly, seller earnings on a sale may be approximately the hammer price plus shipping collected, reduced by any shipping true-up retained by Minute Wars, any seller-paid label costs or shortfalls, and any other fees or adjustments under these Terms. Minute Wars may change estimate methods, carriers, label tools, and true-up rules, and will apply the then-current rules disclosed in the product experience and these Terms.

Economy envelope shipping.When enabled, eligible listings may offer a low flat "economy" shipping rate for small items mailed in a stamped envelope without tracking. The buyer pays the disclosed economy rate at checkout. The seller ships by uploading a photo of the addressed, stamped envelope before mailing; tracking numbers are not used on this path. Seller payout may be held until the buyer confirms receipt or an auto-release period passes after ship. Buyers who confirm receipt may receive bonus bid-progress credit (not a reward bag). If an item does not arrive, buyers may file a claim after the stated waiting period; valid claims are funded from a platform protection pool and credited to the buyer's Minute Wars wallet. Sellers are still paid on pool-funded claims when envelope proof is valid. Abuse of claims may limit future economy eligibility. Economy shipping is optional for sellers and may be excluded per listing or disabled platform-wide.

13. Refunds and Disputes

All bids are final, and buyer's remorse is not a valid reason for refund.

Minute Wars may review refund requests for eligible order problems, including non-shipment, wrong item, material misdescription, damage, counterfeit items, prohibited items, duplicate charges, payment errors, seller cancellation, or platform error.

Minute Wars may require evidence from the buyer, seller, shipping carrier, or payment processor. Minute Wars may approve, deny, or partially approve a refund based on the available evidence.

If a payment dispute or chargeback occurs, Minute Wars may freeze the order, hold seller payout, reverse seller transfer where supported, suspend account activity, and submit evidence to the payment processor.

14. Prohibited Conduct

• Manipulate auctions or bids
• Use bots, scripts, or automated bidding without permission
• Create fake accounts
• Shill bid
• Collude with other users
• Harass users
• Sell prohibited or illegal items
• Misrepresent items
• Avoid fees
• Interfere with platform security
• Abuse refunds, chargebacks, rewards, or promotions

15. Trust and Safety

Minute Wars may monitor, review, remove, restrict, or investigate accounts, listings, bids, transactions, payments, messages, and platform activity to protect users and marketplace integrity.

Minute Wars may require identity verification, seller verification, payment verification, address verification, or additional information before allowing buying, selling, payout, or continued account access.

16. Taxes

Minute Wars calculates sales tax using Stripe Tax (or another tax calculation provider) based primarily on the buyer's verified shipping address, the taxable order amounts (generally the hammer price plus buyer's premium), item tax category, and applicable law. Shipping charged on the order is generally not included in the taxable base unless required by law or provider rules.

When you have a verified shipping address on file, Minute Wars may show a live tax amount calculated for that address before you win or pay. The amount you are charged is the tax calculated at payment time for the address used on the order. If you do not have a verified address yet, any earlier tax figure may be preliminary; exact tax is calculated once your address is available.

Buyers are responsible for applicable taxes shown at payment. Minute Wars remits collected tax through its tax providers as required. Tax amounts may change if your shipping address, order composition, or applicable rates change before payment is completed.

17. Rewards

Minute Wars may offer reward meters, reward bags, discounts, promotions, or other benefits. Rewards are promotional, have no cash value, are not stored money, are not gift cards, and may not be transferred, sold, or redeemed for cash.

Reward discounts apply only as stated by Minute Wars. Unless otherwise stated, reward discounts apply only to the buyer's premium.

Minute Wars may change, pause, revoke, or end rewards at any time where permitted.

18. Platform Changes

Minute Wars may change, suspend, or discontinue any feature, auction format, reward, fee, listing category, seller tool, or service at any time.

19. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Minute Wars is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or business interruption.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Minute Wars' total liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms, your use of the site or services, or any order or listing will not exceed the lesser of $500 or the total fees Minute Wars received in connection with the order or listing giving rise to the claim.

These Terms, and any dispute between you and Minute Wars arising from them or from your use of the site or services, are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

You and Minute Wars agree to resolve any such dispute through final, binding arbitration on an individual basis, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, seated in Florida. Either party may instead bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies. You and Minute Wars each waive the right to a jury trial and to participate in a class action, class arbitration, or other representative proceeding against the other. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing support@minutewars.com within 30 days of first agreeing to these Terms.

20. Refund, Dispute, and Payout Operations

All bids placed on Minute Wars are final. A winning bid creates a purchase obligation. Buyers may not cancel a winning auction because they changed their mind, found a lower price elsewhere, bid by mistake, or no longer want the item.

If you win an auction, you must complete payment within 72 hours of the win. If payment is not completed in that window, Minute Wars may automatically charge your saved default payment method for the full buyer's premium as a non-payment penalty, without further notice, and may then offer the item to the next-highest bidder for up to 48 hours. This penalty charge is separate from, and in addition to, any other consequence of non-payment, including suspension of bidding privileges.

Refunds are not automatic. Refunds are reviewed by Minute Wars and may be approved only for eligible order-problem situations, including seller non-shipment, wrong item, material misdescription, damage with supporting evidence, counterfeit or prohibited items, seller cancellation, duplicate charges, reserve/payment errors, or platform errors.

Refunds should generally not be approved for buyer's remorse, mistaken bids, failure to read the listing, finding a lower price elsewhere, dislike of an item that matches the listing, refusal of delivery without a valid order problem, or attempted cancellation after winning.

Buyers may be required to provide order number, photos or video, packaging and shipping-label photos, issue description, communication history, and date received. Recommended starting windows are 3 calendar days after confirmed delivery for damage, wrong item, or not-as-described claims, and 7 calendar days after expected delivery for missing shipment claims.

Seller payout should remain on hold until buyer payment succeeds, shipment is confirmed delivered (or Minute Wars administratively approves release), no refund request or payment dispute is open, the order passes fraud/risk review, and Minute Wars determines the payout is eligible for release. Eligible payouts are generally released automatically as a Stripe Connect transfer; bank availability then follows Stripe Express timing (see Section 8).

If a refund is approved before seller payout is released, Minute Wars may cancel the pending payout, refund the approved buyer amount, keep or reverse the buyer's premium according to the refund reason, and update the order status. If a refund is approved after seller payout, Minute Wars will attempt to reverse the seller transfer; if that is not possible (for example, the funds have already left the seller's connected account), Minute Wars may place future seller payouts on hold, suspend selling privileges, and pursue recovery of the amount from the seller through other available means, in addition to refunding the buyer.

If a buyer files a payment dispute or chargeback, Minute Wars may mark the order disputed, freeze seller payout, attempt to reverse the seller transfer, collect evidence, respond through the payment processor, avoid duplicate manual refunds while the chargeback is active, and update the order after a decision. As with other post-payout refunds, if the transfer cannot be reversed, Minute Wars may pursue recovery from the seller through other available means.

Buyer's premium is generally non-refundable when the auction and order were valid. It may be refunded for seller non-shipment, wrong item, material misdescription, counterfeit/prohibited/unsafe item, Minute Wars error, duplicate or incorrect payment, or reserve-not-met payment error.

21. SMS/Text Message Terms

By providing your phone number and selecting text notifications, you consent to receive SMS/text messages from Minute Wars at that number. Messages may include verification codes, account notices, auction alerts, bid activity, winning bidder notices, seller sale notices, order updates, support messages, and related marketplace communications.

• Message frequency varies based on your account and auction activity.
• Message and data rates may apply.
• Consent to receive marketing or auction alert texts is not a condition of purchase.
• Reply STOP to opt out of SMS messages.
• Reply START to opt back in where supported.
• Reply HELP or contact support@minutewars.com for help.
• Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

We may continue to send non-SMS communications such as email, or push or in-app notices where available. You are responsible for providing a phone number you control and keeping your contact information current.

22. Content You Provide

You may submit item photos, descriptions, reviews, profile information, messages, and other content to Minute Wars ("Your Content"). You retain ownership of Your Content.

By submitting Your Content, you grant Minute Wars a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and distribute Your Content for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the marketplace.

You represent that you have the right to submit Your Content and that it does not infringe any third party's rights. Minute Wars is not responsible for loss of Your Content and may remove content that violates these Terms or applicable law.

23. Your Responsibility to Minute Wars

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Minute Wars, its officers, employees, and affiliates from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from:

• Your breach of these Terms
• Your listings, items, or transactions
• Your violation of any law or a third party's rights
• Your misuse of the platform

Minute Wars may assume exclusive control of the defense of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, at its own expense, and you agree not to settle any such matter without Minute Wars' written consent.

24. Intellectual Property; No Scraping

Minute Wars owns or licenses all rights to the Minute Wars site, software, design, and trademarks. Item listings and other user content remain the property of the users who submitted them, subject to the license in Section 22.

You may not copy, scrape, reverse engineer, or use automated tools to collect data from Minute Wars, and you may not use Minute Wars listings, pricing, or other data to build or support a competing product or service, without Minute Wars' written permission.

Violation of this section may result in suspension or termination of your account, in addition to any other remedies available to Minute Wars.

25. Disputes Between Users

If you have a dispute with another user, you release Minute Wars, its officers, employees, and affiliates from claims, demands, and damages arising from that dispute, to the fullest extent permitted by law. This release does not limit Minute Wars' own refund and dispute review process described in Sections 13 and 20.

California residents waive California Civil Code Section 1542, which states that a general release does not extend to claims the releasing party does not know or suspect to exist at the time of the release.

26. Site Availability; No Warranty

Minute Wars provides the site and services on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not guarantee that the site or services will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that defects will be corrected.

You are responsible for maintaining your own antivirus and security software. Minute Wars is not responsible for damage caused by viruses or other harmful components that may affect your device through use of the site.

27. Changes to These Terms

Minute Wars may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will update the "Last Updated" date above and, where required by law, provide additional notice. Continuing to use Minute Wars after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest of the Terms remain in full effect, and the unenforceable provision will be interpreted to best reflect its original intent within the limits of applicable law.

28. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to support@minutewars.com.