Book Swap Squad

📋 Agreeing to These Terms

Book Swap Squad is a small, independently-run project for kids to swap physical books with other kids nearby. By creating an account, you (and, since this is meant for school-age kids, your parent or guardian) are agreeing to these Terms of Service and to our Privacy & Disclaimer page. If you don't agree with something here, please don't create an account — and if you're a parent who doesn't want your child using the site, just let us know and we'll remove the account (see the Contact section below).

These terms may change as the site grows. If we make a meaningful change, we'll update the "Last updated" date above. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

👨‍👩‍👧 Who Can Use This Site

Book Swap Squad is built for school-age kids, which is exactly why we ask for a parent or guardian's phone number during sign-up — not to spam anyone, but because we think a parent or guardian should know their kid has an account and should be involved in any in-person book swap. If you're a parent or guardian and you're comfortable with your child using the site, great! If you're helping your child sign up, please make sure the information you enter is accurate.

Every account needs one real, working email address that belongs to the person (or that person's parent/guardian) creating the account. Please don't create accounts for other people without their knowledge, and please don't create more than one account for yourself.

🔑 Your Account

You're responsible for keeping your password private and for anything that happens under your account. If you think someone else knows your password or has gotten into your account, change your password right away and let us know.

Please give real information when you sign up — your real name, a real school, a working email, and a real parent/guardian phone number. Fake information makes it harder for other kids to trust who they're swapping books with, and it's against these terms.

We may suspend or close an account that provides false information, that's used to break these rules, or that a parent/guardian asks us to close.

💰 BSC (Book Swap Coins)

BSC is a made-up, in-app point system — think of it like stars on a reading chart, not money. Please keep this in mind:

BSC has no real-world value. You can't buy BSC with real money, you can't sell or trade it for real money or anything outside the app, and it can't be exchanged, redeemed, or cashed out anywhere. It only exists to make sharing and borrowing books feel fair and fun inside Book Swap Squad.

You earn BSC by signing up, publishing books, writing reviews, and lending books out, and you spend a small amount to borrow a book from someone else. The current rates are listed on our About page. We may change these rates at any time.

If your account is closed for any reason, any BSC balance is gone — since it was never real money to begin with, there's nothing to refund.

📖 Publishing & Borrowing Books

When you publish a book, you're telling other kids (and us) that you actually own that physical book and are genuinely willing to lend it out. That's why we ask for a photo of the book next to your unique ID code — it's a lightweight way to show the listing is real, not a guarantee, and our team (or an automated check) may review that photo.

When you block or borrow a book, you're making a real commitment to another kid to pick it up within the block window and return it within the borrow window shown in the app. Please follow through — and if your plans change, cancel the block or message the owner so they're not left waiting.

Books that aren't returned on time accrue a small automatic BSC late penalty each week. This is meant to encourage on-time returns, not as a punishment — if something's genuinely gone wrong (a lost book, a family situation, etc.), message the other person and, if needed, contact us.

📚 Lost, Damaged, or Torn Books

Sometimes a borrowed book comes back with a bent cover, a coffee stain, a torn page — or doesn't come back at all because it was lost or misplaced. We want to be really clear about how that's handled: Book Swap Squad has no commercial or financial responsibility for the condition or return of any book exchanged through the site. We don't inspect books, we don't hold a deposit, and we don't reimburse, replace, or pay for a book that's lost, damaged, torn, stained, or spoiled while it's on loan.

The automatic BSC late-return penalty is only a small nudge to encourage kids to return books on time — it is not insurance, a deposit, or compensation, and paying it doesn't settle any claim about a book's condition or value.

If a book is lost, damaged, or not returned, that's a matter for the borrower and owner (and their parents or guardians) to work out directly between themselves — the same way you'd handle it if you lent a book to a classmate without using an app. A few tips to avoid problems in the first place:

📌 Only list or borrow books you're genuinely okay with not getting back in perfect condition.
📌 For anything valuable, rare, or sentimental, talk it through with the other person (and a parent/guardian) before agreeing to lend or borrow it — or simply don't list it.
📌 Use the messaging feature to agree on expectations up front and to check in if a return is running late.
📌 If a book comes back damaged or doesn't come back at all, a parent or guardian should be involved in resolving it directly with the other family.

✅ Community Rules

Book Swap Squad only works if it stays a nice place for kids to be. So, no:

🚫 Swearing, insults, bullying, or mean comments in book names, reviews, messages, or your profile.
🚫 Sharing anyone's personal information (yours or someone else's) beyond what the app already asks for.
🚫 Posting or messaging anything violent, scary, sexual, or otherwise not appropriate for kids.
🚫 Listing a book you don't actually own, or lying about a book's condition.
🚫 Trying to trick, pressure, or scare another kid into a swap, a meetup, or anything else.
🚫 Trying to break, hack, spam, or overload the site.

Every text field on the site is checked by an automatic family-friendly content filter, and messages can be flagged for review. Breaking these rules can get your content removed, your account warned, suspended, or — for serious or repeated problems — permanently closed, at our discretion.

🤝 Meeting Up to Swap Books

Book Swap Squad connects kids online, but the actual book handoff happens in person, in the real world — and that's the part we want to be extra clear and careful about.

A parent or guardian should know about and, whenever possible, be involved in any in-person meetup — arranging it, being present for it, or at least knowing where and when it's happening. Meet in safe, public, well-lit places (like at school, a library, or with an adult present) rather than anywhere private or unfamiliar.

We don't supervise, verify, or guarantee the safety of any in-person meetup, and we don't run background checks on users. We're a small site built by a kid, not a security service. Use good judgment, involve a trusted adult, and if anything about a meetup or another user makes you uncomfortable, don't go through with it — and tell a parent, guardian, or trusted adult right away.

🛡️ Moderation & Reporting Something

We use a mix of automated tools and human review to keep Book Swap Squad safe and family-friendly: every book name, review, and message is checked by an automatic family-friendly content filter, every book photo is screened by automated image-safety technology before it's accepted, private messages can be flagged and hidden automatically, and an admin panel lets our team review, remove, or act on anything that needs attention.

We take these safeguards seriously and do our best to keep inappropriate content off the site. That said, no automated filter and no small team can catch absolutely everything, every time. If something inappropriate briefly makes it onto Book Swap Squad despite these efforts — in a photo, a review, a message, a profile, or anywhere else — Book Swap Squad and its creator are not liable or responsible for that content having been visible on the site.

What we do promise: if you, or a parent/guardian, spot something that shouldn't be here, tell us right away at admin@bookswapsquad.com. We will act on real reports as quickly as we can — removing the content and, where appropriate, warning, suspending, or banning the account responsible — as soon as we're made aware of it.

We can remove any content, cancel any book listing, and warn, suspend, or ban any account at our discretion — including for reasons not specifically listed in these terms, if we believe it's needed to keep the site safe or fair. We keep a private record (an audit log) of moderation actions so we can review how the site is being managed.

✍️ Your Content

You keep ownership of the book reviews, messages, and photos you post — we're not claiming them as ours. By posting them, you're giving Book Swap Squad permission to store and display them within the app so the feature you're using (search results, your book listing, your profile, etc.) actually works.

Please only post photos of books you own and text you're comfortable with other kids (and our moderators) seeing.

⚠️ No Guarantees

Book Swap Squad is provided "as is," free of charge, built and maintained by one person as a personal project. We do our best to keep things working and safe, but we can't promise the site will always be available, error-free, or perfectly secure, and we can't promise anything about the quality, condition, or safe return of books swapped between users.

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Book Swap Squad and its creator aren't responsible for lost, damaged, torn, or unreturned books (see "Lost, Damaged, or Torn Books" above), disputes between users, anything that happens during an in-person meetup, or any other indirect harm connected to using the site. Using Book Swap Squad is at your own (and your parent or guardian's) discretion.

🚪 Ending Your Account

You (or your parent/guardian) can ask us to close your account and delete your data at any time — see the Contact section below. We may also suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, seems fake, or has been reported as unsafe.

✉️ Contact

Questions about these terms, a report about another user, or a request to close an account? Reach out to admin@bookswapsquad.com. We'll do our best to respond quickly.