BuddyPath

Mentee Terms of Service

The agreement between you and BuddyPath for finding a mentor, booking sessions, and paying for them.

Version v1-2026-09

1. Who we are, and what this is

BuddyPath is operated by BuddyPath, LLC, a Florida limited liability company with its registered office at 1239 E. Newport Center Drive, Suite 106, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442 (“BuddyPath”, “we”, “us”).

BuddyPath is a technology marketplace. You choose a mentor. You pay for their time. The mentor independently provides the conversation and shares their own lived experience. We provide the technology that makes that possible — matching, scheduling, communication and payment — and nothing more than that.

These Terms are the agreement between you and BuddyPath when you use BuddyPath as a mentee. If you also want to mentor, that is a separate agreement: the Mentor Agreement, which you are asked to accept at the point you take the mentor role.

Two other documents form part of this agreement: the Acceptable Use & Content Licence, which governs what you may do with the app and what permission you give us over what you post, and the Privacy Policy, which describes what we do with personal information. Where they conflict with these Terms on their own subject matter, they win.

2. Who may use BuddyPath

You must be at least 18 years old. BuddyPath is not designed or operated for children, we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18, and an account we believe belongs to a minor will be closed.

BuddyPath is not yet available everywhere. We open state by state as we clear the legal requirements in each one, and you must tell us where you live when you create an account. If we are not open where you are, you cannot sign up yet — write to support@buddypath.com and we will tell you when that changes.

You must give accurate registration details, keep your password to yourself, and tell us promptly at support@buddypath.com if you think someone else has your account. You are responsible for what happens under your account.

3. What BuddyPath is not

Mentoring on BuddyPath is peer guidance from someone with relevant lived experience. It is not therapy, counselling, psychological or psychiatric care, healthcare or medical care of any kind, legal advice, financial or investment advice, or any other licensed or regulated professional service. Nothing on the platform — including anything produced by our AI features — is any of those things or should be relied on as one.

BuddyPath is for mentorship, social connection, conversation, lived-experience sharing, and informational and entertainment purposes.

A mentor shares their experience. They do not prescribe your life. A mentor may tell you what happened to them, what they tried, what worked, what did not, and what they took from it. A mentor must not diagnose you, treat you, present what they are doing as therapy, promise you an outcome, or tell you what you must do. If a mentor does any of those things, please tell us at support@buddypath.com.

BuddyPath is not an emergency service. If you are in crisis or someone is in danger, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line immediately rather than waiting for a session. In the United States you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Decisions you make about your life, health, money, career or relationships are yours. Please involve a qualified professional where one is called for.

4. Mentors are independent — and what our checks do and do not mean

Mentors are independent individuals. They are not our employees, agents, partners or representatives. We do not direct what they say, we do not supervise their sessions, and we do not endorse, guarantee, or take responsibility for their opinions, their advice, or their conduct. What a mentor tells you is theirs, not a statement or a recommendation from BuddyPath.

We do apply checks before a mentor can be listed. It is worth being precise about what they cover, because they are not a warranty and they are not a substitute for your own judgement:

  • an AI-conducted intake interview, screened for safety and for claims that cannot be substantiated;
  • BuddyPath U — a readiness score and, on some Life Paths, required course completion, which a mentor must clear to appear in matching, browse, or on our marketing site;
  • an identity check against a government-issued ID, where that requirement is switched on;
  • an optional criminal background check carried out by a consumer reporting agency, shown as a badge. A mentor without the badge has not had one. A mentor with one had a check on a particular date against particular sources, which is not the same as being safe, and says nothing about anything that happened afterwards or anything those sources do not hold;
  • reviews from mentees who actually completed a paid session.

These checks, the Mentor Score, the badges and a mentor’s position in your matches are provided for your convenience. They are not an introduction, an endorsement or a recommendation by BuddyPath, and we do not warrant that any of the information a mentor gives us about themselves is accurate.

You may not use any of it to make a decision about employment, credit, insurance, housing or tenancy about any other person. BuddyPath is not a consumer reporting agency for those purposes and its information must not be used as though it were.

Use your own judgement. Report anyone who worries you at support@buddypath.com, and we will act on it.

5. Sessions, prices and payment

Mentors set their own rate. Prices shown on the platform and on our marketing site are the mentor’s rate — BuddyPath’s commission comes out of that amount rather than being added on top, so the figure you agree to is the figure you pay.

Sessions are paid from a wallet balance you top up in advance. When you book, we reserve (“hold”) the expected cost so it cannot be spent twice; the actual charge is calculated from the session that took place. Some AI features are metered against your balance and are labelled where that is the case; interviews and the AI used inside live calls are not charged to you.

Top-ups. Card payments are processed by Stripe; we never receive or store your full card number. Your top-up is charged by BuddyPath, LLC, which is the merchant of record — Stripe is our payment processor, not the seller. What you are buying from us is platform credit. Mentors are paid afterwards out of that balance through Stripe Connect.

Money you have added is spent on the platform, not paid back out. There is no way to withdraw a wallet balance to your card or bank. Please only top up what you intend to use. If something has gone wrong — a duplicate top-up, a charge you did not make, a session that did not happen as described — write to support@buddypath.com and we will put it right; this paragraph is about the ordinary case, not a refusal to fix our own mistakes.

What a session actually costs

When you book, we hold the expected cost against your balance. What is finally charged depends on what happened:

  • You cancel before the session starts — the hold is released in full and you are charged nothing, however close to the start time you cancel.
  • The mentor does not show up — the hold is released and you are charged nothing. You are never billed for a session your mentor did not attend.
  • You do not show up, and the mentor did — the booked time is charged in full. The mentor held the slot and turned up for it.
  • The session runs long — you are charged for the time actually used, never more than the booked length plus a short grace period. A session never costs less than the length you booked.
  • Background checks are charged when you ask for one. Once the check has been ordered with the agency the fee is not refundable, because we have already paid for it; if the order itself fails, you are refunded automatically.

We may cap what an unverified mentor can charge, and we may refuse or reverse a booking where the mentor cannot be paid out or where either party is under review.

Chargebacks

If something has gone wrong, please come to us first at support@buddypath.com. We can almost always resolve it faster than your bank can, and a chargeback raised against a session that already happened takes money back from a mentor who has already been paid for their time.

If you raise a chargeback we may suspend your account while it is resolved, and you remain responsible for any resulting negative balance and for sessions already delivered. We will not close your account for raising a chargeback in good faith over something we got wrong.

6. Your conduct

The full rules are in the Acceptable Use & Content Licence. The parts that matter most in a session:

  • Treat your mentor as a person doing a job. Harassment, threats, sexual advances, hate speech and discrimination end an account.
  • Do not ask a mentor to do something they must not do — diagnose you, treat you, prescribe for you, or act as your therapist, doctor, lawyer or financial adviser.
  • Do not record a session, or take a photo or screenshot of one, without the other person’s clear agreement. See section 7.
  • Do not use BuddyPath to sell, recruit, solicit, or promote anything.
  • Do not impersonate anyone, or misrepresent who you are or what you need help with.
  • Do not take the relationship off the platform. See section 10.

7. Privacy, confidentiality and recording

What we collect and why is in the Privacy Policy. This section is about the conversation itself.

Sessions are private between you and your mentor, but they are not legally privileged. A conversation with a mentor does not carry the confidentiality protections of one with a doctor, therapist, lawyer or clergy member, because a mentor is none of those things. Do not share anything you would need those protections for.

We require mentors to keep what you tell them to themselves, and to use it only to help you. That is a term of the Mentor Agreement and we will act on a breach of it — but we cannot guarantee the conduct of another person, and no platform can.

Recording. Nobody may record, transcribe, photograph or screenshot a session without the clear, advance agreement of everyone in it. Several US states require the consent of all parties to record a conversation, and recording without it can be a criminal offence as well as a breach of these Terms. Where BuddyPath itself records or transcribes anything, we tell you before it starts and the Privacy Policy explains what happens to it.

Safety comes before confidentiality. If we believe someone is at risk of serious harm, or we are required to act by law, we may review a conversation and share what is necessary with the people who need it.

8. What you post, and what mentors write about you

You keep ownership of what you write, say and upload. The licence you give us to operate the service is set out in the Acceptable Use & Content Licence.

We are not responsible for what other users write or say, we generally do not review it in advance, and you may encounter things that are wrong, outdated or unhelpful. Content is not verified by us.

Reviews. Only a mentee who completed a paid session may review it. Reviews are double-blind: neither side sees the other’s until both are in or the window closes, and only revealed reviews are shown publicly. We do not pay for reviews, we do not write them, we do not edit their content, and we do not suppress negative ones. We remove a review only when it breaks the Acceptable Use rules. Mentors may also review mentees.

9. Suspension and ending your account

You can close your account at any time. We can suspend or close an account that breaks these Terms or the Acceptable Use rules, that presents a safety risk, or where we are required to. Where it is safe and lawful to do so we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

Closing your account does not by itself refund a wallet balance — see section 5 — and it does not cancel anything you already owe.

10. Keeping it on BuddyPath

Please keep mentoring on BuddyPath: the scheduling, the conversation and the payment. We ask for a reason that is not mainly about our commission. Everything that protects you lives on the platform — the identity check, the background-check badge, the reporting channel, our ability to act on a complaint, and the fact that you are never charged for a session your mentor did not attend. None of that follows you to a personal phone number.

So please do not arrange sessions with a mentor you met here outside BuddyPath, or pay them outside BuddyPath, while you are using the platform and for twelve months after your last session with them. If a mentor asks you to, tell us at support@buddypath.com.

11. Disclaimers, liability, release and indemnity

BuddyPath is provided “as is”. To the fullest extent the law allows we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, and we do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that any mentor will be suitable for you.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or lost opportunity, even if we were told they were possible.

For everything else, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of BuddyPath is limited to the greater of (a) what you paid BuddyPath in the twelve months before the event the claim is about, or (b) US$100.

Two things that cap does not touch. It does not apply to money we are holding for you or owe you — your wallet balance is yours, and a limit on our liability is not a way for us to keep it. And nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

Disputes with a mentor are between you and the mentor. Because we are not a party to what passes between you and a mentor, you release BuddyPath and our officers, directors, employees and agents from claims, demands and damages of every kind, known and unknown, arising out of or connected with a dispute you have with another user — including disputes about the quality, content or effect of what a mentor said or did. If you are a California resident, you waive California Civil Code § 1542, which says: “A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party.”

This release does not apply to a claim that BuddyPath failed to meet its own obligations under these Terms. It covers what another person did; it is not a waiver of anything we get wrong.

Indemnity. If someone brings a claim against BuddyPath because of your own breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use rules, your violation of someone else’s rights, or your unlawful conduct, you will cover the reasonable costs and damages we incur as a result, including reasonable legal fees. This does not apply to anything caused by us, and nothing in it limits your rights as a consumer under applicable law.

12. Disputes with us

These Terms are governed by the laws of Florida, and the courts of Broward County, Florida have jurisdiction. There is no arbitration requirement and no class-action waiver: if we cannot sort something out between us, you keep your ordinary right to go to court.

If you have a problem, please contact us first at support@buddypath.com — most things are faster to fix that way, and we ask that you give us 30 days to put it right before starting a formal claim.

13. Changes

We version these Terms rather than editing them in place. When we make a change that affects your rights we will publish a new version with a new effective date and tell you before it applies to you. The version you agreed to stays available.

14. Contact

BuddyPath, LLC, 1239 E. Newport Center Drive, Suite 106, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442. General and legal enquiries: support@buddypath.com. Safety: support@buddypath.com. Privacy: support@buddypath.com.

Copyright notices go somewhere else — to our designated agent, not to the registered office above: BuddyPath Copyright Agent, BuddyPath, LLC, 980 North Federal Highway, Suite 110, Boca Raton, FL 33432, support@buddypath.com, +1 754-253-0440. These are the details on file with the U.S. Copyright Office, and a notice sent to them is effective on delivery. What a notice has to contain, what we do with it, and how to counter-notice are in the Copyright & DMCA Policy.