Prerode Acceptable Use Policy

This AUP applies to everyone who uses Prerode, whether you are browsing, registered, listing, buying, messaging or otherwise interacting with the service or its users.

As set out in our Terms of Service, you must be aged 18 or over to create a Prerode account.

You are responsible for all activity that takes place through your account, including listings you create, messages you send and content you upload.

When you use Prerode, you agree that you will:

• act honestly and describe items accurately;
• treat other users, our moderators and our team with basic courtesy;
• only list items you own or have the right to sell;
• comply with applicable UK law, including consumer, product-safety, intellectual-property and data-protection law;
• respond to reasonable buyer or seller enquiries in reasonable time; and
• report listings, messages or users you believe are breaching this AUP.

You must not use Prerode, or allow anyone else to use Prerode through your account, to post, share, send or otherwise make available any content or conduct that:

• is unlawful, or that encourages, facilitates or promotes unlawful activity;
• harasses, bullies, intimidates, stalks or threatens another person, whether under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 or otherwise;
• incites hatred against, or discriminates against, a person or group by reference to a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 (including race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability or age);
• is defamatory, knowingly false or seriously misleading;
• is obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit;
• sexualises, endangers or exploits a child, or that constitutes child sexual abuse material;
• reveals another person's private information without their consent (including home address, phone number, email address, financial details or identity documents), commonly known as doxxing;
• impersonates another person, business, brand, employee of Prerode or public authority, or falsely suggests an affiliation, endorsement or approval that does not exist;
• promotes self-harm, suicide or eating disorders, or that promotes or facilitates terrorism, violence or serious criminal activity; or
• otherwise breaches our Terms of Service, our Prohibited Items Policy, our Selling Agreement or any other rule published on Prerode.

Prerode is a user-to-user service under the Online Safety Act 2023. We take our duties under that Act seriously and we do not permit illegal content on the marketplace.

The Online Safety Act identifies certain categories of “priority illegal content”, which we treat with particular seriousness. Priority illegal content that is relevant to a bicycle marketplace includes, but is not limited to:

• fraud and financial crime, including the offer of stolen goods, articles for use in fraud, and payment scams;
• content that amounts to, or that encourages, offences under the Theft Act 1968 or the Fraud Act 2006;
• content amounting to harassment, stalking, threats to kill or malicious communications;
• content that incites hatred on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation;
• content that sexually exploits or abuses a child, or that facilitates the sexual exploitation of a child; and
• terrorism content, including content that encourages, supports or glorifies terrorism.

Where we become aware of illegal content, we will take it down as soon as reasonably practicable and take appropriate action against the account responsible. Where the content concerns child sexual abuse material, terrorism or an immediate risk to life, we will also make reports to the relevant authorities in accordance with our legal obligations.

You must not use Prerode to store, distribute or link to any illegal content.

You must not use Prerode to defraud or scam another user. In particular, you must not:

• list or attempt to sell an item you do not own or have no right to sell;
• list or attempt to sell a stolen bicycle, component or accessory;
• misrepresent the condition, provenance, age, model, specification or safety of an item;
• conceal a material defect that a reasonable buyer would want to know about;
• provide fabricated receipts, service records, warranty information or ownership documents;
• use another person's payment details, bank account or identity documents;
• engage in phishing, including asking users for passwords, one-time codes, card details or verification codes;
• send scam links, malware or attempts to redirect users to fraudulent websites; or
• request payment on the false basis that Prerode will hold, escrow or refund the money.

Fraud in connection with the sale of goods may be a criminal offence, including under the Fraud Act 2006 and the Theft Act 1968. Where we reasonably suspect criminal conduct, we may preserve information, remove the account and report the matter to Action Fraud, the police or another appropriate authority.

To keep the marketplace trustworthy, you must not manipulate its integrity. You must not:

• operate more than one Prerode account, or operate an account on behalf of a suspended user, in order to evade this AUP or a previous enforcement decision;
• use sock-puppet or dummy accounts to inflate views, favourites or engagement on your own listings;
• engage in shill bidding or otherwise manipulate the apparent demand for a listing;
• coordinate prices with other sellers in a way that would breach UK competition law;
• post, procure or incentivise fake reviews, or suppress genuine reviews, in breach of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024;
• abuse the reporting tools to harass another user or to remove legitimate competing listings; or
• otherwise mislead other users or Prerode as to the identity, ownership or nature of a listing or an account.

Prerode does not process payments between users. Buyers and sellers arrange payment and collection directly, typically by bank transfer or cash on collection.

Because of this:

• legitimate off-platform contact is a normal part of using Prerode, for example to arrange an in-person viewing, agree a collection time or exchange bank-transfer details for an agreed sale;
• you may exchange contact details for the genuine purpose of completing a transaction that has been agreed on Prerode.

You must not, however, use off-platform contact to:

• list, promote or sell an item that would be prohibited on Prerode;
• solicit payment or personal information under false pretences;
• redirect a user to a scam website, fraudulent payment page or fake escrow service;
• continue contact with a user who has asked you to stop or blocked you;
• harass a user in a private channel about a matter arising from Prerode; or
• circumvent an enforcement action we have taken against you.

Prerode's messaging service exists so that buyers and sellers can ask questions and arrange transactions. When using the messaging service, you must not:

• send unsolicited commercial messages, marketing or spam, including in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR);
• send abusive, threatening, harassing, hateful or discriminatory messages;
• send sexual content, or send any content of a sexual nature to a user who has not clearly consented to receive it;
• send scam links, phishing attempts, malware or requests for passwords or one-time codes;
• request payment through a method inconsistent with what was agreed with the buyer or seller;
• ask a user to send money on the basis that Prerode will hold or refund it, which we do not do; or
• share another person's private information without their consent.

As explained in our Privacy Policy, we run an automated safety check on messages to help detect known scam patterns and prioritise moderator reviews. A moderator may only open the contents of a private conversation where there is a specific triggering event and only where reasonably necessary, and every such review is recorded in an internal audit log.

You must respect the intellectual-property rights of other people when using Prerode. You must not upload, list or share content that infringes another person's copyright, trade marks, registered designs or other rights.

You must not:

• list counterfeit, replica or unauthorised branded goods, as set out in our Prohibited Items Policy;
• use another person's photographs, listing descriptions or brand assets without permission;
• use a trade mark in a way that suggests a false endorsement or approval by the rights holder; or
• submit false or bad-faith infringement notices to try to remove legitimate competing listings.

Notice and takedown

If you are a rights holder (or the authorised agent of a rights holder) and you believe content on Prerode infringes your rights, please email support@prerode.com with:

• your name and contact details, and (if you are acting as an agent) the identity of the rights holder;
• a URL or other clear identification of each listing, message or piece of content you say is infringing;
• the right you own or represent (for example the trade mark and registration number, or the copyright work) and the country in which the right subsists;
• a short explanation of why the content infringes that right; and
• a statement that the information in your notice is accurate, and (where applicable) that you are authorised to act on behalf of the rights holder.

We will investigate valid notices and take appropriate action, which may include removing content, restricting the account responsible and providing the rights holder with sufficient information to pursue their rights. We may also share a copy of the notice with the user whose content is affected.

Knowingly submitting a false or misleading notice may itself be unlawful and may result in enforcement action against your account.

Prerode is intended for use by human users through the normal Prerode interface. You must not:

• scrape, spider, crawl or use any automated means to access, index or extract content from Prerode, other than as permitted by our public robots.txt directives;
• use bots, scripts or other automated tools to create accounts, publish listings, send messages, generate views, favourites or reports, or otherwise interact with Prerode at scale;
• access parts of Prerode that you are not authorised to access, or attempt to defeat authentication, rate limits, moderation systems or other security controls, contrary to the Computer Misuse Act 1990;
• upload, distribute or link to viruses, worms, ransomware, spyware or other harmful code;
• launch a denial-of-service, brute-force or credential-stuffing attack against Prerode; or
• reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source code of any part of Prerode, except to the extent that the restriction is prohibited by applicable law.

Legitimate security research carried out in good faith, in accordance with any coordinated-disclosure process we publish, is welcome. If you believe you have identified a security vulnerability, please contact support@prerode.com before disclosing it publicly.

What may and may not be listed on Prerode is set out in full in our Prohibited Items Policy, which forms part of this AUP.

In summary, you must not list stolen goods, counterfeit or replica branded goods, recalled or unsafe products, non-compliant electric bicycles, damaged or unsafe lithium-ion batteries, weapons, or any item whose sale would be unlawful in the United Kingdom.

If you see a listing, message, profile or piece of content that you believe breaches this AUP, our Terms of Service, our Prohibited Items Policy or applicable law, please report it. You can:

• use the in-product report button on the relevant listing, message or profile; or
• email support@prerode.com with details.

When you report something, please provide enough information for us to identify it (for example the listing URL, the username of the person involved and a short description of your concern). You do not need to hold an account with us in order to make a report.

If you believe there is an immediate risk to a person's safety, contact the police or another appropriate emergency service in addition to reporting the matter to us.

We handle reports and complaints in line with our duties under the Online Safety Act 2023. This means:

• we maintain clear, easy-to-find reporting routes;
• we review reports and act on them within a reasonable time, prioritising reports that concern safety, illegal content, fraud or urgent harm;
• we take appropriate action on illegal content of which we become aware, including taking it down as soon as reasonably practicable;
• where reasonably practicable and appropriate, we tell the reporting user what action we have taken; and
• we keep internal records of moderation actions for the retention period set out in our Privacy Policy.

We may not be able to give the reporting user detailed information about action taken against another user where doing so would breach data-protection law, prejudice an investigation, or put another user, our team or Prerode at risk.

If we reasonably believe that a user has breached this AUP or another Prerode policy, or that a piece of content is unlawful or otherwise poses a risk to Prerode, our users or third parties, we may take one or more of the following actions:

• issue a warning;
• edit, hide or remove content;
• remove a listing;
• restrict messaging, listing or other account privileges;
• place a temporary restriction on the account;
• suspend or terminate the account, permanently where appropriate;
• refuse to reinstate a previously removed account;
• preserve relevant information where permitted or required by law;
• refuse to enter into further transactions or agreements with the user; and
• report suspected criminal activity to the police, Action Fraud or another appropriate authority.

The action we take will be proportionate to the seriousness of the breach, the potential harm to other users and any relevant history on the account. A single serious breach (for example listing a stolen bicycle, sending scam links or making a threat of violence) may result in immediate and permanent account closure without prior warning.

Where reasonably practicable, we will tell the affected user what action we have taken and, where appropriate, offer a route to appeal. We may withhold details where doing so is necessary to protect other users, an investigation, our team or Prerode itself.

If you believe an enforcement decision has been made in error, or the action taken is disproportionate, you can appeal by emailing support@prerode.com with:

• the email address or username associated with the affected account;
• a short description of the action you are appealing and when it was taken; and
• the reasons you believe the decision was wrong, together with any information you think we should consider.

An appeal will be reviewed by a person who was not responsible for the original decision, where reasonably practicable. We will confirm the outcome in writing.

The right to appeal does not override our right to preserve information, or to take further action, where we reasonably suspect unlawful conduct or where an investigation is ongoing.

We may update this AUP from time to time, for example to reflect changes to how Prerode works, new marketplace features, new categories of item, or changes in applicable law or regulatory guidance.

The date at the top of this page shows when this AUP was last updated.

Where a change materially affects your rights or obligations, we will give you reasonable advance notice by email, an in-product notice, or both. Minor or clarifying changes may be published without advance notice.

If you have a question or complaint about this AUP, or about a moderation decision, contact:

support@prerode.com

SP8CESTUDIO LTD (trading as Prerode)
21 Uplands Avenue, Willenhall, WV13 3PR, United Kingdom
Company number: 12134895
ICO registration number: ZC047049

Complaints about how we have handled your personal information can also be made to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. Complaints about how we have handled a report under the Online Safety Act 2023 that we have not resolved through our own complaints route may be referred to Ofcom.