Topic: ToS, do you read it before using new platforms? (Read 1067 times)

I think that the bulk of ordinary users simply do not read the terms of the user agreement, as a rule, people tend to trust the platform, provided that someone from their relatives or friends also uses this platform. The user agreement is read by 5-10 percent of users. These are the statistics.

Of course i am because this is the most important thing in each platform though i am not doing it anymore in gambling sites because they all almost
 have the same TOS so nothing to worry about,But in other site except Gambling is i require myself checking and reading
thoroughly with understanding the TOS for my own safeties .
It is best that even they send an email we will still double check the site about the new written TOS so we are sure if the site is
still cool for us or we need to move forward to another.

Well just receiving an email or notification about change of ToS is not enough.The thing is a person needs to open it and then take time to read through it and inform themselves.This part is what gets people, people are lazy and just click I agree.Then later there are problems.

This is risky and very dangerous for users, I usually received a notification from sites where I have an account about changes in their TOS and every sites should do this for transparency and trust, you cannot trust a site that has a hidden agenda to the point that they can and will legally scam you, so far ai

I like websites when they give concise tnc, but unfortunately most don't and it's god tiresome to read every single detail, no wonder most Internet users skip it.

Same for me, I usually just skip the TOS which is a bad thing I know. But it's too long to read it all and there are too many different websites with different TOS. One thing I always check of a new website/campaign is where it's based and how long the TOS is. I tend to rely on checking on other website for reviews. This forum is usually a good indication if there are scam accusations or other wrong doings in the past.

Many people are skipping that and just check if they agree without even understanding the terms of conditions.

We need to accept the fact that a lot of people are doing that due to their laziness and excitement towards registration.

In some registration, I also doing this, I don't read the terms of condition and privacy policy, but that's not related in investments and important platforms. When I'm accessing new platforms, I spend my time reading those because that's for my own safety and awareness.

ToS is the page that all companies will direct their customers to when something happen with account (deposits, withdrawals, trades, account restrictions, and more). No one can determinantly say that they will never get troubles with their accounts and related things.

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Because you are mentioning about applications, let me expand your discussion further. When you install any application, there is always a pop-up windows to ask your confirm terms of conditions. It plays almost similar role of ToS on webistes and online services.

It is a waste of time to read all things in Terms of conditions/ agreements but search very important words to find vital points in their ToS.

If you look back to consider how you easily accepted rules when you joined Facebook or Twitter, you will know how you put your personal data at risks (but unfortunately, you signed your agreements with Facebook and Twitter when create your accounts).

That is not true. If the websites or applications do not want you to read it, then I think they'll prolly not make any Tos, or it'll be somewhat hidden, but in most sites, their Tos are always open and available for their users to read, if you don't read it, it's cause you don't want to read it or you find it difficult to do, or you don't just see the need. Whenever you go contrary to their rules in the Tos, they redirect you to it, doesn't that mean they initially expected you to have read it?
There are some apps that most people cannot do without/find an alternative to, due to it's ease to connect them with their friends and families, but I think they can reduce the amount of information the site can access of them and their private life, but to totally discard it will be almost impossible to do.

Exactly, you get wiser with experience. I do read TOS for casinos as i had my lessons before and I take the time to read TOS for certain services or apps which I'm using for the first time. For example WhatsApp is terrible to use as you basicaly sign off your entire life to Facebook by agreeing to TOS and using it, but people don't read TOS and that is how those apps get popular.

Even when you spread the info how harmful and bad it is, people just keep using it as they either don't care, they have all their friends on it or are too lazy to find an alternative. People are lazy and that is being cleverly exploited.

That is the bottom line.

It is the cause why people go into panic when their accounts got troubles because of things are related to ToS. Read or search with basic keywords first to make sure that your account won't be trapped by basic rules in ToS. I can understand sometimes it is difficult to understand what is written in ToS if you are reading it the first time but the more time you read, ther higher chance you will catch its idea and rule representation.

If you consider ToS as unofficial trap you will change your mind.

To be honest, i dont, and i think that huge majority of people dont bother to read them.When you think about it, it even looks like they are made with the purpose not to be read by the people.

I know. What I meant was that it would be surprising if there are people (lawyers, maybe) that actually go through the whole thing.

I don't said everyone to read whole ToS of anysite.

Big or small, old or new sites, reading ToS and FAQ are most important things to do. I am sure no one read all ToS but any browser gives you the Ctrl+F to do quick search: restricted areas, IP address, VPN, Tor network, frozen inactive account and funds, deposit, withdrawal, something like that.

Personally, I always do quick search with some keywords when I visit ToS and FAQ.

Well, as long as you play fair, there's nothing to worry about.

But if you noticed, many if not all have this always tucked in some corner.

When it comes to issues or some gray area (e.g. commissions), that's when things can get messy.

For instance you are a member of casino XYZ, so perhaps you might have read that, "Referrer earns 30% commission from every new referral that bets" but after a while, you noticed the commission has decreased. You communicate with the Support team and they iterate that it's always been at 10%.

You clearly remembered that it was stated 30%, but how are you going to prove it unless you take a snapshot of every page, which I reckon 99.9% including myself won't do. That's how the above could actually screw with us unless they communicate whenever there's a change/ amendment in the policy.

Ignoring the tos is really a bad decision to be made by people since they might do something unwanted things that abide on their TOS and might they will lost their money and account for that matters.

Users should read to know what is illegal and what is good to do since information is written to avoid any compromising things to users account.

Although its surprising but those things are created for something legalization of all things in the site.

If a site is well known and has a growth popularity, i can guess that people will follow the foule and ignore the TOS.
However, when it's about money, yes people [should] read the whole TOS or maybe the interested parts. I wasn't active in gambling sites, so i am surprised to see some hidden restrictions revealed in this thread. I think this thread and other sites offering similar notes about the important details in most used sites, would be a great help for all of us.

I'd be damned if there are people that really read the whole thing.

You can take a glance at the service from Pmalek and do your own double checks on ToS or FAQ pages of the casino you are interested in. You should do your own checking and I am not responsible for the correctness of info in the table.

Which casinos have IP blocks in place for restricted countries?


Source: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5278411

They are long boring and take a lot of your valuable time. Most of usually drag the slider down and then accept it. When we get banned or get blacklisted then we realise the importance of reading TOS.

In my opinion most of us do know what they are related to for a particular platform that is one of the reason why we skip them. You still can go through them whenever you have time.

Thanks for explaining them in detailed to us.

Search on KYC when register account is good but not enough. Companies change their policies and KYC is one of possible changes. I know some people don't log in their accounts or don't revisit company websites when they feel disappointed with loss. It is a bad behavior because risks of freeze on inactive accounts or KYC requirements.

Please see the announcement of Bitmex: Announcing the BitMEX User Verification Programme. This change is applied for international users, globally and not only in the US.

Another information need to be noted is window time of KYC verification, on Bitmex, you will be allowed to finish KYC till 12 Feb. 2021. Furthermore, pay your attention on window time to withdraw your fund if you don't want to do KYC.

Up until the earlier years of my crypto journey, I used to be like others ^{[ignored those pages or quickly scrolled those pages]} but after bumping into Coinbase, I learned my lesson ^{[I really do hate them until now but thanks to them, I've gained some knowledge from those bad experiences]}. Nowadays I do read every single page ^{[not only TOS and FAQ]} of a new platform that I'm trying to sign in and I also know that it's quite boring but it usually saves me from having a headache later on...

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Here you go:

They are not your property, though. An exchange can't even point to the bitcoin you own on their exchange, because it is all combined in consolidation transactions in to their main central wallet along with everyone else's deposited bitcoin. All you have is an "IOU" in the form of numbers in your account balance. It would be like if 50 people give me a glass of water and I pour all the water in to a barrel. Sure, I might owe everyone a glass of water, but you don't retain ownership of the water because that would be impossible, and the water I promise to give you back won't be the water you deposited.

Not only can that happen, but most of the time the laws of the country encourage it. The most common reason by far that people have their coins confiscated by an exchange are because the exchange starts demanding incredibly invasive KYC with no forewarning, and blame the laws of the jurisdiction they are based in. If the users don't want to give some stranger online all the information required to completely steal their identity and ruin their life, then your coins are essentially confiscated and you can no longer trade or withdraw.

Don't spread this kind of hoax please, by doing that you're making yourself accomplice of scammers.
No, they've not the "right" to confiscate your goods just because you didn't respect their ToS.
When you deposit your cryptos on platforms, you don't sell them or give them for free to the platforms, it's still your property, not the property of platforms. So if they confiscate your cryptos it's a theft.
ToS have to respect the laws of the country of the platform, and I don't think there are many countries in the world where you can seize the goods of your customer just for not having respected a clause of your ToS. So such clauses are unlawful.
Moreover platforms regularly change their ToS without giving notice to customers, so customers are often unaware of the changes in the ToS. No need to mention that crypto platforms generally don't care of their own ToS when a customer ask something from them...

I don't know that there are softwares to do that like you said but will site owners really need such softwares? I don't think they need it. It is very easy for them to copy ToS or FAQs of another well-known site and modify according to their own policies.

It is the point to start discovering highly potential scam sites too. If you find plagiarsims from their ToS or FAQs, let's think deeply about their legitimacy.

Even a scam site, their owners will modify plagiarised ToS and FAQs in order to build up their own rules, that protect them but help them more easily to scam their users.

Some TOS' is just the same I just read run them over to check if some new entries are created from all the other sites that I sign up with, there is software that automatically creates a TOS for your websites only differ in names, but always pay attention about refund and chargeback when you are investing or paying in a finance website, this is just to make sure.

I also always wear these before using the new platform After researching different places the scam can be reduced somewhat I love reading CryptoNews and the latest updates I also watch videos many times. New exchanges should take a long time to see the sites  they take a little longer to learn.

FAQs is a very shorter version of ToS. FAQs collect and present very vital sections of ToS. From FAQs, if you want to get more details, more explanations from platform's owners, let's move to ToS, that is much longer written.

For me, with very important things, I usually double-check both FAQs and ToS. Sometimes, platform owners forget to update both FAQs and ToS so they are potentially have different minor details (due to inconsistent updates for both).

I usually read the FAQ more than the TOS but if it is something related to money investing and finance I take a time to read it, but sometimes they all have the same TOS I just scroll them and review because it's to long and some wording their are just the same like all the other TOS but you must read and be familiar at least on the site where you are active the most

I used to put on sporting events and one of the conditions of entry was signing a disclaimer.

It was very striking that only 10% at most took the time to read it. Everyone else signed it without looking.

They could've been signing away their house or testicles and there would've been no possibility of contesting it.

Not really or at least not in the European Union.
We have a directive on what is called "Unfair contract terms".
Most companies and especially exchanges around here think that they can put anything in their T&C and if the user agrees, then it's perfectly legal.
Well, it's not!!!

The best example is the short time notice cancellation.
The whole thing that they reserve to change the terms without notice or cancel their service is pure bs, under European law you have to give the client enough time between the notice and the actual cancelation of the services so that it will not cause financial or any other harm.
And unfair terms are not binding by EU law, so any judge will take a piss on that in court.

Indeed reading the whole ToS or FAQ is something that I believe more than 99% people who gonna use certain platform skipped it, not just because they are lazy but they knew things just for formalities, the ToS would be about general thing which we do understand already (at some point it feels like wasting time) but of course it's important especially when it's involved a huge amount of money ... it's a must for you to read every single word on ToS and FAQ.

Other than that, I would doing ctrl+F ... looking for the part that I consider it's important, just like what you do

The fastest and easiest way to get very important things on any platform is to read its FAQs. FAQs contain most common questions and of course most important things for customers.
After reading FAQs, if there is something unclear or need more details, let's jump into the ToS and find the section of things you are interested in and want to find out more.

I usually only read the "Terms of Service" when I want to know something specific. I never read the whole thing, because I know it is a waste of time. If you really want to use that service, then no "Terms of Service" is going to hold you back. You would rather hope that you do not run into trouble and just shoot from the hip... right.

In any way, I never deposit large amounts of money into any website or even exchanges, so it is not a train smash if I lose a little bit of money, if and when I break the specifications or rules in the "Terms of Service". 

To be honest I just skip the terms and conditions when entering into a new site but if I am going to deposit or trade huge amount of money there I will look at the terms to avoid any loss of money because many fellas lost their money in cryptos just because of their small and unknown mistakes.

As much as I want to agree that I read every terms and agreement in every site before I click on the agree button, I have to be honest, I have never read any terms and agreement in any website because they just seem too long and are one of the most boring things you could ever read, infact I just discovered now that some people actually take the time to read it, I know it is probably a good idea to read it before agreeing to anything, but it just seems so tedious, I will endeavour to start reading it anywhere money is concerned.

Yes, I always read terms of service, it's very very important! Even when I register on the reliable exchanges like CoinDeal or Kraken, I always read. I know that reading such terms is just boring, but it's good to know them... Do not register everywhere, there are a lot of scams in the cryptocurrency world.

I don't always read ToS during signups or registration especially during exchange sign up. I don't move huge funds and I don't violate common rules of exchanges.

Once happened to me before, it's been long since I used the exchange so I deposited on it the my funds was locked and I was told to complete KYC before I could trade or withdraw.

Always, do it! Reading 'manuals ' has changed my workflow totally. Yes it takes more time but you get so much better insight if taking a few minutes before starting exploring. A good examples of such platforms: Coingy, Tradedash, Newscrypto... thank me later!

That's something of a dangerous game. Their terminology may not match the norm.

These days I assume everywhere KYCs unless proven otherwise. And plenty of places I've visited certainly don't deserve my lovely documentation.

Lol, some platforms allows deposits, but reject withdrawals because of users come from restricted locations. Hence, reading ToS, major parts or reading FAQ with supports from keywords are good practice to avoid stupid losses due to laziness and carelessness.

I usually check the faq if it is present, it often has the most important parts of the ToS. If I do have to read ToS, I use ctrl + f and search for keywords like KYC, country restrictions, transaction limits and so on. I already have some small amounts of coins stuck on exchanges that allow deposit for everyone, but require KYC to withdraw - a very scummy practice if you ask me.

On the legal point of view sadly terms of services, user agreements, and terms and conditions are legally enforceable once both parties (the service and the user) agreed on the online list of conditions given by the service itself. What is unenforceable though is if the conditions are only listed in the FAQs section of their website and is not listed anywhere on the original terms and conditions. I say “original” because once the service have altered their own terms and conditions the user has to re-agree with it or else the new one isn't enforceable or bindable to them.

Unfortunately, smaller rules may cost you a lot. For example, the company reserves the right to add any new rule without alerting users.
Based on this rule, any new rules can be added and then impose (KYC & AML) or even conditions to ban and freeze accounts.
The more transparency the more respect to the platform. Therefore, the platform highlights basic and clear conditions before allowing users to log in, as well as put some exercises to ensure knowledge of TOS.

If I were running a site with that type of thing I wouldn't do that. I'd rather keep the info all at the same level. If you didn't then you might run the risk of customers screaming about being caught out by one of the things not highlighted enough.

If I'm risking money I do read the TOS. For everything else, of course not.

This is some , I really admit that I also didn't read those ToS of every platform. I am just reading it once I got encountered some problems regarding with my accounts or other people who have a question about their accounts.

And I know there's also a lot of people who are just contacting the support of particular website arguing about the problem they encountered and once the support quoted their TOS before creating an account, what a really huge facepalm 

I am interested in this point.
As far as I know, one person only can make one account to make it fair and avoid cheating.
So, can you give me an example of platforms that allow multi accounts?

almost never read them I just read their FAQs and helpdesk section
faqs usually points out the important things from the ToS
and helpdesk Q and A contains further information on specific instance case
I'm pretty sure majority of us here don't bother reading the ToS
although some people might skim over the ToS to find specific information

Reading terms of service on a site is a must especially if there is money related in the site so in the future you'll know what to do and you can avoid not getting your money from the site which happens to some people especially from a gambling site that a gambler played.

It is rights of companies to integrate advantageous terms of service for their platforms, to protect themselves in worst cases. I don't see anything wrong with that, but that fact reminds customers that they have to protect themselves, by reading ToS carefully. Especially, important terms that directly relates to their accounts, and their balance in accounts (will they be allowed to withdraw after making deposits), from VPS, or without KYC?

Personally, I can create my account on exchanges without reading ToS at first, because I don't lose money if I don't send money to account.
Nevertheless, after creating accounts I will do read limited withdrawals per day, with and without KYCs (I do prefer exchanges that allow withdrawals without KYCs, even at limited amount of BTC per day); then check that they include my locations in restricted location list that they reject to serve or not.

Another important thing to consider is how long inactive accounts will be frozen.

Lastly, I will find out that they accept linked accounts or not (but it does not vital thing). I will check this one only if after a period of using that platform, I fall in love with it, and want to trade on it with bigger fund.

This is risky behavior, especially with a site you plan to perform KYC on, despoit money to, or both. If you are breaking their ToS, even without realizing it, they usually have a clause saying they will shutdown your account and you will forfeit whatever funds were in it at the time. You also really want to know how they are going to handle your documents if you plan on undergoing KYC with them (which, as always, I would advise against).

The recent Binance document hack was because of lax security at a third party service which they were using to process documents for them. Their ToS clearly stated they could send users' documents to third parties for processing, although I bet the vast majority of users didn't know this. Perhaps they would have thought twice before undergoing KYC had they known. There is also no telling just how many third parties they used - one was hacked, why not the others? And of course, because these users agreed to this (even if they didn't read it) when they signed up to Binance, they have essentially zero chance of any legal recourse.

Because its shady practices to include some important informations hidden in walls of text.
If company is honest and we can trust it, they provide most important informations in very short version aside from TOS.
Its good business practices, thats why its not needed often to read TOS.

The fact that the Terms of service of different platforms are very lengthy. I never usually bother reading everything. To me its like a waste of time. Imagine you are trying to sign up quickly and then you first have to agree to you have read the ToS  

What i usually do is pick up the vital parts such as identity verification, country restrictions, conditions concerning deposits, withdrawals and the fees. That's enough for me to get started.

I do. I always do just to make sure I am never denied anything or that I do nbot make a mistake or something and not get paid or just genrally get myself into a situation I don't want to be in.
As soon as I see the words KYC I am gone. No need for that crap. All KYC is , is a way to monitor and control us. Take our money and make sure they try to tax us. They make a ppectical of it as if money laundery in crypto is so common (which btw it is not, it is actually not east to launder money using any method, money is laundered through fake fronts and made up over seas companies that hide behind overseas laws and stuff like that)
So that rendered KYC useless and not necessary.

People are so interested in getting your KYC but have you ever asked for theirs? Why must I give my KYC so some stranger and they won't even tell me their first name?

I also check for VPN connection. If they uptight about using a VPN for no good reason I won't use their service. (one day you login with a VPN by mistake and they close your account) rather not give them a reason.
Payment methods and withdraw restrictions.

If it is a site I fond work on I want to as least have some idea who I am working for or what I am working for if it is a company, so I research it. No point working and it turns out to be a scam.
I scrutinize projects usually ^^ Hey man my time is precious. So many of these bounty platforms are full of crap as well. You have to be so careful

Anyway, that is my experience.

Here's your missing quote from Sportsbet:

Nobody reads all the Terms and Conditions, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, User Policy, EULA, and so forth that they should. You would never be able to leave the house if you did. Every component in your computer has tons of legal jargon to go with it, as does the service which built your computer for you, your operating system, your browser, the websites you use, your ISP, your electricity provider, and so forth. It would take you a week just to be able to log on to this website if you insisted on reading the legal terms of everything you needed to use to get here. Companies have previously hidden cash prizes in their EULAs or similar, and it has taken months for them to be claimed despite thousands of downloads. There's also one of my favorites hidden in the Amazon Web Services Terms:


I would also recommend the following site: https://tosdr.org/ - Terms of Service; Didn't Read. It essentially provides easy to read and understand summaries of what you are agreeing to when you sign up to various sites. Unfortunately it doesn't have much crypto cover yet (Coinbase is the only site on there as far as I am aware), but a good resource nonetheless.

Usually I tried to read terms of service when I use any website especially if its related with money. Sometimes I read before registration and sometimes read after registration but obviously before send any funds to them. But I believe most of people's doesn't bother to read terms of service and eventually they fall in problem and make scam accusations if he/she is forum user.

So everyone should read terms of service or terms of conditions before or after registration, but before use them.

Most of them are too long to read, so that's obvious that most users never read this page before they register the site or read it after the support messaged the account holder related of breaking such terms. And mostly I did it too and read it some time after I registered. Nonetheless, if the site is related to finance the high chance that I read them first.

What is ToS?

It is Term of Service, abbreviated as ToS.
On some platforms, there is another term that used for the same purpose, called as a User Agreement.

There are lots of things presented in ToS, but there are some vital parts that you must read them carefully before doing deposits to your accounts. Because if you are not careful, you might lose your money, and those platforms have rights to reject your deposit returns when you fraud them, or violate their rules in ToS.

Don't take risks and waste your time by trying to cheat them with VPS, multiple accounts. Eventually, you will be found, and you will lose your money (original capital or profits from tradings/ gamblings).

Like in the forum, you can not break rules, plagiarise, then ask for forgiveness after being permanent banned. On exchanges/ casinos, you can not cheat/ abuse/ break their rules and ask for supports or forgiveness.

• Restrictions, such as restricted locations
• Number of allowable accounts: allow multi accounts/ linked-accounts or not.
• Restricted activities (discover by yourself)
• Identities verification (discover by yourself)
• More things

Another method to fastly get them (but you might miss some details) is reading FAQs

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Restricted locations
I give some examples from some exchanges and casinos

Bittrex

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My favorite things I usually do when I have intention to join new platforms, in orders of priority, is:
- Reading FAQs
- Reading Term of Service/ Term and Conditions/ User agreements. The exact phrase will depend on each platform.

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Pay your attention and keep you updated with changes on KYC requirements