Platform Policies

Refunds, returns and cancellations #

This policy applies to orders placed in Uni Market. Your contract is with the Seller, but because Noir collects the payment, we can and do return it where a refund is due. That is the practical protection this policy gives you.

Nothing here removes rights you have under Ghanaian law, including the Sale of Goods Act, 1962 (Act 137) and the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772).

Cancelling before an order is fulfilled

A Seller may also cancel — if an item sells out or they cannot fulfil. In that case you get a full refund automatically, including any delivery charge. Sellers who repeatedly cancel confirmed orders may have their shop suspended.

You always get a full refund if

• the item never arrived, or was not available at the agreed pickup point;
• it arrived damaged or faulty;
• it is materially different from the listing — wrong item, wrong size or colour, missing parts, or a fault the Seller did not disclose;
• it is counterfeit, or the Seller had no right to sell it; or
• the Seller does not respond to an order problem within 3 working days.

Where the item was not as described or was faulty, the delivery charge is refunded too, and the Seller pays the cost of returning it.

Changing your mind

Change-of-mind returns are at the Seller's discretion. Every shop publishes its own returns terms — read them before you buy. Where a Seller does accept a change-of-mind return, the item must be unused and in its original condition, and the Buyer normally pays return delivery.

Change-of-mind returns are not accepted at all for:

• Food and drink, including prepared meals and bottled drinks, for hygiene reasons;
• Underwear, swimwear and earrings, once the hygiene seal is broken;
• Digital products, once downloaded or accessed;
• Custom and personalised items made to your specification;
• Services already performed.

This exclusion is about change of mind only. If any of these is faulty, unsafe, or not as described — spoiled food, a digital file that does not work, a custom item that does not match what you agreed — you are still entitled to a full refund.

Second-hand and thrift items

Thrift and pre-owned items are sold in the condition described. Sellers must disclose wear, marks, alterations and repairs, and should give measurements rather than only a size label. A fault that was clearly described is not grounds for a refund. A fault that was not disclosed is.

How to raise a problem

1. Report it within 48 hours of receiving or collecting the order, through the order in your dashboard. For a fault that was not reasonably visible at first, report it within 7 days.
2. Include photographs where relevant. They resolve most disputes immediately.
3. Message the Seller first. Most problems are sorted directly, and quickly.
4. If you cannot agree within 3 working days, escalate to Noir from the same screen.

What we do then

We look at the listing, the messages, the photographs and the order record, and we ask both sides for their account. We aim to decide within 5 working days of escalation.

Where a refund is due, we pay it within 10 working days of the decision, by the same route the payment came in. Mobile money is usually much faster; card refunds depend on your bank.

Where a Seller has already been settled for a disputed order, we recover it from that Seller's next settlement.

Our decision resolves the matter on the platform. It does not affect either party's right to pursue the matter legally.

Donations and training fees

Donations are not refundable, unless made in error — contact us within 14 days and we will sort it out. Training fees are refundable in full if we cancel a programme before it starts; after a programme begins, refunds are at our discretion and depend on how much of it has run.

What may not be sold here #

Listing any of the following will have the listing removed, and may have the shop suspended. Some of these are criminal offences in Ghana, and we will report them where required.

Illegal or dangerous

• Weapons, ammunition, explosives, and knives sold as weapons.
• Illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.
• Prescription medicines, and any supplement or device sold with a claim to treat or cure a condition.
• Hazardous chemicals, and unlicensed skin-lightening products.
• Stolen goods, or anything you cannot prove you have the right to sell.
• Live animals, human remains, or bodily fluids.

Restricted or age-gated

• Alcohol, tobacco, vapes and nicotine products. We cannot verify age at checkout, so these are not permitted.
• Adult or sexual content, and any sexual service.
• Anything requiring a licence, permit or professional qualification the Seller does not hold.

Academic integrity

This is a platform for students, and the following are never permitted:

• Writing, or offering to write, an assignment, essay, thesis, or dissertation that will be submitted as someone else's work.
• Sitting an examination or test for someone else, or arranging for that.
• Selling or distributing leaked exam papers, marking schemes, or answer keys.
• Selling access to someone else's learning account or subscription.

Genuine tutoring, proofreading that does not change the substance of the work, research assistance, and study materials you created yourself are all fine.

Fraud and financial

• Currency, cryptocurrency, gift cards, vouchers, and airtime for resale.
• Investment schemes, "money doubling", multi-level marketing, and pyramid schemes.
• Account credentials, login details, and shared subscriptions.
• Personal data, contact lists, or databases.

Rights of others

• Counterfeits, replicas, and items using a brand you are not authorised to use.
• Pirated media, software, or course material.
• Photographs or designs you do not own or have permission to use — including using another shop's product photographs.

Food sellers — additional rules

Food and drink may be sold, and many of our sellers do. If you sell it you must:

• prepare and store it hygienically, and transport it in clean, sealed containers;
• state clearly what is in it, and flag common allergens — groundnut, dairy, egg, shellfish, gluten;
• state how long it keeps and how it should be stored;
• not sell anything past its usable date; and
• hold any licence or permit your institution or local authority requires.

Reports of unsafe food are treated as urgent and may result in immediate suspension while we look into it.

Seller policy #

Opening a shop is free. In return we ask you to run it properly.

Listings

• Use your own photographs of the actual item. Stock images of something you are not selling are misleading and will be removed.
• Describe the item accurately, including size, condition, materials, and any fault.
• Show the real price. Do not advertise a price you will not honour, or add unexpected charges after the order.
• Keep stock counts current. Repeatedly cancelling because something "is finished" damages every seller on the platform.
• List each item once. Duplicate listings to occupy more of the page will be removed.

Fulfilment

• Confirm or decline an order within 2 working days.
• Fulfil within the time you stated on your shop. If you will be late, say so early.
• Keep your delivery, pickup and returns terms accurate — buyers rely on them, and we apply them when we resolve a dispute.
• Meet buyers in a safe, public place for pickup. Do not ask a buyer to come to your room.

Getting paid

• Payment for an order is collected by Noir and settled to the mobile money details on your shop. Keep them correct — we cannot recover money sent to a wrong number you supplied.
• Settlement is made after an order is completed. We may hold it where an order is disputed, where we suspect fraud, or where the law requires.
• Do not ask buyers to pay you directly to avoid the platform. It removes their protection, and it is a breach of the Terms.
• You are responsible for your own tax on what you earn.

Conduct

Do not pressure a buyer to change or remove a review, offer anything in exchange for one, or retaliate against a buyer who left an honest one. Do not use a second account to review your own shop.

Buyer policy #

Sellers here are mostly students running a small business alongside their studies. A few things keep it working:

• Give accurate delivery details and a phone number that is switched on.
• Collect or accept delivery within the agreed window. Repeatedly failing to collect paid orders may cost you access to the Market.
• Read the shop's delivery and returns terms before ordering, especially for food and custom items.
• Raise problems through the platform first, with photographs. It gets resolved faster and it gives you a record.
• Leave honest reviews. Do not use a review to threaten a seller into a refund.
• Meet in safe, public places for pickup.

Fraudulent claims — saying an item never arrived when it did, or damaging an item to claim a refund — will result in your account being suspended, and we will pursue recovery.

Community and acceptable use #

This applies everywhere on the platform — profiles, galleries, listings, reviews, direct messages, channels and comments.

Not allowed

• Harassment — targeting someone with abuse, threats, intimidation, or repeated unwanted contact.
• Hate — attacking or degrading people on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.
• Sexual harassment, unsolicited sexual messages or images, and any sexual content involving minors, which we report to the authorities without exception.
• Doxxing — posting someone's phone number, address, or private information without their permission.
• Impersonation of another person, business, or Noir itself.
• Spam — bulk unsolicited messages, repetitive posting, or messaging users to promote something unrelated.
• Scams — advance-fee requests, fake listings, phishing, or directing users to pay off-platform for platform orders.
• Violent, graphic, or self-harm content.
• Attacks on the platform — malware, bulk scraping, probing our security, automated account creation, or accessing another user's account.

Expected

Be straight with people. Say what you mean in your listing. Turn up when you said you would. Disagree without being cruel. Most of the people you are dealing with are students building something, and reputations here are small and durable.

Reporting

Report anything that breaks these rules from the profile, listing or message concerned, or email [hello@noirgh.com]. We treat reports of safety risk, sexual content involving minors, and unsafe food as urgent. Reports are confidential — we do not tell the person who reported them.

Content and copyright #

You must own or have permission for everything you upload. Under the Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690), using someone else's photograph, design, music or writing without permission is an infringement — including using another shop's product photographs, or a track you do not have a licence for in a showreel.

If your work has been used without permission

Email [hello@noirgh.com] with:

• a link to the page on Noir where it appears;
• a description of your work and evidence that it is yours — the original file, an earlier publication, or a registration;
• your contact details; and
• a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised, and that the information you have given is accurate.

We aim to review within 5 working days. Where a complaint is well-founded we remove the content and tell the person who posted it. Repeat infringement results in account closure.

If your content was removed and you disagree

Reply to the notice we sent you explaining why you have the right to use it. If you are right, we restore it. Deliberately false complaints — used to knock down a competitor's listing — are themselves a breach of these policies.

Photographs of people

If someone identifiable appears in a photograph you upload, you must have their agreement. Anyone who appears in an image on this platform without agreeing can ask us to remove it at [privacy@noirgh.com], and we will.

Reviews policy #

Reviews are only useful if they are real, so the platform enforces this rather than relying on trust: you can only review an item you actually bought, on a completed order, once per order line.

Rules

• Write about the item and the transaction, from your own experience.
• Do not offer, request, or accept anything in exchange for a review — money, a discount, a free item, or a review in return.
• Do not review your own shop, or use another account to do it.
• Do not include anyone's phone number, address, or other personal details.
• Do not use a review to threaten a seller into a refund. Use the dispute process.

What we remove

We remove reviews that contain abuse or hate, personal data, spam or advertising, content unrelated to the purchase, or that we find to be bought, exchanged, or left by the seller.

We do not remove a review because the seller dislikes it. A low rating that reflects a real experience stays up.

Seller replies

Sellers may reply publicly, once, to any review. A reply is a good way to show how you handle a problem. Sellers cannot edit or delete reviews.

If your account closes

Reviews you left remain, since removing them would misrepresent the shop's history, but your name is removed from them.

Bookings and cancellations (engagements) #

This applies where an Employer books a Creative through the platform. The agreement is between those two — this policy sets the expectations we enforce on the platform.

Confirming

A booking is confirmed when the Creative accepts it. Both sides should have agreed the date, time, location, scope and fee before that point. Get it in writing on the platform — a booking recorded here is what we can help with later; a WhatsApp conversation is not.

Cancelling

Neither side is penalised for cancelling because of illness, bereavement, an accident, or something else genuinely outside their control. Tell the other party and us as early as you can.

Payment and disputes

Where payment runs through the platform, we release it once the engagement is recorded as complete. If there is a dispute about whether the work was done or done properly, either side can escalate to us, and we follow the same process and timescales as marketplace disputes in the Refunds section.

Safety

Creatives are entitled to know where they are going, who they are meeting, and what the work involves before accepting. If an engagement turns out to be materially different from what was described, or you feel unsafe, you may leave and report it to us at [hello@noirgh.com] — you will not be penalised, and we will look into the Employer.

Enforcement, suspension and appeals #

Where a policy is broken we respond proportionately. Depending on what happened, we may: remove content or a listing; issue a warning; limit a feature; hold a settlement; unlist a profile from the Directory; suspend a shop or account; or close an account permanently.

Immediate suspension without warning is reserved for serious cases — fraud, sexual content involving minors, threats of violence, unsafe food, or anything putting other users at real risk.

What we will tell you

Except where the law prevents it or where telling you would frustrate an investigation, we will tell you what was removed or restricted, which policy it breached, and how to appeal.

Appealing

Email [hello@noirgh.com] within 30 days with the subject "Appeal", explaining why you think the decision was wrong and including anything that supports it. The appeal is reviewed by someone who was not involved in the original decision. We aim to respond within 10 working days.

If we got it wrong we reverse it and restore what was removed. If we uphold it we will explain why.

Money owed

Suspension does not cancel money properly owed to you. Settlement for completed, undisputed orders is paid out even where an account is closed — less any refunds we are required to make.

Contact #

Reports, disputes and appeals: [hello@noirgh.com]
Privacy and data requests: [privacy@noirgh.com]
Phone: [+233 XX XXX XXXX]

These policies sit alongside our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.