Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of SPKRS, a peer-to-peer marketplace for premium audio equipment operated by Nate Evan Lukas Inc. By creating an account or using SPKRS you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you sell, you also agree to the Seller Agreement.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. You are responsible for your account and for keeping your credentials secure.

2. What SPKRS is

SPKRS is a venue: sales contracts are between the buyer and the seller. Items are physical goods listed by their sellers, and either posted to the buyer or collected in person. Payments are processed by Stripe; SPKRS holds sale proceeds in escrow until delivery or collection is confirmed. SPKRS is not a party to the sale, does not take ownership of items, and (except for the escrow mechanics described here) is not a payment beneficiary beyond its service fees.

3. Buying

• The checkout total is the listed item price plus a 5% SPKRS service fee (shown as its own line item) and any shipping charges.
• Funds are held in escrow from the moment you pay. On a posted order, after the seller ships (with tracking) and you confirm delivery, funds are released to the seller 3 days later. If something is wrong with your order, report an issue from the order within that window.
• If you don't confirm or report within 14 days of shipment, the order is treated as delivered.
• Some listings are collected in person rather than posted. Those orders run on a different clock. See Section 4.

4. Local pickup (collection)

Some listings are collected in person instead of being posted. A collection is still a SPKRS sale: the buyer pays through SPKRS at checkout and the money is held in escrow from the moment they pay. Paying the seller in cash, by transfer, or in any other way arranged at the meeting is fee circumvention under Section 6, and leaves both sides with no escrow, no dispute route, and no order record.

• Buyer and seller agree the time and place between themselves. Keep that in SPKRS messages. It is the record if the collection is ever questioned.
• Meet in a public place.
• The seller must not hand the item over until the sale is showing in their SPKRS orders. If it isn’t showing, they have not been paid.
• The buyer confirms collection from the order once the item is physically in their hands. Funds release to the seller 3 days after that confirmation, and those 3 days are the buyer’s window to report an issue.
• If the buyer never confirms, the collection is treated as complete 30 days after purchase, and funds release 3 days after that, so 33 days from payment at the outside. The buyer is warned 3 days before that deadline. This clock runs from payment, not from the meeting, and it is a separate backstop from the 14-day shipped-order one in Section 3.

SPKRS does not mediate the meeting itself. We are not present, we do not vet or approve the location, we do not verify who turns up, and we cannot establish what was said or handed over. How you meet, and whether you meet at all, is entirely between you. Escrow, the dispute process in Section 8, and the reporting and blocking tools still apply to the order. They do not apply to the meeting.

5. Selling

Sellers must set up a payout account through Stripe, which verifies every seller (individuals and businesses) before they can be paid, and accept the Seller Agreement. Fees, shipping requirements, and payout timing are set out in the Seller Agreement.

6. Prohibited items and conduct

• Counterfeit, stolen, or misrepresented items.
• Items you do not own or physically possess.
• Anything illegal to sell or ship in the buyer's or seller's jurisdiction.
• Fee circumvention (arranging payment outside SPKRS), spam, harassment, or fraudulent activity.

7. Content and moderation

You retain rights to content you post and grant SPKRS a license to display it in connection with the service. Listings pass automated and human review; we may remove content, decline listings, or suspend accounts that violate these Terms. You can report listings, messages, or users in-app, and block other users. We review reports promptly.

8. Copyright and DMCA

Sellers upload their own photos and descriptions. If you own a copyright and believe material on SPKRS infringes it, send a notice to our designated agent, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office as DMCA-1078681:

Lukas LeChau, Designated Agent
Nate Evan Lukas Inc.
31757 Oak Ranch Court, Westlake Village, CA 91361, United States
Phone: 805 572 3589
Email: nle@spkrs.org

To be effective, a notice must include: your physical or electronic signature; identification of the copyrighted work; identification of the material you say is infringing and where it is on SPKRS; your contact details; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for them.

We remove or disable material promptly on a valid notice and tell the seller. If you believe your material was removed by mistake you may send a counter-notification with the same contact details, identifying the material and consenting to the jurisdiction of the federal court for your district. We may restore the material after 10 business days unless the original complainant tells us they have filed suit.

Repeat infringers lose their accounts. We keep a record of notices we act on, and we terminate sellers who repeatedly infringe. Misrepresenting that material is infringing can make you liable for damages, including costs and legal fees.

9. Disputes between buyers and sellers

Report order issues from the order, within the inspection window shown on the order. SPKRS reviews disputes and decides within 10 business days of the report, and may withhold escrowed funds, refund the buyer, or release funds to the seller based on the evidence. If the seller does not respond to the report within 5 business days, the buyer is refunded automatically. Where the seller does respond, SPKRS reviews both sides and decides within 10 business days. A refund to a buyer is the full amount charged them: the item and the service fee. Buyers are not charged postage.

For as long as a report is open, the escrowed funds are never released to the seller. That does not depend on SPKRS acting within any deadline.

SPKRS does not insure shipments. Transit loss or damage falls to the seller, less any carrier recovery; this does not affect or delay the buyer's refund. Full detail is in Buyer Protection. Chargeback outcomes follow the card network's rules.

10. Returns

SPKRS does not accept returns. There is no change-of-mind return once an item has been delivered or collected. Hi-fi is sold used, by the person who owned it, and a sale here is final unless something was genuinely wrong with it. What you have instead is set out below, and it is the same set of remedies as Section 8.

Before the seller dispatches

• You can ask to cancel from the order, for either of two reasons: you have changed your mind, or you gave a delivery address the item cannot be sent to. This is a request, not a cancellation, and no money moves when you file it.
• The seller has 24 hours to answer. If they do not, the request is approved automatically and you are refunded. If they decline inside those 24 hours, the sale goes ahead. On a small number of orders the seller’s answer is required and nothing is automatic — the order screen says so where that applies. Either way, an order that is never shipped is cancelled and refunded in full by SPKRS’s own deadline.
• One request per order. A declined request cannot be re-filed, and reporting an issue after delivery is still open to you.
• A cancellation refunds the whole amount charged to your card: the item, the SPKRS service fee, and any postage on an older order that carried one.
• Two things close this window. Once the item is with a carrier it can no longer be cancelled, and once a seller has booked and paid a freight carrier for it (they upload the paperwork that proves it) a request is refused, because there is no way for them to recover that cost.
• A seller may also cancel their own sale before dispatch, without asking. You are refunded in full and the listing goes back on sale.

After delivery or collection

A refund once you have the item is available on three grounds only: it arrived damaged, it is not as described, or it never arrived. Not liking it, having no room for it, or finding it cheaper elsewhere is not one of them.

• Report it from the order, inside the inspection window shown on that order. The window starts at delivery, or at your confirmation on a collection, and it is longer on more expensive items. The exact lengths are in Buyer Protection.
• Reporting freezes the escrowed funds. Nothing reaches the seller while a report is open.
• The deadlines in Section 8 then apply: the seller answers within 5 business days or you are refunded automatically, and where they do answer, SPKRS decides within 10 business days.
• A refund is the full amount charged to you: the item and the service fee. Buyers are not charged postage, so there is nothing there to refund.
• Let the window close with no report and the funds release to the seller. After that there is nothing left in escrow to refund from.

A refund is not a return. Where a report is decided for the buyer, the money goes back to the card that paid it; whether the item is sent back, and at whose cost, is settled between the buyer and the seller. SPKRS does not issue return labels and is not a party to any return shipment.

11. Account deletion and termination

You may delete your account anytime in Settings (balances and open orders must be resolved first). We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms. Sections that by nature survive termination (fees owed, dispute obligations, liability limits) survive.

12. Disclaimers and liability

SPKRS is provided "as is". To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim implied warranties and are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the greater of $100 or the fees you paid SPKRS in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. Venue for disputes with SPKRS is the state or federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California.

14. Changes

We may update these Terms; material changes will be posted here with a new effective date. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

Contact

Nate Evan Lukas Inc. · Westlake Village, CA · nle@spkrs.org