The short version
You pay to put a phrase, and optionally your name, on a public board. Every dollar buys one day during which nobody can take it from you — $1 buys a day, $100 buys 100 days, and nothing shortens that. What is limited is how much one claim may pay, not how many days it buys. After the days run out it stays yours until somebody pays more. When they do, you get nothing back. There are no refunds. This is a novelty, not an investment, and nothing you buy here is property, a security, or a trademark.
What a claim costs
- A phrase nobody holds costs $1.
- Taking a phrase from its current holder costs at least $1 more than they paid.
- Whole dollars only, and every dollar buys another day.
- One claim may add at most $3,700 on top of what the phrase already costs — about ten years of days. A phrase nobody holds therefore tops out at $3,700, and every claim after that raises the ceiling by what was already paid. It rises with the price, so no phrase is ever put out of reach.
- Your card is authorized when you check out and charged only if your claim succeeds. If somebody beats you to it, the authorization is canceled and you are not charged, though your bank may take a few days to release the hold.
The hold
One dollar buys one day. There is no ceiling on days — the ceiling is on what a single claim may pay, described above. During the hold nobody can take the phrase at any price. When the hold lapses the phrase stays yours and the price stays where it is until somebody pays more.
A large payment buys a long promise, so read the next section. $500 buys roughly sixteen months. We intend to keep the site running, but we do not guarantee it, and a hold that outlives the site is not refunded.
Refunds are only possible within 7 days of a claim. After that a claim is final, however long the hold you bought still has to run.
Giving
Claim a phrase for $5 or more and name a nonprofit, and 40% of what you pay goes to it. Skip that and we keep it. Naming one is optional and nothing about your claim depends on it.
The list of nonprofits starts empty and grows from buyer requests. If yours is not listed you can ask us to add it, and we check it against the IRS register of exempt organizations within 14 days. Your phrase is yours either way — a request never delays or blocks a claim. If we cannot verify the organization, we either keep the money or refund your claim in full, depending on the box you checked. After 14 days, we keep it.
Chosen by claimaphrase buyers. These organizations have not partnered with or endorsed claimaphrase.
We donate after 120 days, once the window for a card dispute has passed. Until then the money stays with us and shows on the giving page as pledged rather than sent.
The donation totals on the giving page come from claims we collected. Phrases the site listed itself are not sales and are not counted.
Organizations are checked against IRS data via the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
Photos on the giving page: Unsplash. The people shown are not claimaphrase buyers and are not connected to the organizations named there.
Your payment is not a charitable contribution and is not tax-deductible to you. You are buying a hold on a phrase. We make the donation ourselves, from our own revenue, and the receipt belongs to us.
No refunds
Claims are final. We do not refund because you changed your mind, because somebody took the phrase from you, or because you paid more than you meant to. The only refunds we issue are ones we choose to issue when we remove content under the section below, and even then only to the current holder and only within 7 days of the claim.
One further case: if you asked us to add a nonprofit and checked the box asking to be refunded, and within 14 days of your claim we could not verify it or removed it, we refund the whole claim. That is the only refund you can ask for rather than receive at our discretion.
Charges appear on your statement as MOBLIZE.IT* CLAIMAPHRA, because the card account belongs to our parent company. If you do not recognize a charge, write to support@claimaphrase.com before disputing it — we can almost always resolve it faster than your bank can.
What you may not claim
Anything you submit is published to a public page. Do not claim phrases that contain somebody's phone number, email address or home address; that impersonate a real person or organization; that harass or threaten anybody; or that you do not have the right to publish. Some of this is refused automatically before you pay. The rest is not.
Removal
We can remove any phrase at any time, for any reason, without notice. In practice we remove things that break the section above or that we are legally required to remove. Removal frees the wording to be claimed again at $1 by anybody, including you.
To report something, write to support@claimaphrase.com with the phrase and why. There is no report button yet.
If a phrase is locked you can ask to be told when it opens. We send that one message and delete your address with it. We do not promise the message will arrive, or arrive promptly, and somebody may take the phrase before you read it — being told first is not being given a head start.
Duplicates
Two phrases that differ only by punctuation, spacing or capitalization count as the same claim, so only one of them can be held at a time. Accented characters are treated as distinct from unaccented ones. If your phrase is refused as a duplicate you are not charged.
No guarantees
The site is provided as it is. We do not promise it will stay online, that any phrase will remain claimable, or that the board will be free of content you dislike. We may change these terms or shut the site down.
If we shut it down we will not owe you anything for holds that have not expired. Since a dollar buys a day, a large payment can buy a hold longer than the site lasts, and that risk is yours. Pay what the days are worth to you today, not what you hope they will be worth later. This is a novelty, not an investment.
Contact
support@claimaphrase.com