Terms of Service

By creating a FenceChat™ account, you agree to these Terms of Service. FenceChat is operated by ROHAJO Pty Ltd t/a FenceChat (ABN 94 699 691 640), based in Australia (“FenceChat”, “we”, “us”). These terms apply worldwide, with additional provisions for users in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union / EEA. These terms apply from the moment you access or activate a FenceChat account or trial, before any payment is made. Using the service in any capacity, including during a free trial, constitutes acceptance of these terms in full.

1. The service

FenceChat provides a communication privacy service that filters incoming email and SMS messages to remove hostile, abusive, or emotionally manipulative content before delivering them to you. Filtered messages are delivered to your email inbox and your FenceChat Dashboard. On plans that include SMS, you can optionally have filtered texts also forwarded to your own phone by SMS; this option uses your plan’s SMS send allowance (described below). The service includes:

• A personal FenceChat email address (e.g. yourname@fencechat.com) and, on higher plans, a FenceChat SMS number
• AI-powered filtering of messages sent to your FenceChat address
• An encrypted archive of your original and filtered messages
• Dashboard access to view, manage, and export your messages

SMS sender registration: SMS filtering works with the contacts you add. Your FenceChat number only receives messages from mobile numbers you have registered in your contacts. Unknown numbers, strangers, and spam never get through. To activate SMS for a person, you add their mobile number in your Dashboard and FenceChat gives you the FenceChat number to share with them. You can register up to 10 SMS contacts. If you need more, contact us and we’ll help.

Your FenceChat number: Your FenceChat number is provided by us for use within FenceChat only. It is not issued to you, you do not gain any rights to it, it cannot be transferred or moved to another provider, and we may change the FenceChat number assigned to a contact if we need to (we will tell you if this happens).

SMS sends: Each plan that includes SMS comes with a monthly allowance of “SMS sends”. An SMS send is a text message FenceChat sends on your behalf: an SMS reply you send to a contact, or a filtered text forwarded to your own phone where you have turned that option on. A send to a mobile number in a different FenceChat country from yours counts as two sends. Receiving SMS is never limited or charged, and delivery of filtered texts to your email inbox and Dashboard is always free and unlimited. When your monthly SMS sends are used, incoming texts continue to arrive by email and Dashboard as normal. Your SMS sends reset each month on the same day of the month as your billing date. This applies to both monthly and annual plans: an annual plan includes the same monthly allowance as a monthly plan, not a year’s allowance at once. Unused SMS sends do not carry over to the next month. The allowance for each plan in your country is shown on the Plans page and in your Dashboard. Free trials include a fixed allowance of 30 SMS sends; your full plan allowance starts with your subscription.

SMS top-up credits: Where offered, you may purchase additional SMS send credits. Credits never expire while your account remains open; unused credits are forfeited if you close your account, except where a refund is required by applicable consumer protection law. The account-closure process will remind you of any unused credits before you confirm.

Sender SMS costs: A FenceChat number works like any other mobile number for the person texting it. Senders pay their own carrier’s standard messaging rates (or use their plan’s message allowance) for SMS they send to a FenceChat number, exactly as if texting any ordinary number, and international rates may apply if they are texting from another country. FenceChat does not charge senders and has no control over senders’ carrier charges.

Cross-border messages and feature availability by country: Email filtering works with senders anywhere in the world. SMS filtering works with mobile numbers in the countries where FenceChat operates: senders in those countries can text your FenceChat number (their carrier’s international rates may apply to them), and SMS replies can be sent to mobile numbers in those countries. FenceChat enters countries progressively, and not all features may be available in every country at launch. For example, a country may have email filtering before SMS filtering becomes available there. Your Dashboard reflects the features available on your account, and we will update this section as availability changes.

2. Eligibility and accounts

To use FenceChat you must be at least 18 years of age (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, if higher) and capable of forming a legally binding contract. By creating an account, you confirm that you meet these requirements.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at support@fencechat.com if you suspect unauthorised access.

You may only have one FenceChat account. Creating duplicate accounts to circumvent plan limits or restrictions is not permitted.

Where FenceChat is available: FenceChat is currently available to residents of Australia only. We may decline or defer registrations from other regions until FenceChat launches there. If you are outside Australia, you can join the launch list on our sign-up page to be told when FenceChat becomes available in your country.

3. Subscriptions and billing

FenceChat is offered on a monthly or annual subscription basis. Subscription fees are charged in Australian dollars (AUD) and are billed in advance on a recurring basis.

• Free trial: You add a card when you sign up, but you are not charged then. Filtering starts straight away. Your free trial starts the first time FenceChat’s filter changes a message sent to you, and lasts 30 days (45 days if a partner referred you). You are first charged when the trial ends, unless you cancel before then. If no message has been changed within 45 days of signing up (90 days if a partner referred you), the trial ends without any charge. The privacy policy explains how we decide when a message has been changed. A card can be used for up to three FenceChat accounts.
• Billing: After the trial, your subscription renews automatically each month, or each year if you chose annual billing. You authorise us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis.
• Price changes: We will give you at least 30 days’ written notice before any price increase. You can cancel at any time before the new price takes effect and you will not be charged it. If you keep using the service after that date, the new price applies.
• Refunds: Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law come first: where the service has a major failure you may cancel and get a refund, and you may be entitled to a remedy for other failures as well. Section 10 sets those rights out in full. Other consumer protection laws that apply to you have the same effect, including the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act and the 14-day cooling-off right described in the UK section above. Apart from those rights, fees are not refunded once a billing period has begun.
• If a payment fails: We will try the payment again. While we do, email and incoming texts keep working as normal. After 72 hours, texts FenceChat sends for you (your SMS replies, and texts forwarded to your phone) are paused until the payment goes through. If you have text forwarding on, short safety alerts about a message flagged as a threat keep being sent. If the payment still cannot be collected, your subscription ends and FenceChat becomes Paused, as described in section 11.

All payments are processed by our payment provider, named in our Privacy Policy. FenceChat never sees or stores your full card details. By providing payment details, you also agree to the payment provider’s terms, which are linked on the payment page.

4. Plan limits and downgrading

Each subscription plan has specific features and archive limits. These are described on our Plans page.

While your account is active, each plan keeps your messages for its archive period, counted from when each message arrived: 30 days on Essential, 90 days on Protected and 24 months on Legal. Older messages are permanently deleted. If you move to a plan with a shorter archive period, older messages are kept for 30 days in case you change back, then deleted, so export anything you want to keep first. Your contacts are not deleted because of a plan change.

5. Acceptable use

You agree to use FenceChat only for lawful purposes. You must not:

• Use FenceChat to capture or read communications that are not meant for you, for example by giving out a FenceChat address or number in place of someone else’s
• Use FenceChat for any unlawful purpose, including to harass, stalk, or threaten others
• Use FenceChat to contact a person in a way that breaches a court order, including an apprehended violence order, intervention order, protection order, parenting order, or a bail or parole condition. FenceChat routes and filters messages. It does not change what an order requires or allows, and it is not a means of working around a contact restriction. If an order applies to you, check its terms or ask your lawyer before using the service to communicate with the protected person.
• Attempt to access another user’s account or messages
• Interfere with or disrupt the operation of FenceChat or its infrastructure
• Use FenceChat for high-volume commercial messaging or spam
• Resell or sublicense access to FenceChat without written permission
• Use FenceChat to send, receive, store, or distribute child sexual exploitation material, pro-terror material, or material depicting or promoting extreme violence or serious crime
• Use FenceChat to share or threaten to share intimate images of a person without their consent, to groom a child, or to pressure anyone into sending sexual images or money (sextortion)

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms without notice. You can report a breach of these rules on our Online safety page.

Unlawful material

If we become aware of unlawful material (in particular child sexual exploitation material or pro-terror material) passing through or stored on the service, we will report it to the relevant authorities. Depending on the jurisdiction, this may include the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, the eSafety Commissioner, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (US), or the police. We may preserve the material and related account information as required by law, and in some cases the law prohibits us from telling the account holder or sender that a report has been made.

Fair use

FenceChat plans are designed for genuine personal use by one person. To keep the service fair and affordable for everyone, you must not:

• Share your account, or allow anyone else to send or receive messages through it, except where your plan expressly permits this
• Create or use multiple accounts, or repeatedly open new trials, to obtain free use of the service or to avoid plan limits, pricing, or a previous suspension or termination
• Use scripts, bots, or automated tools to send messages through, extract data from, or otherwise interact with the service other than through its normal interfaces
• Abuse promotional offers, referral codes, discounts, or refund processes
• Deliberately circumvent, manipulate, or exploit plan limits, usage limits (including the SMS send allowance), filtering behaviour, or billing mechanisms, or otherwise use the service in a way that is clearly inconsistent with its intended operation as a personal communication filtering service

Sustained high-volume inbound SMS: Receiving texts is unlimited and we never silently block messages addressed to you. If an account receives sustained, unusually high volumes of inbound SMS over an extended period (for example, consistently more than 25 messages a day for a month), we may contact you to discuss whether FenceChat remains the right fit for the situation, or whether a different arrangement is needed. We will always talk to you first: receiving messages will not be restricted without a conversation.

If we reasonably believe your use breaches this fair use policy, we may contact you to resolve the issue, restrict the relevant activity, or suspend or terminate your account. Where practical we will warn you first, but for deliberate or serious abuse we may suspend or terminate without notice. Nothing in this section affects rights you hold under applicable consumer protection law.

6. Message content and AI filtering

FenceChat uses AI to filter message content. Important points about how this works:

• The AI filtering system is not perfect. Some hostile content may pass through; some benign content may be filtered. We provide access to original messages so you can review what was sent.
• FenceChat does not read your messages for any purpose other than filtering them on your behalf. We do not use message content for advertising or to train AI models.
• You retain ownership of all messages and content processed through your FenceChat account.
• FenceChat is a relay and filter service, not a legal evidence-gathering service. While we provide archive and export features for the Legal plan, you should seek independent legal advice about how to use message records in legal proceedings.
• The filter also labels the kinds of language it finds, such as contempt or controlling language. A label describes the wording of a message only. It is not a finding about the sender, and FenceChat does not decide whether any law has been broken.
• FenceChat is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Nothing in the service, its guides, or its communications constitutes legal advice.

Attachment handling

FenceChat treats email attachments as follows, and by using the service you acknowledge and accept these behaviours:

• Executable and archive files (.exe, .bat, .zip, .rar, and similar formats) are permanently stripped before forwarding, as they pose a security risk. You will receive a notice in the forwarded email listing any files that were removed. These files are not stored and cannot be recovered. If a removed file contained documents you need, ask the sender to send them as separate files (for example PDFs).
• Plain text files (.txt, .csv, .log, and similar) are scanned for hostile or abusive content using AI. If hostile content is detected you receive a filtered copy of the file instead, with the hostile words removed and the facts kept, and the forwarded email says so. The original file is not stored and cannot be retrieved. If no hostile content is detected the file is forwarded to you exactly as received, unmodified.
• Documents, images, and all other file types (PDF, Word, Excel, images, etc.) are always forwarded exactly as received. FenceChat does not scan or modify these files.

Because FenceChat does not store attachment file content, a removed attachment, or the original of a filtered text file, is permanently gone from our systems. If you need it, ask the sender to send it again, or to send it straight to your own email address. Removing or filtering an attachment that contains harmful or hostile content is the service working as described. If you believe an attachment was discarded in error, please tell us. We cannot recover it, but if you can get a copy from the sender, we will check how the filter treated it. Your rights if we have not supplied the service with due care and skill are set out in section 10, and we do not limit them.

7. Your FenceChat address

Your FenceChat address and number are the point of contact you choose to give people. When someone writes to them, the message is delivered to FenceChat as its destination, and we filter it there before forwarding it to your own inbox or phone.

Your FenceChat address (e.g. yourname@fencechat.com) is a licence, not a perpetual right. It is allocated to you for as long as your account remains active. If your account is closed or terminated, your address may be re-allocated after a reasonable period.

You chose your address at signup and it cannot be changed. Choose carefully: addresses that impersonate real people or organisations, or that are offensive, may be cancelled.

8. Availability and service levels

We aim to provide a highly reliable service but we cannot guarantee 100% uptime (the service being available and working without interruption). Planned maintenance windows will be communicated in advance where possible. We do not promise uninterrupted service, and an outage is not by itself a breach of these terms. Where an outage happens because we have not supplied the service with due care and skill, your rights are the ones set out in section 10, and we do not limit them.

Messages sent to your FenceChat address during an outage may be delayed or, in rare cases, lost. We recommend not relying solely on FenceChat for time-critical communications.

FenceChat is not an emergency service. FenceChat addresses and numbers cannot contact 000 or any other emergency service, and messages sent to them are not monitored by anyone who can respond to an emergency. If you or anyone else is in danger, call 000.

9. Intellectual property

Our content and platform

All content, design, code, and branding on FenceChat, excluding messages and content you create, is owned by FenceChat and protected by copyright and other applicable intellectual property laws. This includes but is not limited to: the website, Dashboard, user interface, filtering logic, guide articles, marketing copy, and all visual design elements.

FenceChat name and logo

FenceChat™ is a trade mark of ROHAJO Pty Ltd. The name “FenceChat”, the FenceChat logo, and the FenceChat logomark (the stylised fence/message icon) are proprietary brand assets of ROHAJO Pty Ltd. All rights in these marks are reserved. You may not:

• Use the FenceChat name, logo, or logomark in any way that implies endorsement, partnership, or affiliation with FenceChat without our prior written consent.
• Reproduce, adapt, modify, or create derivative works from the FenceChat logo or logomark.
• Use any name, logo, or mark confusingly similar to FenceChat’s in connection with any product or service.
• Register or attempt to register any domain name, company name, social media handle, or application name that incorporates “FenceChat” or any confusingly similar term.

You may refer to FenceChat by name in a factual, descriptive manner (for example, “I use FenceChat to filter my messages”) and you may link to fencechat.com. These uses do not require our permission. Any other use of our name or brand assets requires written approval from us.

Your content

You retain full ownership of all messages and content processed through your FenceChat account. By using FenceChat, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to process, store, filter, and transmit your messages solely for the purpose of providing the service to you. This licence ends when your account is closed and your data is deleted. We do not use the content of your messages for any purpose other than delivering the service.

Feedback and suggestions

If you submit feedback, feature suggestions, or ideas to FenceChat, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use and implement that feedback without any obligation to you. We appreciate hearing from users, but we cannot treat submissions as confidential or compensate you for ideas we choose to act on.

10. Liability, and your consumer rights

What the Australian Consumer Law gives you

FenceChat is a service of a kind ordinarily bought for personal, domestic or household use, so the consumer guarantees apply to it. Among other things, we must supply the service with due care and skill; it must be reasonably fit for any purpose you tell us you want it for, and of a nature and quality that can reasonably be expected to achieve any result you tell us you want; and where no time has been agreed, it must be supplied within a reasonable time. Those guarantees cannot be signed away, and we do not try to. The ACCC’s consumer guarantees guide explains these rights in full, and if anything here reads differently, the law applies.

If we fail to meet one of them:

• For a major failure, you can cancel your subscription and get a refund, or keep the service and claim compensation for the drop in its value.
• For a failure that is not major, you can ask us to fix the problem within a reasonable time. If we do not, you can cancel and get a refund, or have the problem fixed elsewhere and recover the reasonable cost from us.
• In either case, you can also claim compensation for other loss or damage you suffer that was reasonably foreseeable as a result of the failure.

The law does not let us limit any of that, and the limits set out below do not apply to it. Because FenceChat is a personal-use service, we also cannot cut our liability down to simply supplying the service again, and we make no such claim.

What we never limit

• Liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.
• Liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything we do deliberately or recklessly.
• Our obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
• Anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

What we do limit, where the law allows it

Apart from the rights set out above, and only so far as the law allows, our total liability to you for all claims arising from these terms or your use of the service is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose and A$250. On the same basis, we are not liable for loss of profits, loss of business, or loss of anticipated savings.

These limits do not reduce anything you can recover under the consumer guarantees, and they do not apply to the four items listed immediately above.

What the service does, and what it does not promise

The points below describe how FenceChat works and what we are and are not promising. They are a description of the service you are buying, not an attempt to remove your rights.

• Messages we filter are changed, and messages or attachments we discard do not reach you. That is the service working as described rather than a fault in it.
• The filter is an AI model. It will sometimes be wrong in both directions: removing something harmless, or letting through something it should have caught. Nobody can promise a perfect filter and we do not. What we do promise, and what the law holds us to, is to run it with due care and skill.
• The version of a message you read may differ from what the sender wrote. Both versions are kept in your archive, so you can always see what changed.
• We do not promise that a FenceChat record or export will be accepted as evidence by any court or tribunal. That decision belongs to the court.
• FenceChat is not a channel for urgent or safety-critical messages. Keep another way of being reached for anything urgent, and do not use FenceChat to contact someone in a way that breaches a court order.

If we fail to supply the service with due care and skill, your rights under the consumer guarantees apply, whatever else these terms say.

These terms apply during a free trial in the same way as on a paid plan, and so do your consumer rights.

11. Termination

By you: You may cancel your subscription at any time from your Billing page or by emailing support@fencechat.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You can export your message archive before cancelling.

By us: We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms (including the acceptable use and fair use provisions in Section 5), if your payment repeatedly fails, or if we discontinue the service. We will give you reasonable notice except in cases of serious or deliberate breach. On termination, your data is retained for 30 days to allow export, then deleted.

If your plan ends or you cancel (Paused)

If your free trial ends without you starting a paid plan, or you cancel a paid plan, your account stays open but FenceChat is Paused. Your real email address and mobile number stay private at every stage. They are never shared with anyone, whether your plan is Active, Paused, or closed.

While FenceChat is Paused:

• Email continues to be filtered and delivered for 14 days after your plan ends, giving you time to decide. After that, incoming emails are held rather than delivered.
• SMS stops being delivered straight away. Incoming texts are held rather than delivered.

A “held” message is one we have received and stored in your Archive but not delivered. Held messages are not lost, and you can still read them in your Archive while you are Paused. We keep each held message for 90 days from the day it arrives, then permanently delete it. We send you a reminder before that happens, so you can export or reactivate.

If you reactivate within that time, FenceChat starts filtering and delivering new messages again, and your held messages stay in your Archive for you to read. Held messages are never sent to your inbox or phone in a batch. They remain in your Archive, so you are never flooded with older messages.

Your existing archive. Messages that were already delivered and stored in your Archive before your plan paused stay readable, and you can still export them, for 12 months from the day your plan pauses. After 12 months they are permanently deleted. We send you a reminder before that happens, so you can export anything you want to keep.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms of Service from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or Dashboard notice at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of FenceChat after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated terms. If you disagree with changes, you may cancel your subscription before they take effect.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, except where overridden by mandatory consumer protection laws in your jurisdiction (including UK consumer law and applicable US state laws as noted above).

14. Your responsibility for your use

You are responsible for how you use FenceChat and for the content you direct through it. To the extent permitted by law, you agree to reimburse FenceChat for any loss, cost, or third-party claim that arises directly from your unlawful use of the service, from content you route through it that breaches someone else’s rights or any law, or from your breach of these terms. This does not apply to anything caused by FenceChat’s own conduct, and nothing in this section limits or excludes any rights or guarantees you have under the Australian Consumer Law or other consumer protection laws that cannot be excluded by contract.

15. Severability and waiver

If any part of these terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, that part is read down or removed to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest of the terms continue in full force. If we do not enforce a right or provision on any occasion, that is not a waiver of that right or provision, and does not prevent us from enforcing it later.

16. Assignment

We may transfer or assign these terms, and our rights and obligations under them, to another entity (for example, as part of a sale, merger, restructure, or transfer of the FenceChat business), provided your rights under these terms are not reduced. Any such transfer of your personal information is handled as described in our Privacy Policy. You may not transfer or assign your account or these terms to anyone else without our written consent.

17. Entire agreement

These Terms of Service, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and FenceChat regarding your use of the service. They supersede any prior agreements or representations.