Terms of service

About these terms

These terms of service are an agreement between you and Throttle Marketplace (“Throttle”, “we”, “us”). Throttle Marketplace is a trade name. Under it we run the Throttle mobile app and this website at throttlemarketplace.com (together, the “service”).

Throttle Marketplace is being organized as a New York limited liability company. When it’s formed, these terms and our privacy policy transfer to it and we’ll post its legal name here.

These terms apply to everyone who uses Throttle, with or without an account. You accept them when you create an account or use the service. When you sign in, the app tells you that by continuing you agree to these terms and our privacy policy. If you don’t agree, don’t use Throttle. If you use it for a business, you accept these terms for that business and confirm you have the authority to do so.

Our community standards are part of these terms. Our privacy policy explains how we handle your information. Our safety guide is advice, not part of this agreement.

These terms include an agreement to resolve disputes in individual arbitration and a waiver of class actions and jury trials. See Resolving disputes, including how to opt out.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Throttle changes. We’ll post the new version here with a new “Last updated” date. If a change is material, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.

If you keep using Throttle after a change takes effect, you accept the new terms. If you don’t agree, stop using the service and delete your account. A change doesn’t apply to a dispute you or we gave notice of before the change was posted.

Who can use Throttle

• United States only. Throttle is offered in the United States only. Signing in with a phone number needs a US mobile number, and the vehicles you list must be located in the US.
• 18 or older for an account. You must be 18 or older to create an account. Browsing doesn’t need one. The app asks you to confirm you’re 18 or older when you create your account and signs you out if you don’t. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we’ll close it.
• One person per account. Your account is for you alone. Don’t share it, sell it or let anyone else use it. Don’t open another account to get around a suspension or ban. Choose a display name that doesn’t pretend to be another person or a business you don’t represent.
• Not if you’re barred. You can’t use Throttle if we’ve banned you, or if US law bars you from using it.

Business mode

If you sell vehicles as a business, as a dealer or on a dealer’s behalf, turn on business mode in the app before you list. To turn it on, you confirm: “I confirm this is a licensed vehicle business and I’ll follow the advertising rules where I sell.”

In business mode, your business name, license number and state, business phone, website, address and hours appear on a public dealer page. A license shows as “Declared dealer” unless Throttle has checked it. You’re responsible for the licensing, advertising and disclosure rules that apply to your business.

If you list several vehicles in a year from a private account, we may ask whether you’re selling as a business. We may limit or remove your listings until you turn on business mode.

Your account and sign-in

Throttle doesn’t use passwords. You sign in with a one-time code that we text to your US mobile number. Each code works once. Where it’s offered, you can also use Sign in with Apple on iPhone. Your Apple ID is covered by Apple’s own terms.

• Keep your phone and your codes to yourself. Throttle staff don’t ask for sign-in codes, so anyone who does is trying to get into your account.
• You’re responsible for what happens on your account. If you think someone else has gotten into your account, or you’ve lost access to your number, email us at support@throttlemarketplace.com.
• If your number changes, update it in the app before you give up the old one. Numbers get reassigned, and whoever gets your old number could receive your codes.
• Keep your account details accurate. We may ask you to confirm your phone number again, for example after a report.

Text messages

Throttle texts one-time codes to your mobile number when you ask for one: to sign you in, to confirm a new number and to confirm it’s you before you delete your account. We send one message per request. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help, or email support@throttlemarketplace.com. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

We send only these codes. We don’t send marketing texts. We do not share your mobile number or SMS opt-in data with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

If you opt out, we can’t text you codes, so you won’t be able to sign in with that number until you opt back in. To opt back in, reply START to the number the codes come from.

What Throttle is and isn’t

Throttle is a venue: a place where people list used vehicles and talk to each other about them. It isn’t a dealer, broker or agent. It isn’t a party to any sale.

• Buyers and sellers deal directly. Any sale is between them.
• Throttle doesn’t process payments, take deposits or offer escrow. If someone sends you to an escrow website, treat it as a scam.
• Throttle doesn’t inspect, own, hold or ship vehicles. It doesn’t check titles, mileage, condition or ownership.
• Listing details are the seller’s statements. Title status, mileage, accident history, condition, price and photos come from the seller.
• When a seller enters the VIN, year, make, model, engine and drivetrain are decoded from it using NHTSA’s public VIN decoder and locked on the listing. That data describes the vehicle as the manufacturer built it, not its history. It can be incomplete or wrong. When a seller picks the year, make and model instead, those details are the seller’s choice.
• “Phone verified” means the person confirmed a phone number with a text code. “Licence verified” appears only after Throttle has checked the license number a dealer entered, and it’s removed if the dealer changes that number or state. Neither is a promise about a person or a vehicle.

Throttle makes no promises about any listing, vehicle or user. Before you buy, see the vehicle in person, have a mechanic look at it, get a vehicle history report and check for open recalls with NHTSA.

Other services

Throttle connects to services we don’t run, such as your maps app for directions, a dealer’s own website and Apple’s sign-in. We’re not responsible for them, and their own terms apply.

Changes to the service

Throttle is new, and it will change. We may add, change or remove features. We may also stop offering the service. If we stop offering it, we’ll tell you in the app first where we reasonably can.

Buying, selling and meeting up

You decide whether to buy, sell, meet or test-drive. You take the risks that come with those choices. Meeting a stranger and handing over a vehicle or money carries real risk, and Throttle isn’t there when it happens.

Read our safety guide before you meet: meet in public, get paid in person and do the paperwork together.

Buyers and sellers are responsible for the sale itself, including the title transfer, the odometer disclosure, the bill of sale, taxes, registration and any other legal step where they live.

Throttle doesn’t handle money, so it can’t refund you or reverse a payment. If something goes wrong, report it in the app. If a crime may have happened, report it to the police too. If you’re in danger, call 911.

Listing rules

When you post a vehicle, you promise that:

• The vehicle is yours or you’re authorized to sell it, and it’s for sale when you post it.
• The VIN is the vehicle’s real VIN.
• Each listing is for one vehicle. You don’t post the same vehicle twice, and you don’t use a listing to advertise other vehicles or services.
• The vehicle is a car, truck, SUV or van located in the US. Motorcycles, RVs, boats, parts, services and other goods don’t belong on Throttle.
• The price is your real asking price, in whole dollars from $500 to $2,000,000. No “$1”, no “call for price” and no different price in the description or photos.
• The photos are real photos of this vehicle, taken by you or used with permission. No stock images and no photos from someone else’s listing. Each listing needs 3 to 15.
• The title status and mileage are accurate, and so are your answers about accidents and previous use. If you don’t know the title status, you choose “Not sure”. If you know the odometer reading is wrong, you say so.
• If you’re selling as a business, business mode is on.

Listings are fixed-price. Don’t use Throttle to run auctions or raffles.

After you publish, the VIN and the details decoded from it can’t be changed. If they’re wrong, contact us from the app with the topic “Correct a VIN”, or delete the listing and post it again.

Listings are set to run for 60 days and can be renewed. Keep yours current: mark it pending or sold, or delete it, once it’s no longer available.

Messaging and conduct

Our community standards are part of these terms. They’re the six rules you agree to in the app:

1. Only list a vehicle you own or are authorised to sell, with its real VIN.
2. Prices are real asking prices. No “$1”, no “call for price”.
3. Keep conversations in the app. Contact details are removed automatically.
4. No harassment, threats, discrimination or scams of any kind.
5. Business sellers say so. Posing as a private seller is not allowed.
6. Photos are yours. Stolen photos are removed and repeat offenders are banned.

Conversations start from a listing. Keep them about the vehicle and the sale. You also agree not to:

• Scam, defraud or mislead anyone, including with bait listings for vehicles that aren’t really for sale
• Ask for a deposit or a wire transfer before the buyer has seen the vehicle, or send an overpayment and ask for the difference back
• Harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone
• Post hateful, sexual, violent or otherwise offensive content
• Get around contact-detail removal, for example by spelling out a phone number or putting it in a photo
• Push someone to continue the conversation off the app
• Pose as a private seller when you’re selling as a business
• Impersonate a person, a business or Throttle
• Send spam or unsolicited ads
• Use Throttle to recruit people to another marketplace or service
• Post duplicate listings, stolen photos or content you don’t have the right to share
• List a stolen vehicle or one you can’t legally sell
• Break the law or help someone else break it
• Collect other people’s information
• Scrape, crawl or copy Throttle with bots or other automated tools without our written permission
• Get around our security, rate limits, blocks, suspensions or bans
• Try to get into accounts or systems you’re not authorized to use
• Reverse engineer, overload or interfere with the app, this website or our systems, except where the law allows it

Redaction, reports and moderation

Contact details

Throttle removes phone numbers, email addresses, links and social handles from messages, listing descriptions and profile bios. A note such as [number removed] takes their place. Keeping conversations in the app is how we can help if something goes wrong. Dealer pages are the exception: the business phone, website and address a dealer adds appear there, with the phone shown behind a tap.

If a message you’re about to send mentions escrow, a wire transfer, a cashier’s check, an overpayment or shipping, Throttle explains how that scam works before it goes. Removal and warnings are automatic and won’t catch everything, so don’t rely on them alone.

Reports and blocking

You can report a listing, a profile or a message in the app. A person reads every report. We aim to look within one business day. Blocking stops someone from messaging you or starting a conversation with you, and their listings no longer show when you browse.

Review

Throttle staff may review content, including messages, to investigate reports, prevent fraud, provide support and enforce these terms. We also use automated checks, for example to spot the same VIN listed by different sellers or the same photos used again. A person reviews what they find.

We don’t review every listing or message before it appears, and we don’t have to.

What we can do

If we believe you’ve broken these terms or the law, or put someone at risk, we may:

• Send you a warning
• Remove a listing and tell you why
• Remove other content
• Limit what your account can do, for example how many conversations a new account can start
• Suspend your account for up to a year. While it’s suspended you can browse but can’t list or message, and your active listings come down
• Ban your account and remove your listings
• Close your account

We decide based on what we know at the time. We may act without warning when we need to protect people or Throttle. If you think we got it wrong, email support@throttlemarketplace.com and tell us which decision you’re asking about. A person will look at it again.

Your content and the license you give us

“Your content” is what you post or send: listings, photos, descriptions, messages, your profile and, in business mode, your dealer page. You keep ownership of it.

Listings, profiles and dealer pages are public. Anyone can see them, with or without an account. They may appear on the web, in search engines and in link previews when someone shares them.

The license you give us

So we can run Throttle, you give Throttle Marketplace a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, display, reproduce, adapt for format and distribute your content in the app, on the web and in link previews and share images. The license also covers showing your listing to promote it and Throttle.

Adapting for format means things like resizing and compressing photos, cropping a thumbnail and building a preview card from a listing’s photo, price and title. The license doesn’t let us change what your content says, apart from removing contact details as described above or fixing details you ask us to correct. Our service providers may do these things for us, only to run Throttle.

The license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for messages. A message can’t be unsent. It stays in the conversation until both people in it have deleted their accounts, and the license lasts as long as it does. If you delete your account first, the messages you sent stay in the other person’s conversation, shown as from “Deleted account”, and the photos in them are removed. Copies may stay in backups for a limited time, and we keep what we need for legal holds, to resolve disputes or to enforce these terms.

You confirm that you own your content or have the right to post it (including every photo) and that posting it doesn’t break the law or anyone’s rights.

Our app and website

The app, this website, their design and code and the wheel mark belong to Throttle Marketplace or to the people who license them to us. We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable license to use the app and the website under these terms. In business mode, that includes using them for your business. Open-source parts of the app are covered by their own licenses.

Feedback

If you send us ideas or suggestions, we can use them without paying you or owing you anything.

Copyright complaints

If you believe something on Throttle infringes your copyright, follow our copyright policy. It explains what a notice needs, how to send one by email and how the person who posted the content can respond.

Stolen photos are removed and repeat offenders are banned. We close the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

Only send a notice if you own the rights or are authorized to act for the owner. A notice that knowingly misstates something can make you liable for damages.

Privacy

Our privacy policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with and the choices you have. It covers the app and this website. A few things are worth knowing up front:

• Your display name, profile and listings are public. In business mode, so is your dealer page.
• Staff may review content, including messages, as described in Redaction, reports and moderation.
• You can download your data in the app, under You › Privacy & data.
• Throttle doesn’t sell your personal information.

Fees

Listing, buying and messaging are free. No listing fees, no buyer fees, no subscriptions, no paid placement, no card needed. Business mode is free too. Listing, buying and messaging will stay free.

If Throttle adds paid features later, they’ll be optional. You’ll see the price before you buy, and we won’t charge you for anything you haven’t agreed to buy.

Your carrier may charge for text messages and data. Costs that come with a sale, such as taxes and title and registration fees, are for the buyer and seller to settle.

App stores

If you got the app from Apple’s App Store or Google Play, this section applies too. Where it conflicts with the rest of these terms for that app, this section wins.

Apple

• These terms are between you and Throttle Marketplace, not Apple. Throttle, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
• Your license to use the iOS app is limited to Apple-branded devices you own or control, as allowed by the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions.
• Throttle Marketplace, not Apple, is solely responsible for any maintenance and support for the app, as these terms describe or the law requires. Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to a warranty that applies to it, you can tell Apple. Apple will then refund the price you paid for the app, if any. The app is free, so there’s nothing to refund today. To the maximum extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app. Any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses caused by a failure to conform to a warranty are Throttle’s responsibility, to the extent these terms don’t disclaim them.
• Throttle, not Apple, is responsible for handling any claim by you or anyone else about the app or your use of it. That includes product liability claims, claims that the app doesn’t meet a legal or regulatory requirement and claims under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws.
• If someone claims that the app or your use of it infringes their intellectual property, Throttle, not Apple, is responsible for investigating, defending, settling and resolving that claim.
• You confirm that you’re not located in a country that is subject to a US government embargo or that the US government has designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you’re not on any US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must follow any third-party terms that apply when you use the app, such as your wireless carrier’s.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.
• Questions, complaints and claims about the app go to Throttle Marketplace at support@throttlemarketplace.com, not to Apple. We’ll add our postal address here when the company is formed.

Google Play

If you got the app from Google Play, Google Play’s terms of service also apply to your use of Google Play. Google isn’t a party to these terms and isn’t responsible for the app or its content. Throttle is.

Disclaimers

This section limits what we promise. Some states don’t allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

Throttle is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, Throttle Marketplace disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

We make no promises about any listing, vehicle, user or sale. That includes the accuracy of listing details, decoded VIN data and badges; a vehicle’s condition, title, history, mileage or legal status; and the identity, conduct or ability to pay of any buyer or seller. We don’t promise that Throttle will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors. We don’t promise that any content will be kept or stay available.

You’re responsible for your own decisions to meet, test-drive, buy or sell. Nothing in these terms limits a warranty or right that the law says can’t be limited.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Throttle Marketplace and its owners, employees, agents and service providers won’t be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages or for any lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill arising from or related to these terms or Throttle, even if we were told they were possible.

We also won’t be liable for any loss or harm arising from a vehicle, a listing, a sale, a meeting, a test drive, a payment between users or the conduct of any user or other third party, online or offline.

Our total liability for all claims arising from or related to these terms or Throttle is limited to the greater of $100 or the amounts you paid Throttle Marketplace in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Throttle is free today, so the amount you’ve paid us is $0 and the cap is $100. These limits apply whatever the legal theory, whether contract, negligence or anything else. They don’t limit liability that the law doesn’t allow to be limited, such as for fraud.

Indemnity

You’ll defend, indemnify and hold harmless Throttle Marketplace and its owners, employees and agents from any claim, loss, liability or expense, including reasonable legal fees, that arises from:

• your content and your listings
• your use of Throttle
• any sale, purchase, meeting or test drive you take part in
• your breaking these terms, the law or someone else’s rights

We may take over the defense of a claim at our own cost. If we do, you’ll cooperate with us. You won’t settle a claim that affects us without our written consent. This section doesn’t apply to the extent a claim is caused by our own wrongdoing.

Resolving disputes

This section affects your rights. It requires most disputes to be resolved in individual arbitration instead of in court, and it waives class actions and jury trials. You can opt out within 30 days.

Talk to us first

Before either of us starts an arbitration or a small-claims case, we both agree to try to settle the dispute informally. Send your notice to support@throttlemarketplace.com with the subject “Dispute”. Include your name, the phone number or email on your account, what the dispute is about and what you want. We’ll send our notice to the email address on your account if we have one, or in the app.

If the dispute isn’t resolved within 30 days after the notice is received, either of us may start a formal proceeding. Deadlines to bring a claim are paused during those 30 days.

Individual arbitration

Except as described below, you and Throttle Marketplace agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising from or relating to these terms or Throttle will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration, not in court. The arbitrator decides questions about the scope and enforceability of this arbitration agreement, except that a court decides questions about the class action waiver and the mass-filing rules below.

The American Arbitration Association (AAA) administers the arbitration under its Consumer Arbitration Rules in effect when the case is filed, available at adr.org. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this section.

The arbitration takes place in the county where you live, or by phone, video or in writing if you prefer and the rules allow it. Fees are paid as the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules provide. The arbitrator can award the same individual relief a court could, but only to you or us individually. The decision is final, and any court with jurisdiction can enter judgment on it.

Exceptions

Either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies and stays there. Either of us may also go to court for an injunction or other equitable relief to stop the infringement or misuse of intellectual property rights such as copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets or patents.

No class actions or jury trials

You and Throttle Marketplace may bring claims against each other only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding. The arbitrator can’t combine more than one person’s claims or preside over any class or representative proceeding, except as the mass-filing rules allow for administration. You and we both waive any right to a jury trial.

If this class action waiver is found unenforceable for a claim or request for relief, that claim or request (and only that one) is severed from the arbitration and must be brought in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York. Any remaining claims stay in arbitration, and the court case is paused until the arbitration ends.

Mass filings

If 25 or more similar demands for arbitration are filed against us or by us, by or with the help of the same law firm or coordinated group, the AAA’s Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules apply. The demands are administered in batches of up to 25, with one arbitrator for each batch. Fees are charged as those rules provide.

Opting out

You can opt out of this arbitration agreement within 30 days after you first accept these terms. Email support@throttlemarketplace.com with the subject “Arbitration opt-out”, your name, the phone number or email on your account and a clear statement that you’re opting out. Opting out doesn’t affect anything else in these terms.

Changes to this section

If we change this section after you’ve accepted it, you can reject the change by emailing us within 30 days after it takes effect. The version you last accepted keeps applying to you.

Where other cases go

Any dispute that isn’t arbitrated or brought in small-claims court, for example because you opted out, will be heard only in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York. You and we consent to their personal jurisdiction.

Governing law

The laws of the State of New York govern these terms, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the arbitration agreement in Resolving disputes.

If you live in a state whose consumer protection laws give you rights that can’t be waived by contract, those rights still apply.

Ending your account

You can stop using Throttle and delete your account at any time. In the app, go to You › Privacy & data › Delete account. For other ways, including by email, see how to delete your account.

If you delete in the app, your listings for sale come down right away. You then have 30 days to change your mind: sign back in and tap Keep my account, then renew your listings from Your listings to put them back up. If you ask us by email, your listings come down when we schedule the deletion, and Keep my account won’t undo it. To change your mind, reply to us within the 30 days and we’ll stop it.

When the 30-day window ends, we delete your profile, listings and saved items. Messages you sent stay in the other person’s conversation, shown as from “Deleted account”, until their account is deleted too, and nobody can message a deleted account. We keep some records, such as reports, moderation actions and copyright notices, to prevent fraud and abuse and to meet legal obligations. Our privacy policy has the details.

We may suspend or close your account:

• if you break these terms or the law
• if we need to, to protect other people or Throttle
• if the law requires it
• if we stop offering the service

An account our team has closed can’t be kept by signing back in. If you think that’s wrong, email support@throttlemarketplace.com.

Parts of these terms that by their nature should last, including the license for messages that stay in other people’s conversations and the license for backups and legal holds, the disclaimers, the limitation of liability, the indemnity, dispute resolution and the general terms, still apply after your account ends.

General terms

• Whole agreement. These terms, the community standards and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Throttle. They replace any earlier agreement on the same subject.
• Severability. If part of these terms is found unenforceable, that part is changed as little as needed to make it enforceable (or removed if it can’t be). The rest stays in effect. For the class action waiver, Resolving disputes says what happens instead.
• No waiver. If we don’t enforce part of these terms, we can still enforce it later.
• Assignment. You can’t transfer these terms or your account to anyone else without our written consent. We may transfer these terms, in whole or in part, including to the New York limited liability company described in About these terms, to an affiliate or to a successor in a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets.
• Events beyond our control. We’re not responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, such as outages at our service providers or carriers, natural disasters, war, labor disputes or government action.
• Notices. We may send you notices in the app (including by push notification) or by email if we have your address. Send notices to us at support@throttlemarketplace.com. You agree to receive these terms and notices electronically.
• Relationship. These terms don’t create a partnership, employment, agency or joint venture between you and us.
• Third parties. Apart from Apple and its subsidiaries, as described in App stores, no one else has rights under these terms.
• Reading these terms. Headings and the short version are for convenience and don’t change what the terms mean. “Including” means “including but not limited to”.

Contact us

Throttle Marketplace can be reached by email at support@throttlemarketplace.com. Use these subject lines so your email reaches the right place:

• Questions about these terms: “Terms”
• A dispute: “Dispute”
• Opting out of arbitration: “Arbitration opt-out”
• Copyright: “DMCA”, as our copyright policy describes

For everything else, see Contact.