Terms, wallet conditions & fine print

1 Who we are

Dot Café ("Dot Café", "we", "us") is a campus restaurant operating at Bamboo Food Court, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja. Our WhatsApp business line is +234 904 195 5031, which is the single channel we use to confirm and process orders. Our previous one-page site at www.dotcafeltd.com directed students to text the word "Dot" to our WhatsApp assistant; this site replaces that flow with a full menu, basket and wallet.

By using this site, placing an order through it, or topping up a wallet plan, you agree to these conditions.

2 Wallet credits are stored value, not money or a bank deposit

• Credits in your Dot Café wallet are prepaid credits for food and drinks from Dot Café. They are stored value redeemable only at Dot Café.
• They are not a bank account, savings product, deposit, e-money float or investment. We are not a licensed deposit-taking institution, and credits earn no interest.
• Credits cannot be transferred to another student, sold, or exchanged for cash, airtime or any other currency.
• Bonus credit awarded under a plan tier (5%, 7% or 10%) is a promotional reward. It can be spent on food but has no cash value and is not refundable.
• Credits do not expire while your account remains active, but we may close an inactive wallet that has shown no activity for 12 months after reasonable notice to the phone number on file.
• You are responsible for keeping access to the device/browser holding your wallet. In demo mode your balance lives only in that browser (see §8 and §9).

3 Escrow: credits held until you confirm delivery

• If you choose Escrow (for a plan top-up or for an order), the credits are held inside your Dot Café wallet and are not spendable and not payable to Dot Café until you release them.
• For a plan top-up in escrow: your principal and the tier bonus stay held. When you confirm, the full amount (principal + bonus) becomes spendable credit in your wallet.
• For an order paid into escrow: the order total leaves your spendable balance and is held. You release it by confirming delivery — i.e. telling us the food actually reached you (the Confirm delivery button on your dashboard, or a WhatsApp confirmation).
• Once you confirm, the release is final and non-refundable, because at that point we have delivered what you paid for.
• If nobody confirms and the order is not delivered, credits remain held. If you tell us the order failed, we release the credits back to your spendable balance as a refund (see §4).
• Escrow is held in our records, not by a licensed third-party escrow agent. It is a customer-protection hold inside your own wallet, and we say so plainly rather than dressing it up.

4 Refunds & cancellations

• Order cancelled before we start cooking: full return of any wallet credits used, or the escrow hold is released back to your spendable balance. Nothing is deducted.
• Wrong, missing or spoiled item: message us on WhatsApp within 2 hours of delivery. We will remake the item, or return its value to your wallet as spendable credit. Our kitchen's decision after checking is final, but we do aim to be fair.
• Plan top-up in Direct mode: bonus credit is promotional and non-refundable. The principal is refundable to wallet credit; a refund to your original payment method is only available where we can reverse it via the payment provider (unavailable in demo mode).
• Plan top-up in Escrow mode: not yet released — you can cancel the plan any time before confirming, and the whole hold (principal + bonus) is voided or returned to your original payment method by provider reversal where possible.
• No-shows: a delivery we cannot complete because the building, room number or phone number you gave is wrong, or because you did not answer within 30 minutes, may be treated as delivered for escrow-release purposes.
• Refunds are always returned as wallet credits first, because the wallet is the fastest route. Cash refunds are at management's discretion.

5 Delivery area: Nile University campus only

• We deliver only within Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja — hostel blocks, faculty buildings, lecture halls and the library.
• Every delivery order must include a building/hostel name and a room or office number. Orders without them cannot be dispatched.
• We do not deliver to private residences, estates or locations outside the campus, and we do not run inter-state deliveries.
• Pickup orders are collected at Bamboo Food Court during opening hours. Bring the order reference we sent you on WhatsApp.

6 Prices in NGN, and catering needs 48–72 hours

• All prices are quoted in Nigerian Naira (₦ / NGN) and are inclusive of applicable taxes unless stated otherwise.
• Prices are subject to change without notice — market costs move. The price shown in your basket is the price we confirm on WhatsApp; if it has changed we will tell you before cooking, and you may cancel at no cost.
• Catering, bulk and meal-plan orders require 48–72 hours' notice so we can source and prep properly. Orders inside that window are only accepted if we explicitly confirm them on WhatsApp.
• Menu availability is limited by what is fresh that day. If an item sells out we will offer a substitute or return the value to your wallet.

7 How orders are actually placed

• This site builds your order and opens WhatsApp with a pre-filled itemised message to +234 904 195 5031. That message is only sent when you press send inside WhatsApp.
• An order is accepted when Dot Café confirms it on WhatsApp — not when the basket is built, and not when the message window opens.
• Payment is due on delivery for "pay on delivery" orders, or taken from wallet/escrow credits where you chose that at checkout.
• Keep your order reference (for example DC-XXXXX). It is the fastest way for us to find your order.
• Abusive behaviour toward our staff on WhatsApp or at the counter may result in your wallet being closed and any refundable balance returned to you.

8 Demo payment mode — no real money moves

• Checkout on this site currently runs in DEMO MODE. The card screen is simulated: no money is charged, no card details are collected, transmitted or stored, and no payment provider is contacted.
• Wallet balances, bonus credit, escrow holds and history shown here exist only in your browser for demonstration. They are not a claim against Dot Café and carry no monetary value.
• To take real payments, a live gateway key must be configured by the operator in js/config.js → payments.providers.paystack.publicKey (or flutterwave.publicKey) and payments.mode switched from "demo" to "live". Until that happens, treat the wallet as a demo.
• When live payments are enabled, the gateway's own terms, fees and chargeback rules apply in addition to these terms.

9 Privacy & your data

• We collect the minimum needed to feed you: your name, phone number, hostal/building, room number and order contents. That is what appears in the WhatsApp message you send us.
• Your wallet, history and saved delivery details are stored in your browser's local storage (key dotcafe.v1). They are not uploaded to a server on this version of the site, and clearing browser data deletes them permanently.
• We do not sell your data and we do not run third-party advertising trackers on this site. Fonts, icons and the testimonial slider are loaded from public CDNs.
• Order history in WhatsApp is retained in the WhatsApp thread between you and Dot Café, and is governed by WhatsApp's own privacy terms.
• Notification alerts are opt-in. If you enable them, your browser may show order and payment alerts locally; the service worker sw.js is prepared for real Web Push once VAPID keys are configured by the operator.

10 Liability limits

• Our liability for any order is limited to the value of that order (the amount you paid or the credits held for it).
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses — including missed lectures, lost time or missed events — arising from a late or failed delivery.
• We are not liable for delays caused by events outside our control: power or network outages, campus security restrictions, flooding, strike action, or a wrong building/room number supplied by you.
• Food is prepared in a kitchen that handles nuts, gluten, dairy, eggs, soy and pepper. Tell us about allergies before ordering; we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot guarantee.
• Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under Nigerian consumer law that cannot legally be excluded.

11 Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the service grows — for example when live payments or a real student-account backend replaces demo mode. Material changes will be announced on the site and on our WhatsApp status. Continuing to use the wallet or ordering after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Questions about any of this? Message +234 904 195 5031 and a human will answer — usually faster than any legal document.