Terms of Service

Last updated: October 25, 2026

These terms cover your use of Thames Coast Market at market.thamescoast.com. The market is run by ELEVARESTUDIO LLC, a Connecticut limited liability company in Groton, Connecticut (“we”, “us”). By signing in or using the market, you agree to these terms and to our privacy notice. If you don't agree, don't use the market.

1. What the market is, and what it isn't

Thames Coast Market is a place for people around Groton, New London, Mystic and nearby towns to list things for sale and find them. Every sale is between the buyer and the seller. We are not a party to it.

• We don't own, inspect, store or ship any item, and we don't check that a listing is accurate.
• We never hold anyone's money. Buyers pay the seller's own Square account directly.
• We are not a payment processor, a bank, an escrow service or a money transmitter. Square processes every payment.
• We are not the auctioneer of record and we don't act as an agent for buyers or sellers. Our software runs the bidding; the seller is the one selling.
• We make no promise about any item, its condition, its safety, its legality, or whether it matches the listing. We also don't promise that a buyer will pay or that a seller will hand the item over.

2. Who can use it

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• You sign in with your email address. We send a one-time link and code; there is no password. Keep your email account secure, because anyone who can read it can sign in as you.
• Use your own email and your own name. Don't pretend to be someone else.
• You're responsible for what happens on your account.

3. Selling

• To list, you connect your own Square account. You need a Square account in good standing, and Square's own terms and fees apply to it.
• Listing is free. Prices can be from $1 to $25,000. You can post up to 15 listings a day and 6 an hour.
• You must own the item or have the right to sell it, describe it honestly (including flaws), and use your own photos or photos you have the right to use.
• You can take down a listing yourself while it's active, unless it's an auction that already has a bid. Once an auction has a bid, you must sell to the winner at the winning price.
• Once a buyer pays, you must hand over or ship the item as described. We email you when the payment is confirmed. Don't hand anything over before then.
• If you disconnect Square, your active listings with no bids are taken down. You can't disconnect while a buyer is still paying you.
• Sales (PCS / moving, yard and estate sales): you post the days, times and address of a sale at a place you're entitled to hold it, and you can add set-price items for buyers to pay ahead and collect at the sale. A take-the-lot price sells everything in the sale that hasn't sold; once a buyer takes it, the single items come down, and while any single item is sold or on hold, the lot can't be bought. Only post an address you're happy to make public on the sale page and the map from the time you chose. “PCS / moving sale” describes a household move; Thames Coast Market has no connection to, or endorsement from, the military or any government body.

4. Our fee

• We charge the seller a fee on each completed sale: a percentage of the sale price, currently 5%, rounded down to the cent.
• Square takes the fee out of the buyer's payment automatically and sends it to us. The rest lands in your Square account, minus Square's own processing fee, which is Square's, not ours.
• The fee is set when an item sells (a buy-now press or an auction ending). If we change the rate, the new rate applies only to sales made after the change, and we'll update this page first.
• We don't return our fee automatically when a seller refunds a buyer.

5. Buying now

• When you press Buy now, the item is held for you for 2 hours and you get a link to the seller's Square checkout.
• If you don't pay within 2 hours, the hold ends and the item goes back up for sale. You can also release it yourself. Neither counts as a strike.
• You can hold up to 3 unpaid buy-now items at a time.
• An item is yours once Square confirms the full payment. We check with Square every few minutes.

6. Auctions

• Sellers choose a starting bid and a length of 1, 3, 5, 7 days. There are no reserve prices.
• Proxy bidding. You enter the most you're willing to pay. The system bids for you one step at a time, only as much as it takes to keep you in the lead, up to your max. Nobody else sees your max. If two people enter the same max, the earlier one leads.
• Bids are binding. A bid is an offer to buy the item at the final price if you win. You can't take a bid back.
• No sniping. A bid placed with less than 2 minutes left moves the end time to 2 minutes after that bid. This can happen more than once.
• Winning. When the auction ends, the highest bidder wins at the current price. We email the winner a pay link. The winner has 48 hours to pay the seller through Square.
• Strikes. If you win and don't pay within 48 hours, you lose the item and your account gets a strike. At 2 strikes, bidding is switched off on your account. Reply to the strike email if you think it's a mistake; we can review it and clear strikes.
• Second chance. When a winner doesn't pay, the item is offered to the next highest bidder who hasn't already been offered it, at the most they bid, capped at the winning price. They also get 48 hours to pay. Ignoring a second-chance offer is never a strike. If nobody takes it, the auction ends.
• If an auction ends with no bids, it ends with no sale. The seller can list it again.
• Sunday night auctions. A seller can host a night of lots on a Sunday evening. Lot 1 closes at the time the host sets and each next lot closes a fixed number of minutes later; the no-sniping rule still applies to each lot, so a lot can run past the next one. Every rule above applies to each lot. Winners pay in the app within 48 hours, then collect from the host at the pickup place and time on the night's page, showing their pickup code. The host is the seller of every lot and must hand each paid lot over at that pickup. The live view of a night can lag a few seconds; the time on a lot's own page and our server's record of each bid are what count.

7. Paying, pickup and shipping

• Pay only through the Square checkout linked from your order page. Don't pay a seller any other way for an item listed here.
• After payment, we email the buyer and the seller each other's email address so you can arrange pickup or shipping. Use it only for this sale.
• A seller can offer shipping for a flat price they set. A buyer who picks shipping pays it with the item and enters the address in Square's checkout; the seller sees it on the order page. The seller buys the postage, ships it, and enters the carrier and tracking number, which we email to the buyer. Labels we print have no postage.
• Every pickup order has a 6-character pickup code that only the buyer sees once they've paid. At the handover the seller types it in, or scans the buyer's QR code, and the order is marked picked up. Sellers: hand the item over only once the code matches. Buyers: don't share the code until you have the item. A matched code records that the handover happened; it doesn't move any money.

8. Refunds, returns and disputes

• Refunds and returns are between the buyer and the seller. We don't set a return policy and we can't issue refunds. A seller refunds a buyer from their own Square dashboard.
• We never hold a buyer's payment and there's no escrow: the money goes to the seller's Square account when the buyer pays. If a paid item is never handed over, the buyer asks the seller for a refund, and the seller gives it from their Square dashboard. We can suspend a seller who doesn't.
• Card disputes and chargebacks go through Square and the card issuer, under Square's rules, against the seller's Square account.
• If you have a problem with another person on the market, try to sort it out with them first. You can tell us at elevarecreativ@gmail.com. We may look into it, but we aren't required to settle disputes between users.

9. What you can't sell

• Weapons. Knives sold as weapons, tasers, brass knuckles, explosives, fireworks.
• Firearms and ammo. Guns, gun parts, magazines, ammunition, kits to build any of them.
• Drugs. Illegal drugs, prescription medicine, cannabis and THC products, paraphernalia.
• Alcohol. Beer, wine, spirits and anything that contains them.
• Tobacco and vapes. Cigarettes, cigars, vapes, e-liquid, pouches.
• Counterfeit goods. Fakes, replicas or anything sold as a brand it is not.
• Stolen goods. Anything you don't own or can't prove you have the right to sell.
• Adult content. Sexual products, services or images.
• Animals. Live animals of any kind, including pets and livestock.
• Recalled items. Anything under a safety recall (check cpsc.gov/Recalls).
• Gift cards. Gift cards, prepaid cards and store credit.
• Anything else that's illegal to sell, buy or own in Connecticut or where it's going.

We can remove any listing that breaks these rules or these terms, or that we think is unsafe or misleading, without notice. Anyone can report a listing from its page, and a person reads every report.

10. Other things not allowed

• Bidding on your own items, or getting someone else to bid them up.
• Fake listings, bait-and-switch, or using the market to get people to pay outside Square.
• Harassing, threatening or scamming anyone, or using someone's contact details for anything except the sale.
• Scraping the site, sending automated traffic, or trying to get around limits or security.

11. Suspensions and bans

• We can hide listings, switch off bidding, or ban an account at our discretion, especially for breaking these terms, missed payments, or reports we find credible.
• A banned account can't list, upload photos, bid or buy, and its active listings are hidden.
• If you think we got it wrong, email elevarecreativ@gmail.com.

12. Your listings and photos

• You keep ownership of your listing text and photos.
• By posting them, you give us a free, non-exclusive, worldwide license to store, copy, resize, display and share them on the market and in link previews of market pages, for as long as we run the market. This lets us keep showing the page for an item after it sells, with its photos and final price.
• Listings and photos are public. Anyone can see them, and search engines and link previews may show them.
• You promise you have the right to post what you post, and that it doesn't break anyone else's rights.

13. Ratings

After a paid sale, the buyer can rate the seller once, from 1 to 5 stars, with an optional comment. Be honest and fair. We can remove ratings that are abusive, off-topic or fake.

14. Taxes

• Sellers are responsible for any sales tax on their sales and for reporting their own income.
• Thames Coast Market doesn't collect or pay sales tax for sellers, and the checkout doesn't add tax to the price.
• Connecticut may require some people who sell regularly or in volume to register with the Department of Revenue Services and collect sales tax, even if they don't run a store.
• Square may send sellers a Form 1099-K for payments it processes, and file it with the IRS.
• This is general information, not tax or legal advice. For your own situation, check with the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services or a tax professional.

15. Staying safe

• Meet somewhere public and busy, in daylight. A police station lobby or a busy store parking lot is a good choice.
• Bring someone with you, or tell someone where you're going.
• Check the item before you leave with it.
• Never pay outside this site's Square checkout, and never send money for something you'll only get later from someone you haven't met.
• Sellers: don't hand anything over until we email you that the payment is confirmed.
• Be wary of anyone who pushes you to rush, pay another way, or share codes from your email or phone.

16. No warranty

The market is provided “as is” and “as available”. We don't promise it will always work, be error-free, or be available. To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, including any about merchantability, fitness for a purpose, and non-infringement. We make no warranty about any item or any user.

17. Limit on our liability

• To the extent the law allows, we aren't liable for anything that happens in a sale or meetup, for the items themselves, for what users do or say, or for Square, our hosting or email providers.
• We aren't liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for lost profits or data.
• If we are found liable for anything, our total liability is limited to the greater of $100 or the fees we received from your sales in the 12 months before the claim.
• Some places don't allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

18. Your responsibility to us

If someone makes a claim against us because of your listing, your sale, your conduct on the market, or your breaking these terms or the law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs and losses from that claim, to the extent the law allows.

19. Law and disputes with us

• Connecticut law governs these terms, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.
• Any dispute with us will be decided in the state or federal courts in Connecticut, and you and we agree to those courts. Either side may use small claims court for a claim that qualifies.
• Before filing anything, please email elevarecreativ@gmail.com so we can try to fix it.

20. Changes

• This is version 1 of these terms. When we change them, we'll post the new version here and change the date at the top.
• Changes apply from that date. Using the market after a change means you accept the new terms.
• We can change, pause or close the market at any time.

21. Ending your account

You can stop using the market at any time. To close your account, email elevarecreativ@gmail.com from the address you sign in with. What we keep and delete is explained in the privacy notice. Sections 1, 8, 12, 14 and 16 to 19 still apply after your account is closed.

22. The rest

• If part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.
• If we don't enforce something right away, we can still enforce it later.
• These terms, the How it works page and the privacy notice are the whole agreement between you and us about the market.

Contact

ELEVARESTUDIO LLC, Groton, Connecticut. Email: elevarecreativ@gmail.com.