Terms of Service

1. Agreement

By creating an account or using gumshoe.au (the "Service"), you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it to these Terms.

2. What Gumshoe does

Gumshoe provides supplier-verification searches and reports drawn from public registers (ABR, ASIC), publicly available review platforms, Fair Work Ombudsman media releases, and other public signals, culminating in an assurance rating. Some checks are free; certain premium checks are charged per use or included in a subscription plan.

3. Subscription tiers

Gumshoe offers the following access tiers:

• Free: basic ABN lookups, GST status, public-register checks, and aggregated review scores. Available to all users without payment.
• Individual (annual subscription): includes all Free checks plus Street View, Street View Pro (AI-assisted), Phone verification, Phoenix business-signals check, and Network Analysis (quota: 1 network analysis per month). Requires annual payment in advance.
• Enterprise (annual subscription): includes all Individual checks with a higher Network Analysis quota (10 per month) and priority support. Requires annual payment in advance.

Free-tier users may access Network Analysis on a pay-per-use basis. The features included in each tier may change over time; we will give advance notice of any material reduction in features for existing subscribers.

4. Not advice; accuracy and reliance

Gumshoe is a due-diligence tool, not a guarantee. Verification results are based on publicly available information that may be incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate. An assurance score is an opinion to aid your judgement — it is not a certification of a supplier's legitimacy, creditworthiness, or honesty.

Gumshoe does not conduct real-time monitoring. Data in a report may be hours, days, or months old depending on the source and cache period. Do not make high-value financial decisions based solely on a Gumshoe report. You remain responsible for your own decisions about whom to pay or do business with. Gumshoe does not provide legal, financial, or accounting advice.

5. Acceptable use

You agree to use the Service only for the purposes set out in our Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these Terms. In summary: legitimate business due diligence, supplier onboarding, fraud prevention, and compliance checking are permitted. Stalking, bulk scraping, commercial redistribution of results, and any use that would breach the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) are prohibited.

Sole-trader records may contain personal information. Results must be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act — not shared beyond the internal team members with a genuine need to know.

6. Premium checks, payment, and recorded calls

Prices for premium checks and subscription plans are shown at the point of purchase and include GST. For full refund terms, see our Refund Policy.

Premium per-check purchases are consumed when a result is delivered and are generally non-refundable, except as required by the Australian Consumer Law or in the case of a technical failure where no result was returned.

By running a Phone check you authorise Gumshoe to place an automated, recorded call to the supplier's publicly listed number with an audible recording disclosure at the start of the call. You confirm you have a legitimate business basis for the verification and that you will handle any call recording in accordance with applicable law and our Acceptable Use Policy.

Guest checkout: if you check out as a guest, a minimal user record is created associated with your email address. This record contains only your email, the report you purchased, and a timestamp — no password is set and you will not receive marketing without separately opting in. You may later claim this account by setting a password. Guest records are retained for 2 years.

7. Rate limits and fair use

API requests and verify checks are rate-limited per account to ensure fair access for all users and to prevent systematic bulk extraction of data. Rate limits are enforced server-side and are set per account tier.

Attempting to circumvent rate limits, exceed your allocation through automated means, or bulk-extract Gumshoe data is a breach of these Terms and the Acceptable Use Policy and may result in account suspension. If you have a legitimate enterprise need for higher-volume bulk verification, contact us at hello@gumshoe.au.

8. Accounts

You are responsible for all activity under your account and for keeping your credentials secure. Notify us immediately at hello@gumshoe.au if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your account.

9. Availability

We aim for high availability but do not guarantee the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may change, suspend, or discontinue features; for material changes to paid features, we will give reasonable advance notice to affected subscribers.

10. Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Gumshoe is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss arising from your reliance on verification results. Nothing in these Terms excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law; where our liability cannot be excluded, it is limited (at our option) to re-supplying the relevant check or refunding its price.

11. Intellectual property

The Service, its design, and its reports (excluding the underlying government data, which is CC BY 3.0 AU) are owned by Gumshoe. You may use reports for your own internal business records and audit purposes. You may not resell, redistribute, or sublicence reports or the underlying data.

12. Termination

You may close your account at any time from account settings or by emailing hello@gumshoe.au. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy. Serious breaches — such as using the service to stalk or harass individuals — may be referred to relevant authorities.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia. You submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that state for any dispute arising under these Terms.

14. Contact

General questions: hello@gumshoe.au
Legal queries: legal@gumshoe.au
Billing and refunds: billing@gumshoe.au