Terms of Service

1. What Cozy Check-ins is — and is not

Cozy Check-ins sends a daily reminder to an older adult (we call her "the senior" or "Mom" — it can be anyone you care about). She taps one button or replies to a message to check in — or, if she checks in by phone call, presses 1 on her daily call. If she doesn't, we let the people in her Circle know so someone can reach out.

Cozy Check-ins is a helper, not a safety system. It is not a medical alert device, a health-monitoring service, a fall detector, a personal emergency response system, or a substitute for in-person care, professional medical care, or emergency services. It does not diagnose, treat, or give medical advice.

Cozy Check-ins never contacts 911, police, fire, or EMS. If a check-in is missed, it only notifies the people you chose. You and your Circle decide what happens next.

2. Who can use the Service

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or to be added to a Circle. Cozy Check-ins is for adults only.

If you add another person — the senior, a family member, or a trusted neighbor — you promise that you have their permission to share their name and phone number with us, and that they are willing to receive messages from Cozy Check-ins. The senior herself always gives the final okay: her reminders start only after she opts in from her own phone (see the SMS Terms and Voice Call Terms).

You are responsible for keeping every phone number in your Circle current. If a number changes or stops belonging to the person you added, update or remove it right away.

3. How check-ins work

At the time you choose, we send the senior a reminder. Depending on what she picked, that may arrive as a push notification, a text message (SMS), an email, or — for phone-call check-ins — an automated phone call. WhatsApp messages and service in Mexico are coming soon; numbers in Mexico (+52) will never be texted by SMS.

If she doesn't check in within her grace window, we notify her Circle in the order you set up. The steps used depend on your plan, as listed on our plan pages: for example, a daily check-in call (Hometown Phone), push notifications and text messages (SMS), an automated reminder call to her, and a heads-up to a trusted local who can walk over (Hometown Plus).

Messages and calls travel over phone carriers, WhatsApp, app-store push services, email providers, and the internet. Any of them can be delayed, blocked, or fail. We do our best to deliver every reminder and alert, but we cannot guarantee that any message or call is sent, received, or read, and you should not rely on Cozy Check-ins as your only way of looking after someone.

4. Messages, calls, and consent

Everything we send is transactional — reminders, missed-check-in alerts, check-in confirmations, invitations, and account notices. We never send marketing texts.

Text messaging is governed by our SMS Terms. Phone-call check-ins, reminder calls after a missed check-in and masked calling are governed by our Voice Call Terms. Anyone can stop texts and automated calls to their number at any time by replying STOP to any Cozy Check-ins text, pressing 9 on any Cozy Check-ins call, or by emailing support@cozycheckins.com. Stopping messages to the senior's number pauses her check-ins, so please tell her family first.

5. Your account and sign-in links

Family members and organization staff sign in with an email address, a password, and optionally a second factor. The senior does not need an account — she uses a personal link we send to her phone, or, for phone-call check-ins, simply presses 1 on her daily call. Treat that link like a key: anyone who has it can check in on her behalf. Do not forward it, and let us know at once if a phone or link is lost or stolen.

Family owners also choose a privacy passcode, at signup or later on the privacy & data access page. It is separate from the password, and every privacy request made in the app needs it (see our Privacy Policy). Keep it to yourself. If you forget it, our support team can reset it after confirming it's you.

You are responsible for everything that happens through your account or link until you tell us it was compromised.

6. Organizations

Senior centers, agencies, and other organizations can sponsor check-ins for their members. If you accept these Terms on behalf of an organization, you confirm that you are authorized to do so, and the organization is responsible for its staff.

An organization must obtain each member's permission before enrolling them, must keep member phone numbers accurate, and must use member information only to run check-ins and respond to missed ones. Authorized staff can see the basic information needed for that job — first name, phone number, check-in status, and an optional photo. Staff never see members of other organizations or other families.

7. Plans, payments, and billing

Cozy Check-ins offers paid plans, billed as recurring subscriptions through our payment processor, Stripe; we never see or store your full card number. By subscribing, you authorize us to charge your payment method at the start of each billing period until you cancel.

You can cancel any time from your billing settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep paid features until then.

We may change prices. If the price of a plan you are on changes, we will let you know by email before the new price applies. Taxes may be added where required.

If a subscription ends or a payment cannot be collected, the plan pauses: Cozy Check-ins stops scheduling daily check-ins, so reminders, calls and alerts stop too, and nobody in the Circle is alerted if she doesn't check in. A check-in already scheduled for that day may still finish. Check-ins start again when a plan is active.

Your first paid plan starts with a 14-day free trial, one per account and one per senior's phone number, and no card is needed to start it. If you add a payment method before the trial ends, the plan's price is charged to it when the trial ends and billing continues as described above. If no payment method is on file when the trial ends, the subscription ends, the plan pauses as described above, and nothing is charged.

30-day money-back guarantee. Your first payment on a paid plan, monthly or annual, is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. The 30 days count from the date of that first charge; trial days do not count. You can ask for it from your billing page within those 30 days, and the first payment is refunded in full to the original payment method, once per account. Later payments are not covered. Refunds are reviewed and issued by Cozy Check-ins; nothing is refunded automatically.

8. Acceptable use

Use Cozy Check-ins kindly and only for its purpose: looking after people who have agreed to be looked after. Do not use it to monitor, track, or pressure anyone without their knowledge; to enroll a phone number you do not have permission to use; to send spam or anything unlawful; to interfere with the Service or probe its security without our written permission; or to resell it without an agreement with us.

We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules, and we may remove a phone number that asks us to stop.

9. Your information

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why, and how to access or delete it. We keep the Service running with a small number of vetted service providers. We never sell personal information, never share mobile numbers or consent data with third parties for their marketing, and never use your data for advertising.

You own the information you give us. You give us permission to use it only to run the Service for you.

10. Changes, suspension, and ending the Service

We are a small team and the Service will keep improving. We may add, change, or remove features. If we retire a feature or the Service, we will give reasonable notice where we can.

You can close your account and delete your data at any time with the in-app tools in Settings, or ask us to through our privacy & data access page or by email. Our Privacy Policy explains what we keep after a deletion and how privacy requests work: requests made in the app need the privacy passcode and are held for up to 72 hours before we act on them. We may suspend or terminate access if you break these Terms, if we must for legal or safety reasons, or if an account has been inactive for a long time. Sections 1, 11, 12, 13, and 14 survive termination.

11. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, and we do not promise that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that every message or call will be delivered on time or at all.

Cozy Check-ins is not an emergency service. If you or someone in your Circle is in danger, call 911 or your local emergency number right away.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Cozy Checkins LLC, its members, and its service providers are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any injury, illness, loss of life, or property loss, arising from use of or inability to use the Service — including a missed, delayed, or undelivered reminder, alert, or call.

Our total liability for any claim related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or US$100 if you paid nothing. Some places do not allow these limits, so they may not fully apply to you.

13. Your responsibility to us

If you add someone's phone number without their permission, misuse the Service, or break these Terms, and that causes a claim against us, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with that claim.

14. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. If we have a disagreement, please email us first — most things can be sorted out with a conversation. Anything that can't be resolved informally will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Virginia, and you agree to their jurisdiction.

If you live in Mexico or another place whose consumer-protection laws give you rights we cannot limit, nothing in these Terms takes those rights away.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top of this page, and for meaningful changes we will also let account holders know by email or in the app. Continuing to use the Service after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Reach us at support@cozycheckins.com or visit our contact page.