Terms & Conditions

The two things that matter most. First: Dutiess is a marketplace, not a transport operator - the duty is a contract between two drivers, and we are not a party to it. Second: we never touch the fare. All money moves directly between the two drivers.

1. Acceptance of these terms

These Terms & Conditions ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Dutiess website at www.dutiess.com and the Dutiess Android application (together, the "Platform"), operated by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], registered at [REGISTERED ADDRESS], India ("Dutiess", "we", "us").

By creating an account or using the Platform you agree to these Terms, to our Privacy Policy, our Community Guidelines and our Verification Policy, all of which form part of this agreement. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

2. What Dutiess is - and is not

Dutiess is a business-to-business marketplace where verified commercial drivers, travel agencies and fleet operators exchange duties (bookings they cannot serve themselves).

Dutiess is not:

a transport operator, taxi service, aggregator or travel agency;
the employer, principal or agent of any user;
a party to the agreement between a poster and an accepting driver;
a payment service, wallet, escrow or payment aggregator - we do not hold, route or process fares;
a passenger-facing service. There are no passengers on the Platform.

When you accept a duty, you enter a direct contract with the poster. Performance of that duty, the fare, tolls, waiting charges, cancellations and any dispute about them are between the two of you. We provide the tools, the verification and the reputation system - not the service.

3. Eligibility

To hold an account you must:

be at least 18 years old;
hold a valid Indian driving licence appropriate to the vehicle you operate;
operate a commercial vehicle with a valid registration certificate and a valid cab or contract-carriage permit - private vehicles cannot onboard;
hold valid insurance and any other permission the law requires for commercial passenger transport;
be legally able to enter a binding contract in India;
not have previously been removed from the Platform.

If you register on behalf of a travel agency or fleet, you confirm that you are authorised to bind that business, and that business is equally bound by these Terms.

4. Your account

Your account is personal to you and identified by your phone number. Do not share it, sell it, rent it or let anyone else operate it.
One person may hold one account. One driving licence and one vehicle registration number may each be linked to only one account on the Platform.
Keep your phone secure. You are responsible for everything done through your account, including OTP codes you share with someone else.
Tell us immediately at hello@dutiess.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
Keep your details current - an expired licence, permit, insurance or RC must be updated, and we may restrict your account until you do.

5. User responsibilities

You agree that you will:

give true, accurate and current information at every point, including during verification;
only post duties that are real and that you are genuinely entitled to pass on;
quote fares honestly, and state clearly whether tolls are included or extra;
turn up for duties you have accepted, on time, in the vehicle you said you would bring;
cancel as early as possible if you genuinely cannot perform - and never without telling the other side;
hold and maintain all licences, permits, fitness certificates, insurance and taxes the law requires;
comply with all applicable motor-vehicle, transport, labour and tax laws while performing a duty;
treat every other user professionally and without harassment, discrimination or abuse;
protect customer details you receive and use them only to perform that specific duty.

You agree that you will not:

create a fake driver, agency or fleet profile, or impersonate anyone;
use someone else's documents, or upload forged, altered or borrowed documents;
post fake, duplicate, speculative or misleading duties, or spam the feed;
misuse the URGENT feature for anything that is not a genuine emergency;
poach or attempt to poach another user's customer (see §8);
attempt to take a commission or brokerage from other users through the Platform;
manipulate ratings, reliability scores or referrals, including by collusion or by creating extra accounts;
scrape, copy, reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Platform;
upload malware, or interfere with the operation or security of the Platform;
use the Platform for anything unlawful, including transporting prohibited goods or persons.

The Community Guidelines explain these prohibitions in detail and form part of these Terms.

6. Verification rules

Verification is mandatory. You cannot view or post duties until it is complete.
You consent to us verifying your driving licence against the government Sarathi database, your vehicle registration against VAHAN, and to us performing document OCR, a liveness check and a face match, as described in the Verification Policy.
A driving licence number and a vehicle registration number are each unique across the Platform. Attempting to register one that already exists will be refused.
Where checks disagree, your application is flagged for human review - it is not auto-rejected.
Submitting forged or borrowed documents is grounds for immediate and permanent removal, and we may report it to the relevant authorities.
Verification confirms that documents are genuine and current at the time of checking. It is not a guarantee of a person's conduct, driving standard or honesty, and you must still use your own judgement.
We may re-verify you at any time, and may require re-verification when a document expires or when a report is filed against you.

7. Posting and accepting duties

A posted duty is an invitation to apply, not a binding offer. Applying is not acceptance.
A binding contract forms between the poster and the applicant when the poster selects that applicant. From that moment both sides are expected to perform.
The fare shown is the fare agreed. Any change must be agreed by both parties before the duty starts.
The poster must confirm completion in the app. Both parties should rate each other within the four-day rating window.
Cancelling after selection, and especially within two hours of pickup, is a late cancellation and affects your reliability score.
Failing to turn up at all is a no-show and will result in a strike.
We may remove any duty that appears fake, unlawful, misleading or in breach of these Terms.

8. Customer details and anti-poaching

The customer relationship belongs to the poster. This is the foundation of the Platform, so we treat it strictly.

Customer name, phone number and notes are hidden from all applicants until the poster selects a driver and shares them.
If you receive customer details, you may use them only to perform that duty.
You must not contact that customer afterwards to solicit direct business, pass their details to anyone else, add them to marketing lists, or use them in any way outside the duty.
Poaching is a serious breach. A confirmed case will result in immediate removal from the Platform, and the poster may pursue their own legal remedies.

9. Ratings, reliability and strikes

After a duty, both parties rate each other. Ratings are shown publicly on driver cards.
Every driver has a reliability score from 0 to 100, starting at 80. Completing duties and rating on time raises it; no-shows, late cancellations, never confirming a duty you posted, and letting the rating window lapse lower it.
Strikes are issued for confirmed serious breaches - no-shows, fraud, harassment, fake duties, document misuse. Three strikes result in permanent removal.
Strikes may be issued by our review team following a report, or automatically by the system for objectively recorded events.
You may appeal a strike by writing to hello@dutiess.com within 14 days. A person who was not involved in the original decision will review it, and we may lift a strike where the appeal succeeds.
Ratings reflect users' honest opinions. We do not edit or delete ratings simply because a user dislikes them, but we will remove ratings that are abusive, discriminatory or demonstrably manipulated.

10. Account suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without prior notice depending on severity, if:

you breach these Terms, the Community Guidelines or the Verification Policy;
you accumulate three strikes;
your verification documents are found to be forged, borrowed or invalid;
your licence, permit, insurance or registration expires or is cancelled;
we reasonably suspect fraud, impersonation, poaching, rating manipulation or multiple accounts;
there is a credible safety concern about you;
we are required to by law.

Where the breach is not severe, we will normally warn you first and give you a chance to fix it. Where there is a risk to other users, we may suspend immediately and investigate afterwards.

You may close your account at any time from within the app or by writing to us. Closing your account does not cancel duties you have already accepted, and does not remove obligations you already owe another user. Data handling after closure is covered in the Privacy Policy.

11. Payments and subscriptions

Dutiess takes zero commission on any fare, and does not hold or route money between users. Fares, tolls, waiting charges and any advance are settled directly between the two drivers.
Your first month on the Platform is free. No card or payment details are required to start.
After the free month, access is by a flat subscription - currently an introductory ₹160 per month, 80% off the regular ₹799 price, inclusive of applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. The current price is always shown on the Pricing page.
Subscriptions renew automatically for successive periods until cancelled. You can cancel at any time; access continues to the end of the paid period.
We may change subscription pricing on at least 30 days' notice in the app. If you do not accept the new price, cancel before it takes effect.
Refunds and cancellations are governed by the Refund & Cancellation Policy.
You are solely responsible for your own taxes, including GST where applicable, on the fares you earn.

12. Intellectual property

The Platform, including the Dutiess name, logo, wordmark, the "Driver to Driver" tagline, the user interface, designs, graphics, text, the verification and reliability systems, and all underlying software, is owned by Dutiess or its licensors and is protected by Indian and international intellectual property law.

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the app for its intended purpose while your account is in good standing. That licence gives you no ownership rights.

You must not copy, modify, distribute, sell, licence, frame, scrape or create derivative works from any part of the Platform, use our branding without written permission, or remove any proprietary notice. Permitted press and media use of our assets is described on the Press kit page.

13. Your content and licence to us

You keep ownership of what you upload - photos, duty descriptions, ratings, messages ("Your Content"). By uploading it you grant Dutiess a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to host, store, reproduce and display Your Content solely for the purpose of operating, securing and improving the Platform.

You confirm that you have the right to upload Your Content, that it does not infringe anyone's rights, and that any personal data in it (including customer details) was collected lawfully. We may remove content that breaches these Terms.

14. Third-party services

The Platform relies on third-party services including eKYC and government database checks, SMS delivery, push notifications and cloud hosting. Their availability and accuracy are outside our control, and we are not liable for their failures. Government databases occasionally return outdated or incorrect records; where that affects your verification, contact us and we will review it manually.

15. Service availability

We work to keep the Platform available, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We may suspend access for maintenance, upgrades, security or reasons beyond our control. We may add, change or withdraw features at any time. Where a change is significant we will give reasonable notice. Current status is published at dutiess.com/status.

16. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

In particular, we do not warrant that:

any duty posted will be filled, or that any driver will be available;
any user will perform a duty properly, punctually, safely or at all;
information supplied by users, or returned by government databases, is accurate;
verification guarantees a person's future conduct - it confirms documents, not character;
the Platform will be error-free or continuously available.

You are responsible for your own commercial judgement about whom you accept work from and whom you hand work to.

17. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

Dutiess is not liable for any loss arising out of a duty performed or not performed, including lost fares, lost customers, lost business or reputational harm caused by another user;
Dutiess is not liable for any accident, injury, death, damage to property, theft, or violation of law occurring during a duty - the drivers involved and their insurers are;
Dutiess is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive or exemplary damages, or for loss of profit, revenue, data or goodwill;
our total aggregate liability to you for all claims in any twelve-month period is limited to the greater of (a) the total subscription fees you actually paid us in that period, or (b) ₹1,000.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence.

18. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Dutiess, its directors, employees and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your use of the Platform, your breach of these Terms or of any law, your performance or non-performance of a duty, or your infringement of anyone's rights - including any claim brought by a customer whose details you handled.

19. Governing law

These Terms and any dispute arising out of them or the Platform are governed by the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to §20, the courts at [CITY], India have exclusive jurisdiction.

20. Dispute resolution

Step 1 - Disputes between users. Disputes about a duty, a fare or conduct are primarily between the users involved. Use the in-app report tool; our review team will look at the record and may issue strikes or remove accounts, but we do not adjudicate money claims between users and we cannot recover fares on your behalf.

Step 2 - Disputes with Dutiess: talk to us first. Email hello@dutiess.com with the subject "Dispute", setting out the issue and what you want. We will acknowledge within 72 hours and try in good faith to resolve it within 30 days.

Step 3 - Arbitration. If it is not resolved, the dispute will be referred to arbitration by a sole arbitrator under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The seat and venue of arbitration will be [CITY], India, and the language will be English. The arbitrator's award is final and binding.

Nothing here prevents either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief from a court, or you from approaching a consumer forum or other authority where the law gives you that right.

21. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms. The "last updated" date always reflects the current version. For material changes we will give notice in the app before they take effect. Continuing to use the Platform after that means you accept the updated Terms; if you do not, close your account.

22. Contact

[LEGAL ENTITY NAME]
[REGISTERED ADDRESS], India
Email: hello@dutiess.com

Grievance Officer details, as required under Indian law, are published in the Privacy Policy.