VSTA Terms of Service

Please read these Terms carefully. Creating a VSTA account constitutes acceptance, and you agree to these Terms. You may also accept these Terms by taking another action expressly identified as acceptance in a notice presented to you. If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the Services.

IMPORTANT DISPUTE NOTICE: SECTION 24 PROVIDES FOR BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION OF MOST DISPUTES AND A CLASS ACTION WAIVER, SUBJECT TO THE EXCEPTIONS IN THAT SECTION. YOU MAY OPT OUT WITHIN 30 DAYS AS EXPLAINED IN SECTION 24. These Terms also include warranty disclaimers and limitations of liability. VSTA provides financial information and organization tools; it does not provide banking or professional advisory services.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into a binding contract to use the Services. By using the Services, you represent and warrant that you meet these requirements.

The Services are offered for personal use by individuals residing in the United States. By creating an account, you represent that you are a United States resident and satisfy the eligibility requirements in this section. We may restrict access from locations, jurisdictions, or users where access may violate applicable law or create unacceptable legal, regulatory, operational, or security risk.

You may use the Services only for your own personal, household, and non-commercial financial organization purposes unless we expressly agree otherwise in writing.

2. Description of the Services

VSTA provides tools designed to help users understand and organize their personal financial information. The Services are currently offered as a free, invite-only beta. Depending on the features made available to you, the Services may include:

1. connecting supported financial accounts through third-party data providers;
2. viewing balances, transactions, recurring charges, potential income and spending patterns, and other financial information made available through supported connections;
3. categorizing transactions and identifying patterns;
4. creating budgets, buckets, streams, rules, MoneyPaths, goals, and internal allocations;
5. generating alerts, reminders, summaries, insights, and projections;
6. using AI text and voice conversations to answer questions, summarize financial activity, explain financial concepts, suggest organizational plans, or help configure features;
7. collaborating with household members, partners, or other invited users if shared features are made available; and
8. accessing other features we may offer from time to time.

The Services organize and display financial information. VSTA does not hold your funds, maintain deposit accounts for you, initiate bank transfers or ACH payments, execute trades, pay bills, cancel services, prepare tax returns, file forms, or make binding financial decisions on your behalf. MoneyPaths and similar features may automatically change allocations and balances displayed inside VSTA. Those changes are internal bookkeeping entries and do not change balances at your financial institution.

References to possible future features do not mean that those features are available. Any future service that performs an external action, such as a bank transfer, bill payment, trade, or subscription cancellation, will require separate disclosure and authorization and any applicable additional terms before use.

3. No Professional Advice

VSTA does not provide legal, tax, accounting, investment, insurance, credit, debt, financial planning, or other professional advice.

The Services, including AI-generated responses, insights, projections, alerts, organizational suggestions, examples, explanations, and educational content, are provided for informational and organizational purposes only. Content may be tailored using information about your finances, but it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who understands your individual circumstances.

You are solely responsible for your financial decisions. Before making significant financial, tax, investment, legal, insurance, debt, or credit decisions, you should consult a qualified professional.

Nothing in the Services should be interpreted as:

1. a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or investment;
2. an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product;
3. tax, legal, accounting, or financial planning advice;
4. a guarantee of any financial outcome;
5. a credit decision, consumer report, or eligibility determination;
6. a fiduciary relationship between you and VSTA; or
7. individualized professional advice.

VSTA is not a bank, broker-dealer, registered investment adviser, tax preparer, law firm, credit repair organization, credit counselor, debt adjuster, consumer reporting agency, lender, loan servicer, insurance producer, or money transmitter. These descriptions concern the Services currently offered and do not disclaim obligations that apply under law.

4. AI Features

VSTA uses OpenAI to provide AI features, including text and voice conversations, saved conversational memories, proactive suggestions, conversation titles, and other generated responses, summaries, explanations, forecasts, categorizations, and suggested actions.

To provide these features, VSTA sends OpenAI relevant information, which may include your messages, prior conversation context, saved memories, preferences, and financial information such as account balances, transactions, bills, income, amounts, and dates. Some processing supports background features, such as proactive suggestions or conversation titles, and does not depend on you sending a new chat message. The information sent depends on the feature and the context used by the Services.

When you use voice features and allow microphone access, microphone audio is transmitted to OpenAI to process and respond during the voice session. Transcripts of voice conversations are saved as ordinary chat messages in VSTA. Voice transcription and responses may contain errors. Only submit audio you have the right to share, and obtain any permission required before including another person's voice or private information.

OpenAI processes this information under the API services agreement applicable to VSTA. OpenAI's standard API terms restrict its use of customer content and provide that it will not use that content to develop or improve its services unless the API customer explicitly agrees. VSTA will not opt in to model-training use of your connected financial data, conversations, or voice content without first providing a separate explanation and obtaining your express consent. These restrictions are not a promise of zero retention: provider processing and retention may occur for service operation, security, abuse prevention, and legal compliance. Our Privacy Policy explains VSTA's own data practices.

AI outputs may be incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, misleading, or based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete account data, delayed third-party data, user-entered errors, model limitations, or other technical issues. You should not rely solely on AI outputs when making financial, legal, tax, investment, credit, insurance, or other important decisions.

You are responsible for reviewing and verifying AI outputs before relying on them. Reliance on inaccurate output could result in financial loss, missed payments, overdrafts, tax penalties, poor investment decisions, legal consequences, or other harm.

AI features may help create or change organizational information inside VSTA, including buckets, categories, rules, and MoneyPaths, depending on the features you use. Enabled MoneyPaths may then operate automatically as described in Section 8. AI features do not transfer money at a financial institution, execute trades, pay bills, file documents, contact financial institutions, cancel subscriptions, open or close financial accounts, or make binding financial decisions for you. Review any proposed or completed in-app changes and the settings that control automatic actions.

You may not use AI features to generate unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, abusive, harmful, or unauthorized content or instructions.

5. Financial Account Connections and Third Party Data

VSTA currently supports connections for checking accounts, savings accounts, and credit cards through Plaid. Availability varies by financial institution and account. Investment and brokerage accounts are not included in VSTA's available allocation. A displayed credit-card balance or credit limit is not cash held by VSTA or deposited funds available for allocation. Any other supported account types will be identified in the applicable connection flow; availability of account data does not itself mean that an account is included in a particular balance or allocation calculation.

By connecting an account through the provider's connection flow, you authorize VSTA and its providers to access, collect, process, and display information from the accounts you select for the Services and the purposes described in our Privacy Policy. Depending on the connection and features used, this includes institution and account names, account types and subtypes, provider account identifiers, masked account numbers, current and available balances, transaction amounts, dates and descriptions, merchant, payee and counterparty information, transaction categories, pending and posted status, connection status, and recurring-transaction or income patterns derived from transaction history.

For an initial connection, VSTA requests up to 730 days, approximately two years, of transaction history. The history actually returned depends on the institution and provider. VSTA receives subsequent updates while the connection remains authorized and operational. The initial lookback period is not a two-year retention limit; accumulated transaction history may cover a longer period.

Transaction information may include merchant or store addresses, store numbers, and latitude and longitude coordinates when supplied by the provider. These coordinates describe transaction-associated merchant locations and are not, by themselves, a live location feed from your device. VSTA stores provider response data, including raw Plaid transaction and account payloads and associated metadata, in addition to the fields displayed in the app.

VSTA stores an encrypted Plaid access token and related connection identifiers to retrieve authorized account information over time. The access token is a long-lived credential and is distinct from your bank username and password. VSTA does not store the bank usernames or passwords entered in the financial-account connection flow. In the current Services, the connection is used to retrieve financial data, not to authorize VSTA to move funds or trade.

You may request disconnection by contacting hello@vstamoney.com or using any disconnection control made available in the Services. Where supported, you may also revoke access through your financial institution or Plaid. Disconnection does not close your bank account or automatically delete information previously collected. Retention and deletion are addressed in our Privacy Policy and Section 20. Plaid's handling of information is described in its End User Privacy Policy at https://plaid.com/legal/#end-user-privacy-policy.

You represent and warrant that:

1. you own or are authorized to access each connected account;
2. you have the right to provide all information and authorizations required for the connection;
3. your use of connected account data through the Services does not violate any agreement, law, or third-party right; and
4. the information you provide is accurate, complete, and current.

Financial account data may be delayed, incomplete, inaccurate, duplicated, miscategorized, unavailable, or not reflect your most recent activity. Some institutions may require reauthentication or may stop supporting connections. VSTA is not a real-time account-monitoring service and does not guarantee that connected data will always be available, accurate, complete, or current.

Your official account records are maintained by your financial institutions, not VSTA. You should rely on your bank, card issuer, lender, broker, payroll provider, tax professional, or other official source for final records, balances, payment obligations, tax reporting, and legally binding information.

Financial institutions and data providers control their own records and connections. Their errors, outages, or changes may affect the Services, subject to the limitations in Sections 16 through 18. Their applicable terms, privacy policies, and disclosures may also govern your direct interactions with them. This section does not exclude VSTA's own obligations under these Terms or applicable law.

6. Account Registration and Security

You may need to create an account to use the Services. You agree to provide accurate, complete, and current information and to keep it updated.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your login credentials, devices, authentication methods, and account access, and for actions you authorize through your account. You must take reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized access. This section does not make you responsible for activity caused by VSTA's failure to meet its obligations or limit any rights you have under applicable law concerning unauthorized activity.

Notify us promptly at hello@vstamoney.com if you believe your account has been compromised, your credentials have been stolen, or unauthorized access has occurred.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate an account if we believe it has been compromised, used unlawfully, used in violation of these Terms, or used in a way that creates risk to VSTA, users, third parties, or the Services.

7. User Content and User Data

You may provide information, data, text, prompts, voice input, rules, goals, categories, notes, preferences, uploaded materials if that feature is made available, feedback, and other content to the Services ("User Content").

You retain any ownership rights you have in your User Content. You grant VSTA a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, process, reproduce, display, and otherwise use User Content, including through service providers acting for VSTA, only as reasonably necessary to provide, secure, maintain, support, personalize, and operate the Services, comply with law, and carry out the practices described in our Privacy Policy. VSTA may use lawfully aggregated or deidentified information to analyze, improve, and develop the Services, subject to applicable law and our Privacy Policy. This license does not override the restrictions in Section 4 or any consent required by law. It ends when the applicable User Content is deleted from our active systems, except for copies retained as permitted by the Privacy Policy and applicable law.

You represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to provide User Content and that it does not violate applicable law, these Terms, or any third-party right.

You are responsible for reviewing the accuracy of User Content, including manually entered accounts, balances, bills, subscriptions, rules, categories, goals, and assumptions. Incorrect User Content may produce incorrect insights, alerts, forecasts, recommendations, or AI outputs.

8. MoneyPaths Rules Buckets Alerts and Automations

VSTA allows users to organize financial information using buckets, streams, goals, rules, tags, and MoneyPaths, and may offer related alerts, reminders, or workflows. A MoneyPath may automatically allocate or reallocate amounts between buckets and streams inside VSTA when matching income or another supported event is detected.

These allocations are internal ledger entries used for organization and planning. A bucket or stream is not a bank account, escrow account, investment account, or separately held fund. An allocation does not reserve funds at your bank, restrict your ability to spend them, initiate an ACH or other bank transfer, pay a bill, or execute a trade. You remain responsible for making any actual transfer or payment through your financial institution or another authorized provider.

You are responsible for reviewing, configuring, enabling, disabling, and monitoring rules, alerts, MoneyPaths, and automations. Once enabled, a MoneyPath may make internal allocations without asking you to approve each one. Delayed, duplicate, corrected, or misidentified transaction data may affect when a rule runs or the amounts it allocates. An allocation or alert does not confirm that funds are available or that an external payment has been made.

VSTA does not guarantee that a rule, alert, bucket, forecast, MoneyPath, or automation will be accurate, timely, complete, or suitable for your situation. VSTA is not responsible for overdrafts, missed payments, late fees, insufficient funds, incorrect categorization, tax consequences, investment losses, or other losses resulting from your reliance on these features or from actions you independently take based on them.

If VSTA later offers a feature that initiates or facilitates money movement, bill payment, account opening or closing, investment activity, subscription cancellation, or another external action, the feature will require authorization and may be subject to separate terms. You remain responsible for ensuring that any authorized action is accurate, lawful, and appropriate for your circumstances.

9. Shared Accounts Household Features and Invited Users

If VSTA makes shared, household, partner, or collaborative features available, you may be able to invite other users to access certain information, buckets, goals, accounts, transactions, insights, or workflows.

You are responsible for deciding whom to invite and what to share. Invited users may be able to view sensitive financial or personal information depending on the permissions you select and the available features.

VSTA is not responsible for disputes between you and invited users, household members, partners, roommates, family members, financial professionals, or other third parties. You are responsible for removing access when it is no longer appropriate and for ensuring you have the right to share the information.

10. Free Beta and Future Paid Services

VSTA is currently offered as a free, invite-only beta. There are no current VSTA subscription charges or automatic renewals, and accepting these Terms does not authorize a charge.

We may later offer paid plans or paid features. Before you enroll in a paid offering, we will disclose the applicable price, billing interval, any automatic renewal, trial, cancellation and refund terms, taxes, and other material conditions, and obtain your agreement and any payment authorization required by law.

Participation in the free beta will not automatically enroll you in a paid plan or authorize charges. You may choose whether to enroll when a paid offering becomes available. If you do not enroll, access to features that become paid may end after notice.

We may change the availability, duration, or features of the free beta, subject to these Terms and applicable law. Free beta access does not guarantee permanent free access, future pricing, or access to any unreleased feature. You may stop using the beta at any time; account deletion is addressed in Section 20.

11. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the Services to:

1. violate any law, regulation, contract, or third-party right;
2. access, connect, or submit information for accounts you do not own or are not authorized to access;
3. impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity or authority;
4. interfere with, disrupt, damage, or overload the Services;
5. reverse engineer, decompile, copy, scrape, crawl, or misuse the Services or underlying software, except where applicable law expressly permits it;
6. attempt to gain unauthorized access to VSTA systems, accounts, data, or networks;
7. upload malware, harmful code, or deceptive content;
8. use the Services for fraud, money laundering, illegal financial activity, or unauthorized financial activity;
9. use the Services to make credit, employment, housing, insurance, lending, or other eligibility decisions about another person;
10. resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Services without our written permission;
11. use AI features to generate unlawful, deceptive, abusive, or harmful output;
12. remove or obscure proprietary notices; or
13. use the Services in a way that creates legal, security, operational, reputational, or financial risk for VSTA or others.

We may investigate suspected violations and suspend or terminate access where we reasonably believe a violation has occurred.

12. Beta and Early Access Features

Features that we designate as experimental, pre-release, beta, limited-release, or early access may be incomplete, unstable, inaccurate, unavailable, changed, discontinued, or removed at any time.

Designated beta and early-access features are provided for testing and feedback and may contain errors, bugs, inaccuracies, or data issues. Your use of those features is at your own risk.

We are not obligated to make a beta feature generally available or preserve settings, workflows, or outputs created exclusively through that feature. Retention of core account and financial information remains subject to our Privacy Policy.

13. Intellectual Property

Except for User Content and other materials owned by you or third parties, the Services, including software, design, interfaces, graphics, logos, trademarks, text, content, models, workflows, features, and other materials, are owned by VSTA or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws.

Subject to these Terms, VSTA grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Services for your own personal, non-commercial purposes.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, sublicense, reverse engineer, create derivative works from, or exploit any part of the Services except as expressly permitted by these Terms or applicable law.

If you voluntarily provide feedback, ideas, suggestions, or recommendations about the Services, you grant VSTA a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use that feedback without compensation to you. This feedback license does not expand our rights to use your connected financial data, private conversations, or other personal information beyond Section 7 and our Privacy Policy.

14. Third Party Services Links and Providers

The Services use third-party providers, including Plaid for financial-account data and OpenAI for AI processing as described in Sections 4 and 5. Other providers may support hosting, communications, analytics, security, and related operations. The Services may also include links to independently operated websites or services.

Third-party services may be subject to their own terms and privacy policies when you interact with them directly. VSTA does not control independently operated websites, financial institutions, or third-party service availability. Our use of service providers to process information for VSTA remains subject to our Privacy Policy, our applicable provider agreements, and our legal obligations. Nothing in this section excuses VSTA from obligations that cannot lawfully be delegated or disclaimed.

We may change, replace, suspend, or discontinue integrations, subject to our commitments in these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and applicable notice or consent requirements.

15. Privacy

Your use of the Services is subject to our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal information.

Our Privacy Policy describes how information is processed by VSTA and its providers, including Plaid and OpenAI. Connecting an account or using AI or voice features involves the processing described in Sections 4 and 5. These Terms do not substitute for any separate privacy notice or consent required by applicable law.

16. Service Availability

We strive to provide reliable Services, but we do not guarantee that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, accurate, or available at all times.

The Services may be unavailable or impaired due to maintenance, updates, outages, bugs, cyberattacks, third-party failures, financial-institution issues, network problems, cloud-provider issues, force majeure events, or other causes.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, VSTA is not liable for losses, costs, damages, or consequences resulting from downtime, delayed data, missed or inaccurate alerts, unavailable integrations, failed account connections, or service interruptions.

17. Disclaimers

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICES, CONTENT, DATA, AI OUTPUTS, ALERTS, INSIGHTS, FORECASTS, MONEYPATHS, RULES, AUTOMATIONS, AND ALL RELATED MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE.

VSTA DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, AND UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION.

VSTA DOES NOT WARRANT OR GUARANTEE THAT:

1. the Services will meet your needs;
2. financial data will be accurate, complete, current, or available;
3. AI outputs will be correct, complete, or suitable;
4. alerts will be timely, accurate, delivered, or acted upon;
5. categories, rules, budgets, buckets, or MoneyPaths will be correct or optimal;
6. third-party services will operate without error;
7. your financial goals will be achieved;
8. any financial outcome will occur; or
9. the Services will prevent financial loss, missed payments, overdrafts, fraud, identity theft, or other harm.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty disclaimers, so some of these disclaimers may not apply to you.

18. Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, VSTA AND ITS OWNERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AFFILIATES, AGENTS, LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND SUPPLIERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, ENHANCED, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANOTHER LEGAL THEORY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. LOSSES SUCH AS OVERDRAFT FEES, LATE FEES, INVESTMENT LOSSES, AND TAX PENALTIES ARE EXCLUDED UNDER THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY TO THE EXTENT THEY CONSTITUTE AN EXCLUDED CATEGORY OF DAMAGES.

SUBJECT TO THE EXCEPTIONS BELOW AND TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF VSTA AND THE OTHER PARTIES IDENTIFIED ABOVE FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICES WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF:

1. THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO VSTA FOR THE SERVICES IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM; OR
2. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100).

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. These Terms do not waive nonwaivable consumer rights or remedies, including statutory damages or attorneys' fees where applicable law prohibits their waiver or limitation. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, and those exclusions or limitations apply only to the extent permitted.

19. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless VSTA and its owners, officers, directors, employees, contractors, affiliates, agents, licensors, service providers, and suppliers from third-party claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees, but only to the extent caused by:

1. your unlawful or unauthorized use or misuse of the Services;
2. your material violation of these Terms or applicable law;
3. User Content that infringes or violates another person's rights;
4. your unauthorized connection to, access to, or submission of another person's account or information;
5. your unlawful or unauthorized disclosure of information or grant of access to an invited user or other third party; or
6. your infringement or violation of a third-party right.

We will give you reasonably prompt notice of a claim for which we seek indemnification and a reasonable opportunity to participate in its defense. We may control the defense, and you agree to provide reasonable cooperation. We will not agree to a settlement that imposes an admission, payment obligation, or other material obligation on you without your consent, which will not be unreasonably withheld. This section does not require you to indemnify anyone for losses caused by that person's own negligence, misconduct, breach of these Terms, or violation of law, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be shifted to you.

20. Suspension Cancellation and Termination

You may stop using the Services at any time. To request account deletion, contact hello@vstamoney.com. You may also use an account-deletion control if one is available; contact us if it does not complete your request. Stopping use, uninstalling an app, disconnecting an account, or submitting a deletion request does not itself confirm that all information has been deleted.

We may verify your identity before acting on a deletion request. Deletion and any permitted retention are governed by our Privacy Policy and applicable law, including applicable response deadlines. Closure of a VSTA account does not close accounts at your financial institutions. These Terms do not authorize retention prohibited by law or waive your privacy rights.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate access if we reasonably believe:

1. you violated these Terms;
2. your account is compromised;
3. your use creates legal, security, financial, operational, or reputational risk;
4. required third-party services are unavailable;
5. continuing to provide the Services would violate law or third-party terms; or
6. suspension or termination is otherwise necessary to protect VSTA, users, third parties, or the Services.

Termination may result in loss of access to your account, data, settings, rules, MoneyPaths, outputs, and other content, subject to the Privacy Policy and applicable law. Where reasonably practicable and lawful, we will provide notice of a suspension or termination; immediate action may be necessary for security, fraud prevention, or legal compliance.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including ownership, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, and general legal provisions.

21. Changes to the Services or Terms

We may modify, suspend, discontinue, or replace any part of the Services at any time.

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will provide clear notice through the Services, email, or another reasonable method before the changes take effect, with any advance notice required by law. The notice will identify the revised Terms and their proposed effective date. We will obtain your affirmative acceptance before applying materially revised Terms to you.

For changes that are not material, continued use after reasonable notice and the stated effective date constitutes acceptance only to the extent permitted by law. If you do not agree to revised Terms, you may stop using the Services and request deletion under Section 20; we may limit further access to features that require the revised Terms. A material revision does not retroactively govern a dispute that arose before you accepted it. Changes to Section 24 are also subject to its acceptance and opt-out provisions.

22. Electronic Communications

By creating an account, you agree to receive electronic communications from VSTA relating to the Services, including account notices, disclosures, support messages, security alerts, and legal notices. Any consent required by law for a particular delivery method or disclosure will be obtained separately.

You agree that electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that communications be in writing, to the extent permitted by law. You are responsible for keeping your contact information current.

Marketing communications are separate from necessary account, service, security, and legal messages. You may opt out of promotional email using the unsubscribe instructions in the message, but you may continue to receive non-promotional communications as needed to administer the Services or comply with law.

23. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except to the extent the law of your state of residence cannot lawfully be waived.

Except for disputes properly submitted to arbitration or qualifying small claims court proceedings under Section 24, the state and federal courts located in Massachusetts will have jurisdiction over disputes arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services. That forum will be exclusive unless applicable law gives you a nonwaivable right to another forum. Nothing in this section limits the exceptions or rights preserved in Section 24.

24. Arbitration Agreement and Class Action Waiver

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BELOW, IT REQUIRES BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION INSTEAD OF A COURT OR JURY TRIAL AND LIMITS PARTICIPATION IN CLASS ACTIONS. YOU MAY OPT OUT AS DESCRIBED BELOW.

Informal resolution. Before starting arbitration, the party asserting a claim must send the other party a written Notice of Dispute. Send a notice to VSTA at hello@vstamoney.com or the mailing address in Section 26. VSTA will send a notice to the email address associated with your account or another contact address you have supplied. The notice must identify the claimant, provide contact information and the account email if applicable, and describe the facts, claim, and requested relief with enough detail to evaluate the dispute. Neither party must disclose privileged information.

The parties will attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute for 30 days after receipt of the notice. Applicable limitation periods will be tolled during that period to the extent permitted by law. This process does not restrict contact with regulators, qualifying small claims filings, requests for urgent relief, or a filing needed to preserve a right or meet a nonwaivable deadline.

Agreement and exceptions. Except for the exceptions in this section, you and VSTA agree to resolve disputes arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Services, your account, or your relationship with VSTA through binding individual arbitration. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this arbitration agreement. Either party may pursue an individual claim within the jurisdiction of small claims court, or seek temporary court relief necessary to protect rights pending arbitration. Claims or remedies that applicable law does not permit to be arbitrated remain available in court. You may report concerns to government agencies, which may pursue relief as permitted by law.

Rules and administration. Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its applicable Consumer Arbitration Rules, including applicable supplementary procedures. The rules and consumer fee schedule are available at https://www.adr.org/rules-forms-and-fees/consumer/. The AAA's consumer protections govern if these Terms conflict with them. VSTA will pay the fees and costs that those rules or applicable law require the business to pay. No provision of these Terms overrides a right to a fee waiver or a statutory award of attorneys' fees.

A neutral arbitrator may award the individual relief that would be available in court under applicable law, subject to valid limitations in these Terms, and will provide a written decision explaining the essential findings and conclusions. Hearings may occur by documents, telephone, or video as permitted by the rules and the parties' rights under them. Any in-person hearing will occur in the county where you reside or another mutually agreed location, unless applicable law or the rules require otherwise. Judgment on an award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

A court, not the arbitrator, will decide disputes over whether an arbitration agreement was formed or accepted, and its validity, enforceability, or scope, including the class action waiver. If AAA is unavailable or declines to administer and the parties cannot agree on an appropriate substitute, either party may pursue the dispute in court, subject to applicable law. VSTA may not use its own failure to pay required arbitration fees to prevent you from pursuing a claim.

Individual proceedings. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and VSTA may bring claims against each other only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in a class or collective action. The arbitrator may not conduct a class arbitration or combine different individuals' claims for a merits determination without all parties' written consent. This does not bar administrative coordination allowed by applicable AAA rules.

Nothing in these Terms waives a nonwaivable right to seek public injunctive relief or another remedy that applicable law protects from waiver. If a request for relief must proceed in court, that request will be severed and may proceed there; any stay will be determined by the court under applicable law. The waiver of a jury trial applies only to disputes actually resolved in arbitration.

Your right to opt out. You may opt out of this entire Section 24, including its class action waiver, by emailing hello@vstamoney.com within 30 days after you first affirmatively accept this version of the Terms. Include your name, account email, and a clear statement that you opt out of arbitration. You do not have to provide a reason or use a special form. Opting out does not affect your access to the Services or the remaining Terms; neither party will be bound by this Section 24 for your disputes. Any timely opt-out from an earlier VSTA arbitration agreement remains effective.

Future changes. We will obtain affirmative acceptance of a material change to this section before applying it to you and provide a new 30-day opportunity to opt out of this section after that acceptance. A change will not apply to a dispute that arose before you accepted it. Earlier disputes remain subject to any agreement that validly governed them, including any effective opt-out.

Severability. If a provision of this section is held unenforceable, it will be severed to the extent permitted by law, and the remainder will continue to apply. If the prohibition on class arbitration cannot be enforced for a particular claim, that claim will proceed in court, not in class arbitration. Any sequencing or stay of court proceedings will be determined by the court under applicable law.

25. General Terms

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any applicable additional terms expressly presented to and accepted by you, constitute the entire agreement between you and VSTA regarding the Services. They do not waive rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be waived.

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account without our prior written consent. We may assign or transfer these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, change of control, or by operation of law.

Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later. If a provision is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect.

No joint venture, partnership, employment, agency, fiduciary, advisory, or professional relationship is created between you and VSTA by these Terms or your use of the Services.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, terrorism, labor disputes, internet failures, cloud-provider failures, cyberattacks, government actions, financial-institution outages, or third-party service failures. This provision does not excuse obligations that continue under applicable law or responsibility for our own failure to take legally required precautions.

26. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms or the Services, contact us at:

VSTA LLC
68 Harrison Ave, STE 605, NUM 781616
Boston, MA 02111
hello@vstamoney.com