Mentor terms

1. What this text covers

These terms apply from the moment you submit an application on mentor.kuabo.co, and for as long as you are a mentor. By ticking the box at the end of the form, you state that you have read and accept them.

They complete Kuabo's general terms, which apply to your account. Where they contradict on a point about mentoring, this text prevails.

2. What a Kuabo mentor is

A mentor is someone who has already made the journey a member is starting, and who agrees to tell them what they lived through, for a fee.

Mentoring begins once the visa is obtained. It covers two moments: preparing the departure, then the first months on the ground. Kuabo never takes part in obtaining a visa or a residence permit.

You declare country × type pairs: a destination country crossed with a domain you lived through. We only offer you members who match those pairs.

3. What a mentor is not

You share your own experience. You give no professional advice and you guarantee no outcome. That is the rule everything else rests on.

In particular, you are not, and do not present yourself as:

• an immigration adviser, a lawyer, or an authorised representative before any authority
• a legal, tax, medical or financial adviser
• an agent for a recruiter, a school, or an armed force
• an employee or a spokesperson of Kuabo

Immigration advice is a regulated activity in many countries, and being paid for it makes it worse. That is why the "Immigration" domain is closed: it appears nowhere as a possible choice, and an application trying to select it is refused by our servers. This closure is not negotiable and cannot be lifted by agreement between you and a member.

4. Becoming a mentor

• You must be of legal age. The date of birth is checked when the application is submitted.
• Your application is read by a person on the Kuabo team. We are not required to explain a refusal.
• Submitting an application creates no right to become a mentor, and no obligation for Kuabo to offer you members.
• You declare that what you write is accurate, in particular the countries and types you say you lived through. A false declaration ends your status immediately.
• We ask for no identity document and no immigration status. In exchange, your honesty about your own journey is a condition of this agreement.
• We do ask for your postal address, and it must be accurate. A mentor talks privately with people who are often on their own and far from home: we need to know who we accept, and to be able to act if something goes wrong. It is also the address that will appear on your tax form. It is never shown to a member.

5. Your account

• If your email address is already known to Kuabo, the Mentor role is added to your existing account. You do not end up with two accounts.
• Two-factor authentication is mandatory for a mentor. It is optional for a member; it is not for you, because your account gives access to private conversations and to payments.
• You are responsible for your password and for access to your account. You share it with no one, and you tell us without delay if you think it is compromised.
• A mentor account is personal. You do not delegate your mentoring to someone else.

6. Your commitments

• Reply within the delay you announced yourself, and in any case within 48 hours. That cap exists so the member is never left without news; the delay itself is yours to set.
• Only mentor on what you lived through. If a question falls outside your journey, say so.
• Point to a professional when the question becomes legal, medical, tax or administrative.
• Treat the member with respect. No insults, no discrimination, no judgement on their situation.
• Keep to yourself what a member tells you. What is said in a conversation does not leave it.
• Tell Kuabo if a member asks you for something this text forbids.

7. What is forbidden

• Leaving the app. You do not give a member your personal number, email or social accounts, and you do not ask for theirs. Conversations stay in Kuabo — it protects you as much as them.
• Receiving money directly from a member, in any form: transfer, cash, gift, remittance. No exception.
• Offering a paid service outside Kuabo to a member you met on Kuabo.
• Asking for or holding a member’s personal documents: passport, visa, statements, certificates. You have no reason to see them, and the app does not show them to you.
• Filling in an official form on a member’s behalf, or walking them through it field by field.
• Promising an outcome: an admission, a job, housing, a status, a deadline.
• Making advances to a member, commenting on their appearance, or seeking a personal or romantic relationship with them. A member is often alone, far from home, and depends on you for things that matter: that imbalance makes any such approach unacceptable, even if it seems welcome.
• Asking for a good review in exchange for anything.
• Using Kuabo to recruit for a third party, sell a product, or advertise.

A breach of this section may end your status immediately, and the amounts tied to the journey concerned may be withheld.

8. You are independent

You are neither an employee, nor an agent, nor a representative of Kuabo. This agreement creates no employment contract, no partnership, no exclusivity.

• You have no imposed hours and no minimum volume.
• You set your own response time and your own availability.
• You are free to refuse a member offered to you, without having to explain.
• You may mentor elsewhere, work elsewhere, and stop whenever you want.
• You are responsible for your own tools, connection and equipment.

9. Your pay

The member pays Kuabo. Kuabo pays you. There is never a direct flow of money between a member and you.

You receive 40 to 50% of the amount paid by the member for the journey you mentor. The exact percentage for a journey is shown to you before you accept it. It does not change along the way.

Payment follows the journey: 20% on acceptance, 60% across the steps the member validates, 20% at closing — increased if your rating is good.

• An amount becomes payable 7 days after the matching step is validated. That delay covers refund requests.
• The transfer goes out on the 5th of each month, for everything payable on that date.
• The minimum payout is €25 (or the equivalent in your currency). Below that, the amount rolls over to the next month, with no limit and never lost.
• Any international transfer fees are yours and were shown to you before your first payout.
• You are responsible for the accuracy of your bank details. A transfer rejected because of wrong details is re-sent the following month.

If a member obtains a refund for a journey, the matching share not yet paid is not owed. If it has already been paid, it is deducted from your next payout. We always explain why.

10. Your taxes

What you receive is self-employment income. Kuabo withholds no tax and pays into no social scheme on your behalf. It is up to you to declare this income and pay what you owe where you live.

If you live in the United States: from $600 paid in a calendar year, Kuabo must send you a 1099-NEC form and report the amount to the tax authority. For that, we will ask you for a W-9 form before your first payout. Without it, we cannot pay you.

If you live elsewhere, we may ask for an equivalent document depending on your country.

11. Your profile and your rating

• Your public profile shows your photo, your first name followed by the initial of your last name, the countries and types you mentor, and your year of arrival. Nothing else.
• At the end of a journey, the member answers three questions: did you really help, did you answer in time, would they recommend you.
• No rating is shown before your first three journeys — until then your profile simply reads "new mentor". This protects those who are starting from a single isolated review.
• A very negative review is read by the Kuabo team before publication. You are told and you can give your side.
• We may remove a clearly abusive review, but we do not remove a review because it is harsh.

12. Availability and pause

• You can pause at any time: we stop offering you new members.
• A pause does not end journeys already accepted. You finish them, or you tell us so we can arrange a handover.
• If you become unreachable in the middle of a journey, we hand the member to another mentor and the remaining share is not owed to you.

13. What you write

What you write to a member stays yours. You simply grant us the right to display it in the app to that member, which the service needs in order to work.

We do not read your conversations, except in three cases: a report, a complaint, or a legal obligation.

If one day we want to publicly use something you wrote — a testimonial, an excerpt — we will ask you, and you can say no.

14. Your personal data

What we collect, why, who has access and how long we keep it is described in the privacy policy, which forms part of this agreement.

15. Liability

Kuabo connects people. Kuabo does not guarantee the outcome of a journey, and neither do you.

• You are responsible for what you say to a member. You undertake to stay within your own experience and not to present it as a general rule.
• Kuabo is not responsible for the decisions a member takes after talking to you.
• To the extent permitted by law, Kuabo's liability to you, whatever the cause, does not exceed the total amounts paid to you over the previous twelve months.
• If a third party brings a claim against Kuabo because of a breach on your side of section 7, you bear the consequences.

16. Suspension and ending

You can stop being a mentor whenever you want, by writing to mentors@kuabo.co or from your dashboard. Amounts already earned are paid at the next payout.

On our side, we may suspend or end your status:

• immediately, in case of a breach of section 7, a false declaration, or behaviour putting a member in difficulty
• with 30 days’ notice, without cause, which leaves you time to finish your current journeys

In both cases you keep the amounts already earned, except those tied to a journey where the breach happened.

The end of your status does not remove sections 7, 10, 13 and 15.

17. Changes

We may change these terms. Any material change is announced to you by email at least 30 days before it takes effect. If it does not suit you, you can stop being a mentor before that date, with no consequence on amounts already earned.

The version that applies to a journey is the one in force on the day you accepted it. The version number and date are at the top of this page.

18. Governing law

This agreement is governed by the law of the State of Maryland, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. The competent courts are those of Maryland.

If you live in a country whose law gives you protections that cannot be waived by contract, those protections continue to apply.

Before any action, we both undertake to try to settle the dispute in writing, at mentors@kuabo.co, for at least 30 days.

If any clause of this text were held invalid, the others would remain in force.

19. Contact us

Kuabo · mentors@kuabo.co · kuabo.co