Terms of service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the BandForge website and application (the “Platform”) and the products and services offered through it (the “Services”). BandForge is a product operated by MATA Labs OPC Private Limited (CIN: U73100TS2026OPC213657), Hyderabad, Telangana, India (the “Company”, “we”, “us”). By accessing the Platform, creating an account, or purchasing any Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy and Refund & Cancellation Policy, which are incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

BandForge is an independent test-preparation service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the owners or administrators of the IELTS examination, including the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia, or Cambridge University Press & Assessment. “IELTS” and related marks are the property of their respective owners and are used on the Platform only to describe the exam for which we help you prepare. Any band scores, evaluations, or predictions provided by BandForge are practice estimates for learning purposes only. They are not official IELTS scores and do not guarantee any result in an actual IELTS examination.

You must be at least 18 years old to purchase Services in your own name. If you are under 18, you may use the Platform only with the consent and under the supervision of a parent or lawful guardian, who agrees to these Terms on your behalf and is responsible for your use and any payments.

You agree to provide accurate information, keep your login credentials confidential, and be responsible for all activity under your account. Notify us promptly of any unauthorised use. We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms.

BandForge offers IELTS preparation products, which may include a diagnostic assessment and skill-focused practice packages. Your written and spoken submissions are evaluated and returned to you as feedback and indicative band estimates. You acknowledge that: (a) feedback may contain errors or inconsistencies and is provided as-is to assist your practice; (b) band estimates are indicative only (see Section 2); and (c) we may modify, add, or discontinue features or products at any time.

Prices for the Services are displayed on the Platform in Indian Rupees (₹) and are inclusive of applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. The price applicable to your purchase is the price displayed at the time you place your order. We may change prices, products, and promotional offers at any time. Payments are processed by Razorpay; by paying, you also agree to Razorpay’s terms. Refunds are governed by our Refund & Cancellation Policy.

You retain ownership of the content you submit (written responses, voice recordings). By submitting, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, process, transcribe, evaluate, and display that content back to you for the purpose of delivering the Services, and to use de-identified / aggregated data to improve our products. We will not publish your identifiable submissions without your consent.

We grant you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable licence to access the Services you have purchased for your own learning. You must not:

• share, resell, sublicense, or provide access to your account or purchased content to others;
• copy, scrape, reproduce, or distribute Platform content;
• reverse-engineer or interfere with the Platform’s operation or security;
• use the Platform unlawfully or to infringe others’ rights; or
• upload unlawful, offensive, or infringing material.

All content on the Platform — including its software, question banks, practice materials, evaluation frameworks, scoring logic and methodologies, text, graphics, branding, and design (collectively, the “Proprietary Content”) — is owned by or licensed to the Company and is protected by copyright, trademark, database, and other laws. Your licence under Section 8 grants no ownership and no right to exploit the Proprietary Content beyond your own personal, permitted use.

You must not, and must not permit, enable, or assist any other person to:

• copy, scrape, crawl, harvest, mirror, cache, index, or extract any part of the Proprietary Content by any automated or manual means;
• reproduce, republish, resell, distribute, or build any derivative, competing, or substitute product, service, or dataset from the Proprietary Content;
• capture, record, screenshot, or screen-scrape Platform content beyond your own personal use; or
• circumvent, disable, or interfere with any access, security, or technical protection measure.

To protect the Platform and detect misuse, we record technical, device, session, and usage information, and we may embed identifying markers within the content served to your account. This enables us to attribute, trace, and evidence any unauthorised access, reproduction, scraping, screenshotting, or leakage of our content back to its source. We treat unauthorised extraction or reproduction of our content — particularly by or on behalf of competitors — as a serious violation, and we will pursue all available civil and criminal remedies to the fullest extent of the law, including injunctions, damages, and account termination.

The Platform integrates third-party services (for example, payment, hosting, evaluation, and analytics). We are not responsible for the acts, omissions, or terms of these third parties, though we select them with reasonable care.

The Services are provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that use of the Services will result in any particular IELTS band score or outcome, that feedback will be error-free, or that the Platform will be uninterrupted or secure.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Company’s total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Services shall not exceed the amount you paid to us for the specific Service giving rise to the claim in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. We shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or loss of opportunity, data, or goodwill. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Company and its officers and personnel from claims, losses, and expenses arising out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Services, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms or use the Services in a manner that harms us, other users, or the Platform. You may stop using the Services at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13) will survive.

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Subject to the grievance process below, the courts at Hyderabad, Telangana shall have exclusive jurisdiction.

In compliance with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, our Grievance Officer is:

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified via the Platform or email. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

Questions about these Terms: [email protected]