BCW Talent Hub — Marketplace Terms (Draft)

Talent Hub is a technology-enabled marketplace and talent-development platform that helps clients identify, engage, and pay independent talent and helps talent build profiles, demonstrate development activity, access opportunities, and provide services. BCW may also provide training, assessments, profile scoring, verification workflows, support, and managed-service options that are separately described when offered.

Unless BCW expressly agrees in writing to a different relationship for a specific engagement, BCW is not the employer, employee, agent, partner, joint venturer, or legal representative of a Talent Provider or Client. BCW does not guarantee that any engagement will occur or that any user will achieve a particular business, employment, income, or career result.

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering a binding agreement. You must provide accurate account information, maintain reasonable account security, and promptly update information that materially changes. You are responsible for activity conducted through your credentials unless you promptly report unauthorized access.

BCW may require identity, business, tax, payment, credential, or other verification before activating features, increasing marketplace visibility, or releasing funds. Verification status does not constitute an endorsement or guarantee by BCW.

Talent Hub may use profile completeness, training participation, assessments, verified information, service history, responsiveness, quality indicators, and other disclosed platform signals to organize, rank, recommend, or promote Talent Providers. These signals are marketplace tools, not promises of skill, employment, fitness, or future performance. BCW may modify scoring and visibility methodology as the Platform evolves, provided changes are not applied in a deceptive or unlawfully discriminatory manner.

Clients are responsible for defining the scope, required qualifications, deliverables, timing, access, and lawful purpose of their engagement. Talent Providers are responsible for determining whether they are qualified and able to perform the requested services. Each party remains responsible for its own legal, tax, licensing, employment-classification, insurance, and regulatory obligations arising from the relationship it creates.

A Client may not use the Platform to exercise control that would unlawfully misclassify a Talent Provider, and a Talent Provider may not represent that BCW is the Talent Provider's employer unless a separate written BCW employment agreement states otherwise.

Marketplace payments and payouts are processed through BCW's approved payment infrastructure, currently Stripe Connect. Use of payment services may require agreement to Stripe's applicable terms and completion of Stripe onboarding or verification. Stripe, payment networks, banks, and other financial partners may impose additional rules, holds, reserves, verification requests, payout delays, or restrictions outside BCW's direct control.

BCW may collect platform, service, processing, management, or other transaction fees disclosed before a transaction or payout. Users authorize BCW and its payment providers to deduct applicable fees, refunds, chargebacks, reversals, taxes, reserves, or other amounts that the user is responsible for under these Terms, to the extent permitted by law and the payment configuration in use.

A displayed balance or pending payout is not guaranteed cash availability. Funds may remain subject to delivery, acceptance, dispute, fraud, compliance, reserve, refund, or chargeback review.

Talent Hub depends on marketplace fees and platform protections to operate. If a Client and Talent Provider first identify, meet, communicate, or transact through Talent Hub, neither party may knowingly move substantially similar work off-platform for the purpose of avoiding BCW fees, payment controls, or dispute protections during the engagement and for 12 months after the most recent Talent Hub transaction or introduction between those parties.

This restriction does not prevent relationships that clearly pre-date the Talent Hub introduction or activities that BCW expressly approves in writing. If circumvention occurs, BCW may suspend or close accounts, remove marketplace privileges, decline platform support, and seek recovery of fees that would reasonably have been payable through the Platform, subject to applicable law.

The project record, order, statement of work, messages, milestones, and approved change requests form the operational record of the engagement. Material changes to scope, price, or timing should be documented through the Platform or other BCW-approved written channel.

A Talent Provider may request up to two extensions for a project through the Platform. Extensions are not automatic and should be communicated before the applicable deadline. A third requested extension requires BCW review and may result in a revised deadline, partial release of funds, partial refund, cancellation, or another resolution based on work completed and the circumstances.

When a Talent Provider marks a deliverable complete or delivered, the Client should review it promptly. Unless a different written milestone term applies, a Client has 7 calendar days after the recorded delivery to identify a material deficiency or open a service dispute through the Platform. Failure to raise a dispute within that period may be treated as acceptance for purposes of Platform payment administration, except where applicable law requires otherwise or BCW determines that fraud, non-delivery, or another exceptional circumstance warrants review.

Minor preferences, changes outside the agreed scope, or dissatisfaction unrelated to the agreed deliverables do not automatically establish non-performance.

All refunds are transaction-specific unless a separate written offer states otherwise. BCW may approve a full refund, partial refund, revised delivery, release of earned amounts, credit, cancellation, or no refund after reviewing the project record, work completed, communications, timing, scope, and evidence submitted by the parties.

Before initiating a payment chargeback, users should use the Platform dispute process when reasonably possible. A chargeback does not automatically resolve the underlying contractual obligation.

The full draft also covers: BCW's role as a neutral operational dispute reviewer (not a court or arbitrator); each user's own responsibility for their taxes and filings; a prohibited-conduct list (fraud, harassment, off-platform circumvention, unlawful services, security bypass attempts, misuse of confidential information); confidentiality obligations for information exchanged during an engagement; work-product ownership (Client receives custom work product after full payment, Talent Provider keeps pre-existing tools/methods); genuine, non-manipulated reviews; suspension/termination for cause; and BCW's non-responsibility for third-party service outages (Stripe and others).

The Platform is provided "as is," with no guarantee of suitability, outcome, income, or ranking. BCW's liability for a given transaction is capped at the greater of the fees BCW earned on it or $500, except where the law doesn't allow that. Each user indemnifies BCW for claims arising from their own unlawful conduct or breach. Texas law governs, with venue in Harris County, Texas. BCW may update these Terms with notice; continued use after that means acceptance. Electronic acceptance (a checkbox, account creation after being shown these Terms) counts as your signature where the law allows it.