Code of Conduct & User Guidelines

1. Chat, communication, and community behavior

Treat fellow golfers, group administrators, Guides, and staff respectfully. The following conduct is prohibited:

• Disruption: spam, repeated or flooding messages, excessive capital letters intended to disrupt, and deliberately derailing conversations.
• Harmful content: unlawful, defamatory, obscene, indecent, abusive, hateful, threatening, or violent material, and targeted inflammatory or offensive attacks. Respectful disagreement, honest reviews, and good-faith criticism are not prohibited merely because they are negative.
• Harassment and bullying: targeting, intimidation, threats, discriminatory abuse, stalking, or repeated unwanted contact directed at any person.
• Impersonation: pretending to be another golfer, a course, a Company representative, or another person or organization, or misleading users about your authority or verification.
• Privacy violations: sharing another person’s private contact information, identity documents, receipts, or private conversations without authorization or another lawful basis.

2. Lawful use, financial integrity, and technical safety

Use the Website lawfully and do not deliberately compromise its security, integrity, or operation. Prohibited misuse includes:

• Fraud and financial abuse: scams, deceptive payment or payout requests, knowingly false completion confirmations or refund claims, payment manipulation, and intentionally abusive activity designed to cause financial loss, revenue disruption, legal liability, or excessive operating costs.
• Exploitation: abusing bugs, glitches, or vulnerabilities; bypassing account, payment, or group-access controls; or attempting unauthorized access, extraction, or reverse engineering of protected Website systems, except where applicable law permits it. Report suspected vulnerabilities privately to support rather than exploiting them or exposing other users’ data.
• Unauthorized commercial use: using messages, profiles, listings, or other tools for unsolicited advertising, solicitation, unauthorized third-party promotions, or fraudulent schemes. This does not prohibit legitimate golf activity and Guide services expressly supported by the Website.
• Technical disruption: introducing malware, viruses, trojan horses, or worms; denial-of-service attacks; abusive automated traffic; or other intentional interference with the Website or its users.

Nothing in these rules prohibits good-faith complaints, honest reviews, lawful consumer disputes, legitimate refund requests, or exercising rights protected by law. A request is not abusive simply because it creates a cost for the Company.

3. Enforcement and Company authority

Subject to applicable law, the Company may determine whether conduct violates these guidelines and choose appropriate action based on its nature, severity, and impact. To address violations or protect users and the Website, we reserve the right to take action immediately and without prior notice where appropriate, including:

• Content moderation: removing, editing, or restricting access to messages, posts, profiles, listings, or other user-submitted content.
• Account restrictions: limiting features, temporarily suspending access, or permanently terminating an account.
• Access restrictions: blocking particular IP addresses or devices, where lawful and technically appropriate, to address abuse or attempts to evade restrictions.
• Legal measures: pursuing available legal remedies or cooperating with lawful requests from authorities when conduct violates the law or threatens rights, safety, or the Website’s security.

These are reserved enforcement options, not a promise that every message is monitored or that automated blocking or moderation is active. Group administrators may manage their own groups within their authorized tools; they do not have Company-wide account or network-blocking authority.

Removing content or restricting an account does not automatically erase booking, conversation, or payment history, determine an outstanding dispute, or cancel refund rights. The Payment, Cancellation & Refund Policy governs fees and refunds, and the Privacy Policy governs information handling. These guidelines do not create new fees or override rights required by law.

4. Reporting violations and requesting review

Report suspected violations to support@localgolfbuddy.com or use our Contact us form. Include the relevant group or tee-time name, the date and time, a description of what happened, and relevant screenshots or message details. Do not send passwords, full payment-card numbers, or unnecessary identity documents.

For a concern about a moderation decision, contact the same support address with enough detail for us to review it. We may need to investigate or request more information; we do not guarantee a particular outcome or response time. Reports and related information are handled under the Privacy Policy, including lawful disclosures when necessary.

If someone is in immediate danger, contact emergency services. The Website and its support inbox are not emergency-response services.

These guidelines are general Website terms, not legal advice.