Preamble: Mission, Core Values & Scope of Applicability
P.1 Mission & Vision
The Near Buy is an integrated hyperlocal Marketspace dedicated to digitizing, modernizing, and empowering neighborhood commerce. By bridging local brick-and-mortar merchants and specialty neighborhood shops directly with nearby consumers, the platform enables authentic commercial relationships, rapid same-day delivery fulfillment, interactive price bargaining, and verified physical handoffs.
To maintain a secure, dignified, and trustworthy digital bazaar, every interaction on The Near Buy—whether a public review, an in-app customer service conversation, a price counter-offer, or a physical doorstep delivery—must adhere to these Community Standards.
P.2 Foundational Core Values
These standards are constructed upon four non-negotiable principles modeled after international platform governance benchmarks:
- Hyperlocal Trust & Physical Safety: Neighborhood commerce relies on face-to-face trust. The platform enforces an absolute zero-tolerance policy against physical violence, threats, intimidation, and dangerous encounters during deliveries and in-store pickups.
- Authenticity & Honest Dealings: Transactions, product representations, bargaining proposals, and user feedback must reflect real-world truth. Counterfeit goods, artificial reviews, identity fraud, and deceptive pricing undermine the integrity of the neighborhood Marketspace.
- Mutual Dignity & Respect: Every participant—regardless of economic status, religious faith, ethnicity, gender, or role (whether buyer, stallkeeper, or courier)—is entitled to courteous, respectful, and non-discriminatory treatment.
- Data Privacy & System Integrity: Personal phone numbers, home delivery coordinates, financial ledger balances, and cryptographic verification codes are confidential. Unauthorized disclosure, doxxing, or technical exploitation of platform systems is strictly prohibited.
P.3 Scope of Applicability
These standards apply universally across all surfaces, features, and operational workflows of The Near Buy ecosystem, including:
- Digital Storefronts & Catalogs: Product titles, descriptions, categories, specifications, pricing, and visual media uploaded by merchants.
- Customer Expression & Feedback (“On Your Mind”): Public product reviews, star ratings, customer feedback narratives, and photo or video attachments submitted through the customer review system.
- Live In-App Messaging: All direct conversations between buyers and sellers, customer service exchanges, and dispute mediation threads conducted through the platform’s messaging interfaces.
- Interactive Bargaining Dialogs: Offer submissions, counter-offers, chat commentary, and negotiation mechanics within the live bargaining console.
- Physical Handoffs & Field Operations: In-store customer collections, courier doorstep deliveries, and the physical verification of 8-digit Cash Confirmation QR codes.
- Dispute & Return Interactions: Return tickets, photographic evidence of product defects, merchant inspection reports, and escalation threads managed within the resolution center.
1.1 Dangerous Organizations & Terrorism Financing (Clause CS-1.1)
The Near Buy strictly prohibits any individual, group, or commercial entity that promotes, organizes, or engages in terrorism, violent extremism, organized crime, or illicit paramilitarism from accessing or utilizing the platform.
1.1.1 Prohibited Organizations & Entities
Access is permanently denied to:
- Any organization or individual designated as a terrorist entity or banned organization by the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 (including all gazetted amendments).
- Entities and individuals listed on the United Nations Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List.
- Transnational or regional criminal syndicates, violent gangs, and organized extortion rings (chandabaj syndicates).
1.1.2 Prohibited Activities & Content
Users and merchants may not:
- Propaganda & Recruitment: Post, upload, message, or display any slogans, manifestos, digital flyers, recruitment appeals, or propaganda materials associated with designated terrorist or militant organizations.
- Insignia & Merchandise: List for sale, display, or distribute apparel, flags, banners, badges, patches, or physical emblems associated with banned militant factions or violent extremist groups.
- Glorification & Justification: Publish content or send messages that praise, celebrate, defend, or rationalize acts of terrorism, suicide bombings, attacks on religious or ethnic minorities, violence against law enforcement personnel, or sabotage of public infrastructure.
- Terrorism Financing & Money Laundering: Utilize The Near Buy’s escrow rails, merchant digital wallets, Cash-on-Delivery (COD) flows, or bargaining channels to transfer, solicit, or launder funds intended for extremist groups, armed insurgents, or illicit organizations. All financial activities are governed by the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012.
1.1.3 Compliance & Enforcement Action
- KYC & Screening: During merchant onboarding, all National Identity Card (NID) credentials, Trade Licenses, and Business Identification Numbers (BIN) are screened against active national watchlists.
- Immediate Expulsion (Tier 4): Any verified link to a dangerous organization results in immediate, non-appealable account termination, permanent device and IP blacklisting, and freezing of all wallet balances.
- Statutory Disclosure: The platform preserves all digital logs, chat records, financial transactions, and geolocations, immediately reporting verified violations to the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the Bangladesh Police and the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU).
The Near Buy is a Marketspace for lawful neighborhood commerce. Using the platform to plan, facilitate, incite, coordinate, or promote unlawful conduct is strictly prohibited under the Penal Code, 1860, the Cyber Security Act, and relevant criminal statutes.
1.2.1 Coordination of Real-World Harm & Violence
Users are strictly prohibited from using storefront listings, in-app messaging, reviews, or bargaining threads to:
- Solicit, incite, coordinate, or recruit participants for physical assaults, mob violence, vandalism, arson, or attacks on private or public property.
- Coordinate unlawful strikes, blockades, or physical intimidation intended to disrupt merchant trade or public order (hartal or unauthorized road closures).
- Threaten or coordinate kidnapping, illegal confinement, or retaliatory physical harm against buyers, merchants, delivery couriers, or platform personnel.
1.2.2 Facilitation of Unlawful Goods, Contraband & Smuggling
The platform may not be used to advertise, discuss, barter, sell, or transport:
- Stolen or Forfeited Property: Goods acquired through theft, burglary, robbery, or illegal seizure.
- Smuggled & Non-Duty Paid Goods: Items brought into Bangladesh in violation of the Customs Act, 1969, including untaxed foreign goods, gold bars, or unbonded electronic shipments.
- Forged Documents & Identity Materials: Fake National IDs, counterfeit trade licenses, forged academic diplomas, fake driving licenses, or unauthorized government seals.
- Unlawful Instruments & Burglary Tools: Lock-picking tools, equipment designed for digital eavesdropping, or instruments specifically engineered to commit property theft.
1.2.3 Cybercrime, Fraud & Extortion
The Near Buy prohibits any attempt to undermine digital security or financially defraud participants:
- Extortion (Chandabaji): Demanding illegal fees, kickbacks, or free products from merchants under threat of physical violence, property damage, fabricated police complaints, or coordinated 1-star review boycotts.
- Malicious Software & Phishing: Transmitting links, scripts, or executables in customer communications designed to steal passwords, session tokens, mobile financial service (bKash/Nagad) PINs, or sensitive financial data.
- Interception of Handshake Codes: Attempting to manipulate, bypass, intercept, or counterfeit the platform’s 8-digit Cash Confirmation Codes or cryptographically generated Return QR verification tokens.
- Identity Impersonation: Posing as platform administrators, law enforcement personnel, government inspectors, or authorized delivery agents to mislead users or confiscate merchandise.
1.2.4 Moderation & Law Enforcement Cooperation
- Surveillance & Automated Filtering: The platform employs automated keyword heuristics and manual administrative oversight across messaging queues and review submissions to intercept criminal solicitation.
- Account Sanctions: Verified criminal coordination results in immediate account deactivation, forfeiture of promotional balances, and termination of merchant storefront privileges.
- Evidence Preservation: In accordance with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act, all relevant electronic records—including conversation histories, IP addresses, geolocation coordinates, and uploaded media—are secured in tamper-evident administrative audit logs and surrendered upon lawful subpoena to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) or the Cyber Crime Investigation Division of the Bangladesh Police.
1.3 Hate Speech, Slurs & Discrimination (Clause CS-1.3)
The Near Buy is dedicated to fostering an inclusive, welcoming Marketspace for all neighborhood residents. We do not tolerate attacks, dehumanizing rhetoric, or exclusion directed at individuals or communities based on protected personal characteristics.
1.3.1 Protected Characteristics
Under this policy, protected characteristics include:
- Religious faith, spiritual beliefs, or absence of religious affiliation.
- Race, ethnicity, indigenous or tribal identity, national origin, or linguistic background.
- Social origin, ancestry, family background, or socioeconomic caste.
- Sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
- Physical, sensory, intellectual, or cognitive disability, or chronic medical conditions.
Content and communications across storefronts, public reviews, and in-app chat must not contain:
- Dehumanizing Comparisons: Comparing individuals or protected groups to animals, biological pests, viruses, filth, or moral contaminants.
- Incitement to Discrimination & Boycotts: Calling for the commercial exclusion, boycott, or denial of service to shops or buyers solely because of their religious, ethnic, or social identity.
- Slurs & Degrading Epithets: Use of offensive ethnic slurs, sectarian insults, derogatory caste-based terms, or derogatory gender-based epithets across Bengali, English, regional dialects (e.g., Sylheti, Chittagonian), or romanized transliterations (Banglish).
- Mocking Suffering & Historical Tragedies: Celebrating, trivializing, or denying communal violence, historical massacres, natural disasters, or religious persecution in Bangladesh or globally.
1.3.3 Commercial Context & Neutrality
- Open Market Access: Merchants may not refuse service, decline valid orders, or impose discriminatory surcharges on buyers based on protected characteristics.
- Enforcement: Public reviews or merchant listings containing verified hate speech are removed immediately upon detection. Violators face a progressive 7-day feature freeze on customer messaging for a first infraction, escalating to permanent platform exclusion and store revocation for repeated violations.
1.4 Bullying, Harassment & Review Extortion (Clause CS-1.4)
Every buyer, merchant, and delivery courier has the right to transact free from intimidation, targeted hostility, and psychological abuse. The Near Buy strictly prohibits personal harassment, invasive intrusion, and commercial extortion.
1.4.1 Unlawful Harassment & Targeted Abuse
Users and merchants must refrain from:
- Persistent Unwanted Contact: Continuing to send messages, call, or initiate interactions with an individual after being explicitly asked to stop, or continuing contact after a transaction or return has been completed.
- Sexual Harassment: Making unwanted romantic overtures, sexually suggestive remarks, personal relationship inquiries, or transmitting sexually explicit media to buyers, merchants, or delivery drivers.
- Abuse of Frontline Workers: Berating, yelling, hurling profanities, or verbally degrading delivery couriers, warehouse personnel, or retail stall clerks who are executing fulfillment duties.
- Threats of Social Exposure: Threatening to shame, expose, or post screenshots of private transactions, conversations, or return disputes on external social media networks.
1.4.2 Review Extortion & Rating Blackmail
Public reviews are designed to reflect honest, objective customer experiences. Manipulating ratings through coercion is strictly prohibited:
- Buyer Extortion (“Review Blackmail”): Buyers may not demand unearned discounts, cash refunds, free merchandise, or extra concessions under the threat of submitting a 1-star review or defamatory rating.
- Merchant Retaliation & Coercion: Merchants and store staff may not phone, message, visit, or physically intimidate a buyer to demand the removal or modification of an honest, negative review. Offering financial bribes or kickbacks in exchange for 5-star ratings is equally prohibited.
- Coordinated Review Syndicates (Astroturfing): Mobilizing networks of fake accounts, employees, friends, or third-party reputation agencies to artificially inflate a shop’s ratings or systematically post fraudulent negative reviews against competing neighborhood stalls is strictly prohibited.
1.4.3 Investigative Protocol & Remedies
- Extortion Invalidation: When review extortion is verified via chat records or call logs, the offending buyer’s review privileges are immediately revoked, and any coerced negative rating is permanently expunged from the merchant’s public score.
- Merchant Penalties: Merchants verified to have intimidated or threatened buyers over legitimate negative reviews face immediate storefront de-listing and temporary merchant account suspension.
- Customer Support Mediation: All contentious disputes regarding product quality or service failure must be resolved through the platform’s official dispute resolution workflow rather than private confrontation.
1.5 Graphic, Violent & Adult / Explicit Content (Clause CS-1.5)
The Near Buy is a neighborhood-centered, family-accessible Marketspace suitable for consumers across all age groups. We maintain strict prohibitions against sexually explicit material, gratuitous violence, and grotesque media across all public storefronts, product catalogs, customer reviews, user profile avatars, and private messaging channels.
1.5.1 Adult Nudity & Sexually Explicit Content
Content across all platform surfaces must not display, promote, or link to:
- Explicit Nudity & Sexual Acts: Visual or photographic depictions of human genitals, pubic areas, buttocks, or uncovered female breasts, as well as explicit depictions of sexual activity, intercourse, or masturbation.
- Erotica & Commercial Sexual Solicitation: Sexually explicit written narratives, erotica, adult novelty promotions, or solicitations for escort, massage, or prostitution services.
- Intimate Apparel & Swimwear Presentation Standards: Listings for legitimate clothing items (such as lingerie, undergarments, nightwear, or swimwear) must adhere to professional commercial standards. Products must be displayed using flat-lay photography, clean tabletop displays, or professional non-suggestive mannequins. Human modeling that emphasizes sexually provocative poses, close-ups of private anatomical areas, or sheer transparency is strictly prohibited.
1.5.2 Violent, Graphic & Grotesque Imagery
The platform prohibits media that shocks, disgusts, or depicts gratuitous bodily injury, including:
- Severe Bodily Trauma: Graphic depictions of severe human injuries, open wounds, dismemberment, charred remains, violent bloodshed, or surgical procedures.
- Animal Cruelty: Visuals showing the intentional abuse, torture, neglect, or unlawful killing of animals, as well as staged animal fights (such as dog or rooster fights).
- Sanitary Presentation of Perishable Goods: Raw meat, poultry, and fish merchants operating on the platform must display processed cuts in clean, hygienic, and commercially packaged presentations. Displaying freshly slaughtered animal carcasses with open visceral gore, decapitations, or unhygienic preparation environments is strictly prohibited.
1.5.3 Statutory Alignment & Serious Violations
- Legal Governance: This policy enforces full compliance with the Pornography Control Act, 2012 of Bangladesh and the Indecent Advertisements Prohibition Act, as well as international digital store safety standards.
- Zero-Tolerance Protocol for Exploitative Material: The upload or transmission of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (NCII / revenge pornography) results in instantaneous, permanent account termination, immediate freezing of all associated merchant funds, and automated transmission of evidentiary records to the Cyber Crime Investigation Division of the Bangladesh Police and international child protection clearinghouses.
Fair and authentic trade requires that consumers receive accurate, honest information regarding the products they purchase and the merchants they patronize. The Near Buy prohibits deceptive marketing claims, synthetic or artificially manipulated media intended to defraud, and coordinated attempts to distort platform feedback.
While artificial intelligence tools may assist in drafting descriptions or standardizing photo backgrounds, using synthetic media to mislead participants is strictly forbidden:
- Misleading AI Product Renders: Merchants may not list hyper-realistic, AI-generated synthetic images that misrepresent the actual physical product kept in local inventory. The delivered item must match the material quality, dimensions, branding, and appearance displayed in the catalog.
- Fabricated Damage Evidence in Return Claims: Buyers are strictly prohibited from using generative AI, photo-manipulation software, or filters to fabricate or exaggerate scratches, cracks, fabric tears, broken seals, or spoilage on delivered goods in order to obtain fraudulent refunds or replacements.
- Synthetic Endorsements: The creation of artificial testimonials, synthetic influencer endorsements, or computer-generated customer avatars to simulate grassroots demand or credibility is prohibited.
Product descriptions, promotional banners, and merchant communications must be truthful and substantiated:
- Unsubstantiated Medical & Health Claims: Sellers must not attribute unverified curative or therapeutic properties to food products, traditional herbal preparations (ayurvedic or unani remedies), or health supplements. Making unsubstantiated claims to cure chronic medical conditions (e.g., cancer, diabetes, hypertension, or viral infections) without formal certification from the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) is strictly prohibited.
- False Regulatory & Quality Certifications: Forging, altering, or unlawfully displaying official certification logos—including marks of the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), international ISO badges, or unauthorized Halal seals—is a serious regulatory violation resulting in immediate product de-listing and merchant sanctions.
- Deceptive Origin & Condition Claims: Merchants may not market locally manufactured goods as imported foreign products (bideshi), nor misrepresent used, refurbished, or shop-worn items as factory-new.
1.6.3 Astroturfing & Inauthentic Engagement
The integrity of neighborhood commerce depends on authentic public sentiment:
- Multi-Account Manipulation (Sybil Behavior): Operating multiple consumer accounts to circumvent bargaining restrictions, hoard promotional vouchers, or artificially boost merchant follower numbers is prohibited.
- Incentivized & Coordinated Reviews: Participating in paid review schemes, offering cash incentives or free goods in exchange for guaranteed 5-star ratings, or coordinating with external groups to manipulate search visibility or merchant rankings is prohibited.
- Competitor Sabotage: Systematically placing unfulfilled orders or generating fraudulent negative reviews targeting competing neighborhood merchants is treated as malicious commercial interference.
1.6.4 Investigative Remedies & Enforcement
- Digital Forensics: The platform applies image integrity checks and metadata inspection to contested photo evidence submitted in customer return requests and review disputes.
- Listing Suppression: Products found to contain unsubstantiated health claims or forged certification marks are placed on immediate administrative freeze pending verification of official documentation.
- Review Expungement & Sanctions: Accounts engaged in organized review manipulation will have all associated ratings expunged and will face permanent suspension of review submission and bargaining privileges.
1.7 In-App Messaging, Anti-Spam & Anti-Solicitation (Clause CS-1.7)
The Near Buy provides real-time customer messaging to facilitate legitimate product inquiries, stock verifications, order coordination, and dispute mediation between neighborhood merchants and nearby consumers. This channel must remain professional, respectful, and free from unsolicited commercial disruption or off-platform diversion.
1.7.1 Permissible & Commercial Scope
All communications conducted through the platform’s messaging interfaces must relate strictly to lawful commerce:
- Legitimate Business Context: Messages must pertain to active catalog items, product specifications, inventory availability, order delivery times, pickup appointments, bargaining counter-offers, or active return tickets.
- Professional Customer Service: Merchants and their authorized staff must maintain a courteous, professional, and patient tone in all interactions with prospective and existing buyers.
1.7.2 Anti-Spam & Communications Flooding
Users and merchants may not abuse communication tools through:
- Unsolicited Mass Marketing: Merchants are strictly prohibited from broadcasting bulk promotional announcements, marketing links, or unsolicited advertising blasts to consumers without prior express consent.
- Message Flooding & Denial of Service: Sending repetitive, high-frequency duplicate messages, promotional copy-pastes, or automated script queries designed to crowd customer inboxes, overwhelm merchant response windows, or harass recipients.
- Malicious External Links & Executables: Transmitting links to external unverified websites, mobile application download packages, third-party questionnaires, or external payment portals.
To maintain consumer safety, dispute protection, and platform operational sustainability, all transactions initiated on The Near Buy must be completed on The Near Buy:
- Absolute Ban on Off-Platform Diversion: Merchants and buyers are strictly prohibited from soliciting, suggesting, or agreeing to complete orders, negotiations, or payments outside the platform (e.g., requesting a buyer to cancel a pending platform order to transact privately via direct cash, personal mobile financial services such as bKash, Nagad, or Rocket, or bank transfer).
- Forfeiture of Consumer Protections: Transactions negotiated or finalized outside platform channels immediately forfeit all platform guarantees, including the verified Cash Confirmation handshake, the 9-step return resolution guarantee, and administrative dispute mediation.
- Sanctions for Merchant Circumvention: Merchants verified to have solicited off-platform transactions face immediate storefront de-listing, forfeiture of pending promotional subsidies, a platform service fee surcharge debited from their digital wallet, and permanent account termination upon repeated violations.
1.7.4 Post-Transaction Privacy & Non-Contact Obligation
- Post-Fulfillment Boundary: Once an order has been successfully delivered and the return eligibility window has lapsed, merchants and delivery personnel are legally and contractually prohibited from contacting the customer via phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp, or other private communication channels for social, personal, or promotional reasons.
1.8 Physical Safety & In-Person Doorstep Conduct (Clause CS-1.8)
Hyperlocal commerce relies on real-world human interactions during neighborhood shop pickups and doorstep deliveries. Protecting the physical security, personal dignity, and bodily safety of consumers, retail store staff, and delivery couriers is the highest operational priority of The Near Buy.
1.8.1 Doorstep Delivery Standards & Courtesy
During the delivery of orders to residential or commercial addresses:
- Professional Demeanor & Identification: Delivery couriers must present a polite, professional attitude, dress appropriately, and identify themselves clearly as delivering on behalf of the merchant or fulfillment network.
- Respect for Residential Boundaries: Delivery couriers may not step across the threshold into a customer’s private home or apartment without explicit permission from an adult resident. Couriers must not comment on, inspect, or photograph personal household interiors or private property.
- Vulnerable & Unaccompanied Customers: Delivery personnel must exhibit heightened patience and professionalism when interacting with elderly customers, individuals with special needs, or unaccompanied family members, ensuring the delivery environment remains comfortable and non-threatening.
1.8.2 Protection of Delivery Couriers & Frontline Workers
Delivery personnel are essential service providers and are entitled to safe working conditions:
- Safe Physical Access: Customers are obligated to provide safe, unobstructed access to their delivery location, ensure that aggressive domestic pets are securely restrained, and ensure adequate lighting at residential entryways.
- Prohibition of Detainment or Verbal Abuse: Customers may not physically detain, verbally abuse, insult, or threaten delivery couriers over issues regarding merchant preparation delays, packaging imperfections, or internal product defects. All product grievances must be filed through the platform’s formal dispute resolution center.
- Right to Abort Unsafe Deliveries: Delivery couriers possess the unconditional right to cancel a delivery, retreat to a secure location, and alert platform support if they encounter physical aggression, verbal threats, severe environmental hazards, or extortion demands.
1.8.3 Cash-on-Delivery (COD) & The Physical Verification Handshake
To prevent theft, fraud, and misdelivery, the exchange of goods and payments is governed by strict physical protocols:
- Mandatory 8-Digit Verification Code / QR Handshake: Both customer and delivery personnel must complete the physical scan or numeric verification of the cryptographically generated 8-digit Cash Confirmation Code before merchandise is handed over.
- Prohibition of Forced Release: Customers may not demand physical custody of merchandise before presenting the valid confirmation code and paying the full verified cash balance. Couriers may not mark an order as delivered without completing the physical code verification.
- Safe Cash Handover: Cash must be counted openly in the presence of both parties. Couriers must promptly report counterfeit currency attempts, and customers must receive exact change or agreed digital adjustments.
1.8.4 Late-Night Deliveries & High-Risk Areas
- Curfew & Safety Compliance: Deliveries scheduled during evening hours must comply with local municipal safety advisories. Where doorstep access is located in unlit, hazardous, or high-crime alleys, delivery may be coordinated at a well-lit neighborhood landmark, such as a building security checkpoint or main street junction.
1.8.5 Threats of Violence & Emergency Protocols
- Zero-Tolerance for Violence: Any act of physical assault, brandishing of weapons, unlawful imprisonment, or physical extortion (chandabaji) committed by any participant results in immediate, permanent platform expulsion (Tier 4) and permanent blacklisting of associated physical addresses, phone numbers, and national IDs.
- Emergency Law Enforcement Escalation: Platform administrators maintain direct emergency protocols to immediately escalate severe physical safety incidents to the National Emergency Service (999) and local police stations (Thana), providing GPS coordinates, transaction records, and user identification details for criminal prosecution.
1.9 Protection of Minors & Child Labor Prohibition (Clause CS-1.9)
The welfare, safety, and protection of children and adolescents are fundamental ethical and legal obligations across all platform activities. The Near Buy strictly regulates contractual eligibility, bans the sale of age-inappropriate goods to minors, and enforces an absolute prohibition against child labor across all merchant stalls and delivery operations.
1.9.1 Legal Capacity to Contract & Account Registration
- Age of Majority: Under the Contract Act, 1872 of Bangladesh, individuals under the age of 18 do not possess independent capacity to enter into legally binding commercial agreements.
- Parental Responsibility: Minors under 18 years of age may browse the platform only under the direct supervision, consent, and financial responsibility of a parent or legal guardian. The registered account holder remains legally liable for all orders placed and all payment commitments made.
- Merchant & Courier Eligibility: Operating an independent merchant storefront, listing commercial inventory, or registering as a delivery courier requires the individual to be at least 18 years of age, verified via government-issued National Identity (NID) credentials.
1.9.2 Age-Restricted Commodities & Minor Safeguards
Merchants are strictly prohibited from marketing, selling, or dispatching products restricted to adults when the order is placed by or intended for a minor under 18 years of age:
- Tobacco & Nicotine Products: Cigarettes, bidis, cigars, smokeless tobacco (zarda, gul), electronic cigarettes, vaporizers, e-liquids, and related smoking accessories.
- Hazardous Implements: Utility knives, machetes (dao), folding blades, and dangerous tools intended exclusively for adult commercial or domestic usage.
- Flammables & Chemicals: Industrial solvent-based adhesives, concentrated volatile fuels, and commercial fireworks or pyrotechnics.
- Courier Verification Mandate: Delivery couriers are instructed to request visual age verification during doorstep handovers if the recipient appears to be a minor receiving an age-gated consignment.
1.9.3 Absolute Prohibition of Child Labor
The Near Buy enforces a zero-tolerance policy against the exploitation of underage labor in compliance with the Bangladesh Labor Act, 2006 (including the 2013 and 2018 amendments) and the National Child Labor Elimination Policy:
- Retail Stalls & Merchant Premises: Approved merchants are strictly prohibited from employing children under the age of 14 in any commercial role, and may not engage adolescents aged 14 to 17 in hazardous labor, night shifts, or environments involving heavy machinery or toxic chemicals.
- Delivery & Courier Operations: Utilizing children or minors under 18 years of age to execute delivery runs, transport heavy commercial packages, or operate motorized transport in traffic is strictly illegal and grounds for immediate termination of merchant status.
- Mandatory Statutory Reporting: Any merchant verified to be utilizing child labor will suffer immediate revocation of their storefront, freezing of digital wallet balances, and formal reporting to the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
1.9.4 Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation (CSAE)
- Any media, text, review, or customer communication that depicts, solicits, promotes, or facilitates child sexual abuse or exploitation triggers an instantaneous, permanent platform ban, immediate preservation of electronic evidence, and mandatory notification to law enforcement authorities and international protection registries.
1.10 Crisis Intervention & Self-Harm Support (Clause CS-1.10)
While The Near Buy operates as a commercial Marketspace, user interactions in customer support threads, return disputes, or direct merchant communications may occasionally surface acute emotional distress, self-harm, or suicidal crisis. The Near Buy upholds a compassionate Duty of Care protocol designed to protect human life and guide vulnerable individuals toward professional assistance.
1.10.1 Prohibition of Content Promoting or Instructing Self-Harm
The platform strictly bans any content, product listing, review narrative, or messaging exchange that:
- Encourages, incites, or glorifies suicide or acts of deliberate self-harm.
- Disseminates explicit instructions, methods, lethal chemical dosages, or technical steps for self-inflicted violence.
- Lists or facilitates the delivery of implements or substances explicitly promoted for suicide or self-injury.
1.10.2 Duty of Care & Compassionate Support Protocol
When a participant (whether a customer or merchant) expresses acute suicidal ideation, intent to commit self-harm, or severe psychiatric distress during platform interactions:
- Immediate De-Escalation: Platform operators and customer service representatives are trained to de-escalate commercial tension, suspend contentious return arguments, and respond with empathy, dignity, and care.
- Connection to Verified National Crisis Resources: Platform representatives will immediately provide official, accessible contact information for certified mental health crisis interventions in Bangladesh:
- Kaan Pete Roi (কান পেতে রই): Bangladesh’s primary emotional support and suicide prevention helpline (Contact: +880 1779-554391, +880 1779-554392).
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): Specialized psychological and psychiatric emergency consultations (Dhaka, Bangladesh).
- National Emergency Service (999): In instances where there is verifiable, imminent danger of loss of human life, platform operators will notify emergency first responders with relevant geographic details to facilitate life-saving intervention.
1.10.3 Account Safeguards During Crisis
- Accounts flagged for acute crisis intervention will not be subjected to punitive commercial penalties. Active bargaining timers, order cancellation penalties, or return response deadlines will be temporarily paused by platform administrators until the individual’s safety is assured.
