Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible

Midas-Xerxes Limited (RC 7443563), 5 Nsukka Road Orba, Enugu state, Nigeria., runs NoWahala and is the data controller for the personal data described here, under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. Questions or requests: admin@nowahala.store.

2. What we collect

• Account: your email address, name and shop name (if you sell), and your phone number once you verify it.
• Addresses: addresses you save for doorstep delivery or rider pickup, with a contact phone and landmark.
• Listings and orders: what you list, buy and sell, prices, your pickup hub, order history, the checklist you ticked, and copies of listings as they were when ordered.
• Payments and payouts: payment references and amounts from Paystack, and for sellers the bank account you add (name checked with your bank through Paystack). We never see your card or banking passwords.
• Seller ID check: before a seller’s first payout we check their BVN or NIN with an identity provider. We keep the result, the name on the record and the provider’s reference. We do not keep the BVN or NIN number, selfie or ID photo.
• Photos and videos: listing photos (public), and drop-off photos taken by hub staff and dispute videos you record (private to the people involved and our staff).
• Chat: messages between buyers and sellers. Contact details are hidden as they’re sent; we keep what was typed so we can look into reports. Staff read a conversation only if someone reports it.
• Ratings and your NoWahala Score: ratings you give or receive, replies, and the events that moved a seller’s score.
• Usage: items you save, when you open a seller’s link or shop (to count clicks and apply the seller-link discount), and basic technical logs such as IP address, used for security and to stop abuse.

3. Why we use it

• To run your orders (the contract with you): payments, hub drop-off and collection, delivery, refunds, payouts, disputes, and the emails and texts that go with them.
• To keep the marketplace safe (our legitimate interest): hiding contact details in chat, reviewing reports, the NoWahala Score, preventing fraud and enforcing our terms.
• To meet the law: checking sellers’ identity before paying them and keeping financial records.
• To improve NoWahala: overall figures such as sales per month and dispute rates. We don’t sell your data and we don’t use it for third-party advertising.

4. Who sees it

• Other users: buyers see a seller’s name or shop name, score, ratings and listings. The two people in an order see each other’s name. Hubs and riders see the name, phone number and, for doorstep services, the address needed for that job.
• Service providers who process data for us: Paystack (payments and payouts), our identity-check provider, our SMS and email providers, Cloudflare (photo storage), our server host, and our logistics partners (hubs and riders).
• Authorities, when the law requires it.

Some providers store data outside Nigeria. Where they do, we rely on the safeguards the Nigeria Data Protection Act allows.

5. How long we keep it

• Drop-off photos are deleted after the order is finished (90 days at present), unless the order was disputed.
• Orders, payments, refunds, payouts and the ID-check result are kept as financial and anti-money-laundering records (the ID-check result for 5 years after your last transaction).
• When you close your account, we delete your name, shop name, email, phone and addresses, take your listings down and remove your saved items. Chats and ratings stay for the other person, shown as from a closed account.

6. Your rights

• See your data: download everything we hold about you from your account page.
• Correct it: edit your details on your account page, or ask us.
• Delete it: close your account from your account page (once no orders, payouts or promotions are in progress).
• Object or ask questions: email admin@nowahala.store. You can also complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

7. Cookies and storage on your device

We use a cookie to keep you signed in and one to remember light or dark mode. Your browser also remembers which seller’s link you opened (for the seller-link discount) and similar small preferences. Our own ads use no cookies: we only count how many times each ad is seen and tapped, not who saw it.

Some pages (the home page, search results and item pages) may show ads from Google. Where they do, Google and its partners may use cookies to show ads based on your visits to this and other sites. You can turn off personalised ads at adssettings.google.com, and read how Google uses this information at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. There are never ads on checkout, payment, order, chat or account pages.

8. Changes

We’ll update this page when what we collect or who we share it with changes, and show the date at the top.