Founded in 2019 in London, Dojo is a UK-based fintech company that provides payment solutions for UK-registered businesses of all sizes. They offer secure and portable card readers with multiple payment options, including digital wallets, QR codes, and tap-to-pay, among others. The company has headquarters in London and additional office branches in Hull, Dublin, Bristol and Belfast.
Although their solutions are suitable for companies that provide services across multiple industry niches, such as hospitality, retail, entertainment, transportation, education, and others, not all businesses are allowed to use Dojo’s payment tools.
In this article, we’ll cover what businesses are prohibited from using Dojo and what to do if you get a temporary ban from using their payment solutions.
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What Businesses Are Not Allowed To Use Dojo & Why
According to Dojo’s policies and guidelines, you can only use their tools and features for activities that are in line with UK’s legal framework.
The company does not share specific businesses that are prohibited from using its services but outlines multiple banned business activities in detail.
Here’s a list of all the business activities that are strictly banned by Dojo:
- Activities that do not align with domestic, international, or local regulations, policies, and laws.
- Selling, reselling, or producing unlawful, illicit, and fraudulent items or services.
- Activities that promote bullying, humiliation, fear, or intimidation to any individual of any age.
- Producing, reproducing, uploading, downloading, or sending digital files with viruses, such as Trojan horses, spyware, loggers, and all kinds of dangerous, illicit online programs.
- Producing, reproducing, uploading, downloading, or sending code ad code templates that can negatively impact another individual’s hardware tools or software solutions.
- Duplicating, sending, copying, selling, and reproducing parts of Dojo’s website and acting out without complying with the company’s conditions and rules.
- Accessing or damaging Dojo’s website or their network and additional software tools and features.
- Accessing or interfering with a third-party’s hardware, network, software or any type of digital tools and features.
- Create, reproduce or sell any kind of content that is offensive, harmful, intimidating, defamatory and hurtful to another individual.
- Creating, selling, or reproducing materials that promote sexual services, pornographic images and videos, harmful and abusive sexual content including minors, etc.
- Creating, selling, or reproducing content that promotes discrimination because of sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, disabilities, health, race, gender, etc.
- Intellectual property infringement that is not in line with trademark, patent or copyright laws will protect Dojo or any other third-party.
- Selling, reproducing or creating items and services that can be deceitful and breach confidential or contractual obligations of a third party.
- Promoting and selling any additional illicit activities and digital content.
- Engaging in any type of illicit behaviour that, according to Dojo’s policies, is considered threatening, abusive, or can be invasive to someone’s privacy, cause unnecessary stress, discomfort, or irritation to another individual, etc.
- Conducting business activities in a manner likely to harass, disturb, humiliate or frighten a third party.
- Selling, reproducing, or creating goods and services while pretending to be someone else, i.e. falsifying your identity or claiming a specific connection to any third-party individual or organisation.
- Conducting activities that will mislead your customers into thinking that Dojo also creates your business items and services without receiving pre-approval.
- Supporting, encouraging, or inciting third-party individuals or businesses to engage in illicit or criminal activities or sell illegal goods.
- Including statements or selling goods and services that encourage or provoke terrorist acts, violence or preparation of such illegal acts in an implicit or explicit manner.
- Showing advertisements that promote any services or include links to other websites that have not been authorised.
What Happens After Dojo Bans Your Account
According to Dojo, being non-compliant with any of their rules is a very serious violation. Therefore, your actions and engagement in high-risk business activities can lead to one or more of the following actions:
- Immediate (instant) temporary or permanent suspension of your access to Dojo’s tools and features and your subscriber’s account.
- Immediate (instant) temporary or permanent removal of any content or material you have uploaded via your Dojo account.
- Issuance of a formal warning to the non-compliant account.
- Initiation of legal proceedings against you to recover any costs that have occurred as a direct result of your policy breach, such as administrative and legal expenses.
- Pursuit of additional legal actions against you or your company.
- Provision of specific information to legal bodies and authorities in case it’s necessary to initiate legal proceedings or if they are legally obligated to do so.
Keep in mind that the company is not responsible for any consequences that might arise after they undertake specific actions in response to your violation of their policies and guidelines.
Reasons Why Dojo Can Ban Your Account
Like the other businesses that offer payment management hardware and software solutions, Dojo has the right to terminate any high-risk account, i.e., any business or solo merchant that the company suspects of conducting risky and prohibited activities.
Here are the most common reasons why they often decide to prohibit a subscriber from using their tools and features.
A high percentage of chargebacks: Dojo regularly tracks its subscribers’ chargebacks to customers. Therefore, if your account receives a very high percentage of chargebacks, Dojo might temporarily prohibit access while they investigate the matter further. The main reason is to find out why there’s such a high amount of user dissatisfaction and whether there’s any fraudulent behaviour by the business or a third party.
Non-compliance to Dojo’s conditions, regulations, and terms: As mentioned above, if your account is not compliant with any of Dojo’s rules and terms, and you are conducting business activities or selling banned products, your account can get permanently terminated. You will lose access to your subscription and won’t be able to use Dojo in the future.
Unresolved disputes: If you cannot successfully resolve existing customer disputes, Dojo can temporarily prohibit access to your account and investigate separate cases on a deeper level. If there’s enough proof of misconduct from your side and unresolved disputes due to no external reasons, you can lose access to Dojo’s tools and features and your account for an unlimited amount of time.
Lack of documentation: Dojo can ask for any type of documentation that’s relevant to them to keep your account safe at any time. If you do not provide the necessary paperwork, they can terminate your account. Another reason for a potential permanent ban is if the company finds out you’re using incorrect business details and are not sharing the necessary paperwork.
Countries in Which Dojo’s Policies and Guidelines Are Enforced
All of Dojo’s subscribers should take into consideration that the policies and guidelines created by Dojo are entirely under the jurisdiction of the legal framework in the respective countries of the United Kingdom. In case you have to settle a dispute against Dojo or vice versa, the court proceedings will take place according to the following company rules:
For businesses registered in the UK: According to Dojo’s policies and regulations, the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except when the subscribing company is registered in Northern Ireland or Scotland. In that case, the court proceedings will take place where the company is registered.
For solo merchants and private individuals who reside in the UK: In case you’re using Dojo’s services as a solo merchant or private individual with legal registration in England, all of the disputes will be entirely and exclusively governed by the legal bodies of England or in specific cases, in Wales. However, solo merchants or private individuals who reside in Scotland or Northern Ireland can ask for the proceeding to take place in front of their respective courts.
According to Dojo’s terms and conditions, the company regularly conducts risk assessments to oversee how subscribers are using their software and hardware tools. That said, they are not obliged to keep track of or monitor the interactive activities and services on their platform. Therefore, they are not liable if their interactive activities cause any type of damage.
What To Do If Your Business Gets Banned by Dojo
Getting your account terminated by Dojo can harm your company’s reputation and profit. To effectively address this situation, consider the following steps:
Assess and analyse the specific situation: Analyse the problem and take measures to find out the real reason why this happened.
Read Dojo’s guidelines and policies: Go through Dojo’s policies, rules, and guidelines to identify specific issues that might have caused the company to decide to ban your account.
Learn more about businesses similar to Dojo: In some cases, you might get a permanent ban and will never be able to use Dojo’s services again. In this case, the best solution is to look for another company that provides services similar to Dojo’s and contact them to open a new account as soon as possible so you don’t lose more customers.
Consult a legal expert: To better understand the rules, guidelines, and policies before starting legal proceedings, don’t take matters into your own hands, but consult someone who specialises in providing legal advice.
What To Do If Dojo Incorrectly Banned Your Account
Sometimes, Dojo can incorrectly ban an existing customer from using its services or not allow a business to become a new subscriber and use its payment tools and features.
To contact the company and find out the real reason behind the ban, you can email them at support@dojo.tech or dataprotection@dojo.tech. You can also call 08000443550.
If the answer you receive from Dojo does not meet your expectations and you’d like to complain to a higher body, you can file a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, also known as the ICO.
How to Restore Your Business Account After Being Terminated by Dojo
If Dojo terminates your account permanently due to using it to conduct high-risk activities, there’s no way to get the exact account back. You can get your account back only if it’s temporarily closed and the company decides you’re not conducting any harmful operations.
To restore your Dojo account after a temporary ban, you can do the following:
Tackle already existing issues and problems: Pinpoint and find out the exact causes that led Dojo to decide to terminate your account. For example, if the reason was a high amount of chargebacks or unresolved disputes, make sure to resolve them and contact customer service to explain why you received a high amount of chargebacks.
Update and send your business documentation: Make sure all of your documents are neatly and updated on your account in a timely manner. You can also contact customer support if they need extra paperwork, such as your business financial reports and records, prior disputes that were successfully resolved, measures taken to keep your business safe from fraud and third-party breaches, etc.