Pemba is an app for making and sending cards. These terms are the agreement between you and us about using it. By making an account you agree to them.
Pemba is run by Kevin Bazan Valencia, a sole trader in the United Kingdom — "we" and "us" in these terms.
You need an account, and the account is yours alone — don't share it or let somebody else use it. You must be at least 13 years old. Pemba doesn't check your age when you sign up. If we find out that an account belongs to somebody younger — for example from a report or an email — we delete it.
The cards you make belong to you. We don't claim any ownership of them and we don't use them for anything.
We also can't read them. Cards are encrypted before they leave your phone and can only be opened by the person you sent them to. That is a property of how the app is built and not a promise about our conduct — the keys are on people's devices and never on our servers. The privacy policy explains this properly, including the one exception, which is that a person who receives a card can choose to include it when they report it.
There is no tolerance for abusive or objectionable content, or for people who behave abusively. Don't use Pemba to send:
This applies to everyone, whatever their age, and to the whole of a card — its message, its pictures, and the name you sign it with.
Cards are encrypted so that only the person you send one to can read them. That also means we cannot look through cards, and we don't use any technology to scan them. Instead, Pemba is built so that unwanted cards are hard to send and easy to stop:
When a card is reported, a person here reads it and decides what to do. Accounts run by or for a banned organisation are removed. If a report suggests a child may be at risk, we keep the report and pass it to the police or the National Crime Agency.
Pemba is for people aged 13 and over, so some of the people using it are under 18. We don't know anyone's age, so everything here works the same way for everyone, whatever their age.
What protects you from every kind of harmful card
Cards are encrypted, so we can't see one before it arrives, and we don't use any technology to scan them. That means we can't stop a first card reaching you. But it can only come from someone who knows your handle, and you can stop them straight away.
Never allowed, for anyone
Also not allowed
Other cards that can hurt
How we handle reports and complaints is set out below, under Reporting and blocking and Complaints and appeals.
Every card you receive can be reported from inside the app: hold the card and choose Report. Reporting sends us that card's message so a person can read it, and takes the card out of your mailbox. You can block the sender in the same step. The person you report is not told that you reported them, or who you are.
We review reports within 24 hours. Depending on what we find, we may take no action, if the card doesn't break these terms; stop the sender's share links; suspend their account; or remove it — and, where the law requires it, tell the police. We don't send you a message about the outcome of a report, but if you email us we'll tell you what we decided.
Blocking takes effect immediately and is separate from reporting — a blocked account cannot send you a card at all. You can block and unblock people from your profile at any time, and you don't need a reason.
We may suspend or remove an account that breaks these terms, without notice where the behaviour warrants it. Depending on what has happened, that means the account can no longer sign in, or is deleted along with its content.
If you think we have got it wrong, you can appeal — see Complaints and appeals.
You can complain to us about:
For an appeal or a complaint, email pembaapp@gmail.com with "Appeal" or "Complaint" in the subject, and tell us what happened. We'll reply to say we've received it, usually within a few days, and tell you roughly how long a decision will take. Then we'll tell you what we decided and what we've done about it. If you'd rather not hear back from us about a complaint, just say so.
If an appeal shows we got it wrong, we'll undo what we did as far as we can — for example, by restoring your account.
Complaints about your personal information are covered in the privacy policy, which also explains how to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Sending a card costs a stamp. Stamps are bought through the App Store, and Apple handles the payment — we never see your card details. Stamps belong to your Pemba account rather than to a phone, so signing in on a new device brings them with you.
Prices can change, and they are set country by country. The App Store always shows you the current price before you pay. A new price only applies to stamps bought after it; stamps already in your balance are never affected, and they never expire. The larger packs are priced to cost less a stamp, and each one shows what a stamp in it costs, so you can choose the one that suits you.
Stamps have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for money or transferred to somebody else. Refunds are Apple's decision and are requested from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. If Apple refunds a purchase, we remove the corresponding stamps from the balance — never taking it below zero, and the app tells you when this happens.
If your account is deleted, any remaining stamps go with it.
You can delete your account from your profile in the app, and it removes your cards, your handles and the account itself. Two consequences are worth knowing before you do it, because neither can be undone:
What survives is set out in the privacy policy: purchase receipts with your account id removed, other people's own records of their decisions, and reports made about content.
Pemba is provided as it is. We work to keep it running and to keep cards safe, but we can't guarantee it will always be available, that a card will always arrive, or that nothing will ever go wrong.
Because of how the encryption works, we cannot recover your cards or your account if you lose access to your devices. There is no reset path and no copy of your key. This is deliberate, and it is the cost of us not being able to read your cards.
Share links expire after 30 days, and cards that are never collected are deleted after 90. Pemba is not a place to store things you need to keep.
We may update these terms. If a change matters, we'll say so in the app rather than only here.
pembaapp@gmail.com, or see the support page.