Privacy Policy
1. Introduction
tipme ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our platform to send or receive tips and payments for services.
2. Information We Collect
We collect the following types of information:
Personal Information:
- Name, email address, phone number, and mailing address
- Profile photo and biographical information
- Identity verification information: date of birth, taxpayer identification number, government-ID images and a selfie (facial images) used to confirm that the ID belongs to you; the images are collected and processed by Stripe and are not retained on tipme servers (see Section 5)
- Bank account information (routing and account numbers retrieved via Plaid, stored encrypted with AES-256)
Transaction Information:
- Payment amounts and dates
- Payout history and bank transfer records
- Payment method details (processed by Stripe; card data is not stored by tipme)
Information from Payers (customers):
When you pay for a service through a tipme payment page, we collect your first and last name, email address, and phone number. We use this information to process the payment, send you a receipt by email, provide the Recipient with a record of who paid for their service, prevent fraud, and comply with legal obligations. Voluntary tips do not require any contact information (you may optionally provide a display name). We do not use Payer contact information for marketing, and we do not send marketing text messages to Payers.
Automatically Collected Information:
- Device information (browser type, operating system, device model)
- IP address and approximate location
- Usage data (pages visited, features used)
- Page visit analytics (pages viewed, visit timestamps, session duration)
- Screen resolution and device type (mobile, tablet, desktop)
- Cookies and similar technologies
- In our mobile app: an identifier for your install of the app, your device’s advertising ID on Android (never on iPhone), and which link or ad led to the install (see Section 15)
3. How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Create and manage your tipme account
- Process tips, payments for services, and payout transactions
- Generate invoices for payments for services, which are issued in your name and show the name and address on your account
- Verify your identity as required by financial regulations
- Send transactional emails (payment notifications, payout confirmations) and SMS messages (phone number verification)
- Prevent fraud and unauthorized transactions
- Improve our platform and user experience
- Analyze usage patterns and platform traffic to improve our services
- Measure our advertising: on our website only if you allow advertising cookies, and in our mobile app unless you turn it off (see Section 15)
- Comply with legal obligations
5. Payment Processing and Identity Verification (Stripe)
We use Stripe to process payments and to verify the identity of Recipients. Stripe may collect and process personal information, including transactional data and information about the devices that connect to its services, and uses this information to operate and improve its services, including fraud detection and prevention. For payments made on your instructions, Stripe acts as our service provider (processor); for fraud monitoring and identity verification, Stripe acts as an independent controller under its own policy. You can read Stripe’s privacy policy at stripe.com/privacy.
Payment card and financial-account details are handled by Stripe in a PCI-compliant environment and are not stored by tipme. Government-ID images and identity details you submit for verification are transmitted to Stripe and are not retained on tipme servers.
Identity verification (selfie and ID check): When you sign up as a Recipient, you photograph a government-issued ID and take a selfie inside a verification flow provided by Stripe (Stripe Identity), in our app or on a Stripe-hosted page. Stripe collects your name, email address, phone number, address, date of birth, ID number, identity-document images and facial images, together with advanced fraud signals and information about the device you use, and uses biometric technology to compare your selfie with the photo on your ID. Stripe shares the verification result and the details read from your document with us, and also uses this information to operate and improve its services, including fraud detection. The same check helps detect one face being used with different identities, which protects Recipients, Payers and tipme against synthetic-identity fraud.
Consent and alternatives: Before your selfie is captured, the verification flow asks for your consent to the biometric comparison. If you do not consent, or the check cannot be completed on your device, contact support@tipme-app.com and we will verify your identity another way (manual review of your government-issued ID), which may take longer. We use biometric information only to verify your identity and prevent fraud; we never sell it and never use it for advertising.
What is kept, and for how long: tipme does not receive, store, or possess your biometric identifiers, selfie, or ID images; Stripe holds them, and authorized tipme staff can view them in Stripe’s verification dashboard when reviewing fraud or disputes. tipme keeps only the outcome of the verification, its date, a reference number for it, and whether the name and date of birth on your ID matched the details you entered. Stripe states that the biometric identifiers created to conduct the verification are removed from its systems within one year, and that the rest of the submitted identity information is typically stored for 3 years; the ID document attached to your Stripe payout account is retained by Stripe for as long as financial regulations require. Should tipme ever come to possess biometric information, we will permanently destroy it when the purpose for which it was collected has been satisfied or within 3 years of your last interaction with tipme, whichever occurs first, and we will protect it at least as strictly as our other confidential information.
Deleting your verification data: You can ask us at any time to delete your verification data and we will redact the verification with Stripe. For data Stripe holds under its own policy, contact Stripe at privacy@stripe.com. Deletion does not affect records we must keep under financial regulations (Section 12).
6. SMS/Text Messaging
tipme uses SMS text messaging to send you important account-related communications. By providing your phone number and opting in during registration, you consent to receive text messages from tipme (Hyperx Inc.) for the following purposes:
- Phone number verification codes
- Account security alerts and login notifications
- Transaction confirmations and payout updates
- Important account-related notifications
Message frequency: Message frequency varies based on your account activity. Typically, you will receive messages only when triggered by an action you take (such as logging in, receiving a payment, or requesting a payout).
Opting out: You may opt out of SMS messages at any time by replying STOP to any message you receive from us. After opting out, you will receive a one-time confirmation message. You may also contact us at support@tipme-app.com to opt out.
Costs: Message and data rates may apply depending on your mobile carrier and plan. tipme does not charge for SMS messages, but your carrier may.
Carriers: SMS messages are delivered via Twilio (privacy policy). Supported carriers include all major U.S. carriers. tipme is not responsible for delayed or undelivered messages caused by carrier issues.
Help: For help with SMS messaging, reply HELP to any message or contact us at support@tipme-app.com or call +1 (888) 885-8597.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties. Your phone number is used solely for the purposes described above.
7. Plaid and Financial Data
tipme uses Plaid Inc. ("Plaid") to connect your bank account for receiving payouts. When you link your bank account through tipme, you acknowledge and agree that:
- Your bank login credentials are transmitted directly to Plaid and are not stored on tipme servers
- Plaid retrieves your bank account information (such as account and routing numbers) to facilitate payouts. These details are stored on tipme servers encrypted with AES-256, and only the last 4 digits are ever displayed
- Plaid’s use of your data is governed by the Plaid End User Privacy Policy
- By using our bank linking feature, you grant tipme and Plaid the right to access and transmit your financial information as described in this policy
- You may revoke Plaid’s access to your bank account at any time through tipme account settings or by contacting us at privacy@tipme-app.com
We collect only the minimum financial data necessary to process payouts. We do not sell, rent, or share your financial data with any third party for marketing purposes.
8. Where We Store Your Data
To be clear about where your most sensitive information lives:
- Card and identity-verification data, including government-ID images: held by Stripe. tipme does not store card numbers or retain ID images.
- Social Security Number / Taxpayer Identification Number: transmitted to Stripe for verification; the full value is cleared from tipme systems once Stripe holds it. tipme keeps only the last 4 digits and a one-way hash used to prevent duplicate accounts.
- Bank account and routing numbers (via Plaid): stored on tipme servers encrypted with AES-256; only the last 4 digits are ever displayed.
- Profile photos: stored with our cloud storage provider, Cloudflare R2.
- Account profile data (name, email, phone): stored on tipme servers.
9. Data Security
We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your personal and financial information, including:
- SSL/TLS encryption for all data in transit
- AES-256 encryption for sensitive data at rest
- PCI-compliant payment processing through Stripe
- Role-based access controls limiting data access to authorized personnel
- Secure authentication with multi-factor verification
- Continuous system monitoring and logging for unauthorized access detection
- Regular security assessments and vulnerability patching
We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of your personal and financial information in accordance with applicable laws, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) Safeguards Rule where applicable.
10. Data Breach Notification
In the event of a data breach that compromises your personal or financial information, we will:
- Notify affected users within 72 hours of discovering the breach
- Describe the nature of the breach and the types of data involved
- Outline the steps we are taking to address the breach and prevent future occurrences
- Provide guidance on steps you can take to protect yourself
- Report the breach to relevant regulatory authorities as required by applicable law
11. Your Rights
Depending on where you live, you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Request correction of inaccurate data
- Request deletion of your account and data
- Object to or restrict certain processing activities
- Data portability (receive your data in a structured format)
- Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information and of targeted advertising
- Limit the use of sensitive personal information
- Withdraw consent at any time
- Revoke third-party access to your financial data (including Plaid)
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@tipme-app.com. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
12. Data Retention
We keep your personal data while your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete your personal data except for the records listed below. Each one has a reason and an end date, and none of them is used for marketing unless you choose to receive updates.
- If you were paid through tipme: your name and mailing address for 7 years, because we file tax forms (Form 1099) for the payments you received; and your email, phone number and occupation for 2 years, to handle card disputes (chargebacks) on those payments. These records are stored encrypted.
- If a support request you sent is still open when you delete your account: your name, email and phone number, kept with that request for up to 90 days so we can answer you.
- Do-not-contact list: a one-way coded copy (a hash) of your phone number, and of your email unless you choose to receive updates, so we never send you marketing. It cannot be turned back into your email or phone number.
- Anonymous statistics: your age in years, state, occupation, how you signed up, how long you used tipme and your reason for leaving, with no name, email, phone number or other detail that identifies you.
- Transaction records (amounts, dates, and the Payer details collected for service payments) for up to 7 years, for tax, accounting and card-dispute purposes.
- If you tick "Keep me updated" when you delete your account: your first and last name, email, preferred language, age, city, state, ZIP code, occupation and how you signed up, for up to 2 years, so we can email you news and offers from tipme. We never text you based on this choice. You can unsubscribe at any time with the link in any of those emails or by writing to support@tipme-app.com, and we then delete these details.
After deletion we never keep your date of birth, Social Security number, bank account numbers, password or ID images. Government-ID images and selfies are not retained by tipme; Section 5 explains how long Stripe keeps identity-verification data (biometric identifiers within one year, other verification records typically 3 years) and how to request its deletion.
13. Children’s Privacy
tipme is not intended for users under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us immediately.
14. California and U.S. State Privacy Rights
If you are a resident of California or another U.S. state with a comprehensive privacy law (including, for example, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and Montana), you have rights to know, access, correct, delete, and obtain a portable copy of your personal information, to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information and of targeted advertising, and to limit the use of sensitive personal information (such as your Social Security Number).
tipme does not sell personal information for money. If you allow advertising cookies on our website, we share limited data with Meta and Google to measure our ads, such as the fact that an account was created from our signup page, ad click IDs, and your IP address. Some U.S. state laws may treat this as "sharing" or a "sale" of personal information. It is off unless you turn it on, and you can turn it off at any time in the cookie choices on our Cookie Policy page, which also lists exactly what is sent and what is never sent. We also treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser as a request to opt out of this sharing. Separately, if you created your account after clicking one of our Google ads, our servers report that signup to Google once, using the ad click ID the link carried, so that we can see which ads lead to accounts. This does not depend on cookies and sends Google only the click ID and the time of signup. In the same way, if you created your account on our website after clicking one of our Facebook or Instagram ads, our servers report that signup to Meta once, sending only the click ID, the time of signup, your browser type and a reference number for the signup. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal when you create your account, we do not send these server reports for you. To opt out otherwise, email privacy@tipme-app.com.
In our mobile app, our measurement partner AppsFlyer passes to Google and Meta the fact that the app was installed or opened and that an account was created, together with device identifiers and your IP address, so that we can measure our ads. This may also count as "sharing". You can turn it off at any time in the app under Settings › Privacy › Ad measurement (see Section 15).
You may use an authorized agent to submit a request, and you may appeal a decision on your request. To exercise your state privacy rights, contact us at privacy@tipme-app.com. We will verify your request consistent with applicable law.
15. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies for essential functionality, security, preferences, and analytics. Some third parties we use (such as Stripe) may also set cookies to provide their services. For details and your choices, see our Cookie Policy.
Mobile app measurement (AppsFlyer): Our iPhone and Android apps include a software kit from AppsFlyer Ltd., our mobile measurement partner. It tells us which of our ads lead people to install the app and create an account. It runs from the first time you open the app, unless you turn it off (see below). When the app is installed or opened, AppsFlyer receives your IP address, device and app details (such as device model, operating system and app version), and an identifier AppsFlyer creates for your install of the app. On iPhone it also receives the identifier Apple gives our app on your device (IDFV). On Android it also receives your device’s advertising ID, if you have one, and the Google Play install referrer, which says which link or ad led to the install. When you create an account, the app sends AppsFlyer a "complete registration" event. It never sends your name, email address, phone number, mailing address, date of birth, Social Security Number, bank or card details, ID documents, payment amounts, or your tipme account ID.
AppsFlyer processes this data for us and matches installs and signups to the ads that led to them. It shares those results with Google and Meta, which use them under their own privacy policies, including to measure our ads and to decide who sees them. You can read AppsFlyer’s privacy policy at appsflyer.com/legal/services-privacy-policy.
On iPhone: The app does not access your device’s advertising identifier (IDFA) and does not ask for permission to track you. Ad results on iPhone come from Apple’s privacy-preserving ad attribution (SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit), which reports results to advertisers without identifying you. When you create an account in the iPhone app, the app also gets an attribution token from Apple, and our servers use it to ask Apple whether the install came from an Apple Ads campaign. If it did, Apple tells us the campaign, ad group and keyword, and we keep them with your account. We do not share the token or Apple’s answer with anyone else. If you reach our website from a link or ad and then tap its App Store button on an iPhone, the website copies a short random code to your clipboard and our servers store, under that code, which link or ad brought you to the site and which page you were on. When you open the signup screen in the app, it checks your clipboard once for that code; your iPhone asks your permission first ("Allow Paste"). If you allow it and the code is there, the app fills in the occupation that page was about (and switches to Spanish if you were reading our Spanish site), which you can change, and we keep that information with your new account. The app looks only for this code, checks the clipboard only that one time, and we do not share the code with anyone. Our App Store links may also carry a campaign label, so that Apple’s App Analytics shows us how many installs each campaign brought, as totals only; Apple does not pass that label to the app. Our signup form, in the app and on the website, may also ask how you heard about tipme; answering is optional.
Turning it off: You can turn ad measurement off at any time in the app under Settings › Privacy › Ad measurement. Measurement events stop right away, AppsFlyer is fully off once you close and reopen the app, and it does not start again on that phone. The choice is saved on the phone, so set it on each phone you use, and again if you reinstall the app. Turning it off stops future sharing; it does not recall data already sent. On Android, you can also delete or reset your advertising ID in your device settings.
Some browsers offer a "Do Not Track" (DNT) setting. There is currently no industry standard for responding to DNT signals, and our platform does not respond to them at this time.
16. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email or a notice on our platform. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
17. Contact Us
For privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at:
Email: privacy@tipme-app.com
Hyperx Inc.
2810 N Church St #147904
Wilmington, DE 19802