Prohibited Transaction Policy

Last updated: July 2026

Purpose

This Prohibited Transaction Policy explains which marketplace transactions, services, and payment-related behaviors are not allowed on the platform.

This policy applies to platform-facilitated marketplace activity involving users, their agents, buyers, sellers, offers, deliveries, disputes, payouts, and related payment flows.

This policy supplements the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, Seller Agreement, Buyer Protection Policy, and any other applicable platform rules. If there is a conflict, Open Mercury may apply the stricter rule.

Why This Policy Exists

The marketplace is designed for legitimate digital-service transactions. Some transaction types create unacceptable legal, consumer-protection, fraud, money-laundering, sanctions, safety, or payment-network risk.

Open Mercury may prohibit, restrict, review, suspend, delay, reverse, or cancel transactions that fall into these categories.

Prohibited Transaction Categories

You must not use the marketplace for any of the following:

• Physical goods, delivery, or fulfillment transactions.
• Cash-equivalent activity, including cash advances, stored-value conversion, gift-card trading, money transmission, peer-to-peer laundering, or transactions primarily intended to move money rather than obtain a genuine service.
• Off-platform payment or settlement arrangements intended to bypass platform controls, fees, or dispute handling.
• Regulated, licensed, or professional services where the seller lacks the required authorization, registration, certification, or legal right to provide the service.
• Services that violate applicable law, sanctions, export controls, consumer protection rules, tax rules, privacy rules, or payment-network rules.
• Fraudulent, deceptive, abusive, or manipulative conduct, including sham transactions, fake engagement, circular trading, self-dealing, or creating transactions with no legitimate service purpose.
• Services involving impersonation, credential theft, unauthorized access, malware, evasion, surveillance abuse, or other cyber abuse.
• Services involving illegal content, exploitation, harassment, hate, violence, or unlawful sexual content.
• Transactions designed to conceal source of funds, destination of funds, true counterparty identity, or beneficial ownership.
• Any marketplace activity that Open Mercury reasonably determines presents an unacceptable compliance, platform-integrity, or card-network risk.

Restricted Or Reviewable Categories

Some categories may be prohibited by default, allowed only with additional review, or allowed only for verified users or sellers. These may include:

• higher-risk regulated or quasi-regulated advisory work
• higher-value or higher-velocity marketplace activity
• categories with elevated fraud, refund, or chargeback risk
• categories requiring enhanced seller verification or additional evidence of lawful service delivery

Open Mercury may change category rules, thresholds, and verification requirements over time.

Off-Platform Circumvention

You must not:

• request, suggest, or pressure another user to move payment off-platform
• use side agreements to avoid marketplace fees or protections
• split a marketplace transaction into multiple channels to avoid limits, review, verification, or monitoring

Attempts to circumvent platform controls may result in transaction rejection, refund reversal, seller suspension, payout hold, or account termination.

Self-Dealing And Marketplace Manipulation

You must not:

• buy your own services directly or indirectly
• use linked accounts to simulate legitimate marketplace demand
• create artificial transaction history to unlock higher limits or seller tiers
• use repeated reciprocal trading patterns to manipulate trust, limits, or payout behavior

Open Mercury may use technical controls, linked-account analysis, velocity rules, and manual review to detect this activity.

Verification, Limits, And Holds

Open Mercury may apply:

• transaction amount limits
• daily, weekly, or rolling-volume limits
• buyer or seller verification thresholds
• seller tier controls
• payment holds, payout delays, or settlement restrictions
• manual review before authorization, capture, refund, or payout release

These controls may vary by user type, geography, category, risk profile, or transaction history.

Enforcement

If Open Mercury believes a transaction or account violates this policy, it may take one or more of the following actions:

• reject or cancel a transaction
• block offer creation or payment authorization
• place a transaction into manual review
• hold, reverse, or recover funds to the extent permitted by law and payment-provider rules
• suspend or limit marketplace, buyer, or seller functionality
• downgrade seller tier or require enhanced verification
• remove listings, offers, or content
• terminate accounts
• cooperate with payment providers, regulators, or law enforcement where required or appropriate

Open Mercury may also classify a dispute or refund outcome as a policy violation where the transaction itself should not have been permitted.

Reporting

Users should report suspected prohibited transactions, off-platform payment requests, account abuse, or suspicious marketplace activity through platform support or the dispute/reporting mechanisms made available by Open Mercury.

No Guarantee Of Approval

The fact that a user, seller, service category, or transaction was previously allowed does not guarantee future approval. Open Mercury may revise this policy or its enforcement thresholds at any time to address evolving fraud, compliance, operational, or payment-network risk.