Terms of service

These terms are an agreement between you and Doug Corp (“Doug”, “we”, “us”). They apply when you use the Doug call-answering service (the “Service”) or this website. By signing up for a pilot or a plan, or by forwarding calls to a Doug number, you agree to them. If you use Doug for a business, you confirm that you can accept these terms for that business, and “you” means the business.

1. Who can use Doug

You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding contract. Doug is currently available for phone numbers in the United States, and speaks English only.

2. What Doug does, and what it doesn’t

Doug answers calls that are forwarded or routed to a Doug number. It screens callers, may put a caller through to you, takes messages, and sends you a summary. Doug is an automated AI system. It can mishear, misunderstand, or misjudge how urgent a call is, and it may take a message when you would have wanted the call, or the other way round. Check your summaries, and don’t rely on Doug as the only way someone can reach you about something that matters.

Doug is not an emergency service. It can’t contact 911 or any other emergency service, and it can’t send help. If you might receive emergency calls, make sure callers have another way to get help. Anyone in an emergency should hang up and dial 911.

3. Your responsibilities

• You have the right to use and forward every phone number you connect to Doug, and you pay any charges your phone carrier makes for forwarding.
• You’re responsible for using Doug lawfully with your callers. Doug tells every caller that the call is recorded and transcribed and that it’s an AI. You won’t ask us to switch those notices off unless you’ve confirmed, with your own legal advice, that it’s lawful for your callers.
• You won’t use Doug to make callers believe they’re talking to a person, or to you.
• The information you give us, including hours, VIP and blocked numbers, and business details, is accurate. Doug repeats business details to callers exactly as you provide them.
• You keep your account access to yourself and tell us promptly if you think it has been misused.

4. Health, payment card and other sensitive information

Doug isn’t built for regulated data. It isn’t designed to meet HIPAA, and we don’t sign business associate agreements. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, don’t use Doug where callers will give protected health information as defined by HIPAA, payment card numbers, or similar regulated data, and don’t put that kind of information in the business details you give Doug.

5. Acceptable use

You won’t use Doug to:

• break any law, including laws on call recording, telemarketing, privacy and consumer protection;
• deceive, harass or threaten anyone, or impersonate a person or organization;
• handle calls for anyone else’s phone number without their permission;
• interfere with the Service, probe it for weaknesses, or copy or reverse-engineer it, except where the law allows you to regardless of this term; or
• resell the Service without our written agreement.

The code for this website is open source under its own license. That license covers the website code only, not the Service or the Doug name.

6. Pilot, plans and payment

The 14-day pilot is free and you can stop at any time. We won’t charge you anything when it ends unless you choose a paid plan. Our plans are Personal at $49 a month and Business at $199 a month, in US dollars, plus any applicable taxes. Plans are billed monthly in advance through our payment provider, and renew each month until you cancel.

Each plan includes a monthly allowance of call minutes that we agree with you in writing before billing starts. We won’t charge for use beyond it without your agreement. If you go over it, we may ask you to move to a larger allowance, or pause screening until the next month, in which case callers can still leave a voicemail.

If you have a founding-member price, it stays the same for as long as your subscription continues without a break. Otherwise we may change prices by telling you by email at least 30 days before your next billing date. The new price applies from that date, and you can cancel before it does.

7. Cancelling and refunds

You can cancel at any time by emailing us or replying to any email from us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing month you’ve paid for, and Doug keeps working until then. To stop Doug answering straight away, turn off call forwarding on your phone.

Payments are non-refundable. We don’t give refunds or credits for part of a month, for unused minutes, or for months in which you didn’t use Doug, except where the law requires us to or where we’ve charged you by mistake.

8. Your data

You own your data, including your call records, transcripts, messages and settings. You give us permission to use it only to provide, secure and improve the Service for you, and as our privacy notice describes. We don’t use your call content to train AI models. By default, call records, transcripts, messages and voicemails are deleted after 30 days, and you can ask us to delete them sooner.

If you get call summaries by text, you agree that we can send them to the numbers you give us. Message and data rates may apply, and you can reply STOP at any time to stop them.

9. Services we rely on

Doug depends on phone carriers and on other providers for calls, speech recognition, AI and voice. We aren’t responsible for their outages or for how your carrier handles call forwarding. If one of them fails during a call, Doug plays a short apology and offers the caller a voicemail.

10. Early access and changes

Doug is new. We’ll keep improving it, which means features can change, and we don’t promise any particular uptime unless we agree it with you in writing. If we make a change that materially reduces what your paid plan does, we’ll tell you in advance, and you can cancel.

11. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or end your use of Doug if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms, if you don’t pay, or if we need to in order to protect callers, the Service or other customers, or to comply with the law. Where it’s reasonable, we’ll warn you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. If we stop offering Doug altogether, we’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice and refund any payment for time after the Service ends. When your account ends, we delete your data as the privacy notice describes.

12. Disclaimer

EXCEPT AS THESE TERMS EXPRESSLY SAY, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”. TO THE EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DON’T PROMISE THAT DOUG WILL ANSWER EVERY CALL, UNDERSTAND EVERY CALLER, PUT THROUGH EVERY CALL YOU WOULD HAVE WANTED, OR WORK WITHOUT INTERRUPTION.

13. Limits on our liability

TO THE EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS: (A) WE AREN’T LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, BUSINESS OR DATA, INCLUDING LOSSES FROM A MISSED, MISHANDLED OR WRONGLY SCREENED CALL; AND (B) OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ABOUT THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR $100. These limits don’t apply where the law doesn’t allow them, including for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

14. Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against us because of how you used Doug in breach of these terms or the law, for example by switching off the recording notice where that was unlawful, or by using Doug with a number you didn’t have the right to use, you’ll cover our reasonable costs and losses from that claim. We will tell you about the claim promptly and let you take part in defending it.

15. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. If we have a dispute, please email us first. Most things can be fixed that way. Otherwise, disputes will be decided by the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we agree to their jurisdiction. Either of us may bring an eligible claim in small-claims court instead. If you’re a consumer living outside the US, you also keep any protections and any right to go to your local courts that your local law gives you.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We’ll change the date at the top and, for material changes, email customers at least 30 days before they take effect. If you keep using Doug after that, the new terms apply. If you don’t agree to them, you can cancel before they take effect.

17. General

These terms, together with the privacy notice and anything we agree with you in writing, are the whole agreement between us about Doug. If any part turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don’t enforce a term straight away, we can still enforce it later. You may not transfer these terms to anyone else without our agreement. We may transfer them as part of a merger or sale of our business. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events beyond reasonable control. We can send you notices by email to the address on your account, and you can send them to hello@answeredbydoug.com.

Contact

Doug Corp. Email hello@answeredbydoug.com.