A pattern checker, not an oracle.

1. Acceptance

By using Ghotala, or by choosing either continuation offered on a processing notice — "Proceed & Check" or "Check without OpenAI" — you agree to these Terms. Closing a notice without choosing either is not agreement, and runs no check.

You also acknowledge the Ghotala Privacy Policy and any specific processing notice shown before submitted content is sent to Ghotala or to an external AI provider. Acknowledging a privacy notice is not the same act as agreeing to these Terms, and we keep the two distinct.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service. Declining AI-assisted processing does not by itself mean you reject these Terms.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use Ghotala independently. If you are under 18, use Ghotala only with the involvement and supervision of a parent or legal guardian.

3. What Ghotala does

Ghotala is a scam-safety and educational service. Depending on the features available, it may help you check suspicious text, check screenshots, images and supported documents, identify scam indicators, receive a risk-oriented verdict and the reasoning behind it, find practical safety or recovery information, read Ghotala’s scam guides, and optionally receive AI-assisted analysis.

Ghotala may combine deterministic rules, structured scam intelligence, external information sources and AI-assisted processing.

4. Ghotala is not a guarantee

Scam detection is inherently uncertain. Ghotala may miss a scam, flag a legitimate message, misunderstand context, return incomplete information, suggest a guide that is not relevant, or fail to identify a new or unusual scam.

No result is a guarantee, and a result reporting that nothing matched is not a statement that something is safe. Fraudsters change tactics quickly. You remain responsible for deciding what action to take.

5. Not financial, legal, banking or law-enforcement advice

Ghotala provides general scam-safety information. It is not a substitute for advice from your bank or payment provider, law enforcement, a lawyer, a financial adviser, a government authority, or another qualified professional.

If money has already moved, credentials have been exposed, an account may be compromised, or you believe you are in immediate danger, contact the appropriate bank, payment provider or official authority promptly. Do not delay urgent action while waiting for a Ghotala result.

6. AI-assisted analysis

Some Ghotala checks offer AI-assisted analysis. Before external AI processing is first used for a disclosed purpose, Ghotala shows a notice explaining that submitted content may be processed by OpenAI. If you proceed, the provider’s output may contribute to the enabled feature.

AI models make mistakes, and AI output does not override the limitations in these Terms. You may run a check without AI-assisted analysis. The Privacy Policy explains what is sent and what is kept.

This clause is about AI-assisted analysis by OpenAI, and about that only. Reading text out of an uploaded image is a different step with a different provider and a separate choice of your own, and clause 7 governs it. Declining one is not declining the other.

7. Uploading images and documents

Uploading is optional. Ghotala’s text check works without it, and you may decline the upload, decline the choice of reader, or cancel an upload in progress, at no cost to the rest of the Service.

Where Ghotala allows you to upload a screenshot, image, PDF or other supported document, you confirm that you are entitled to submit it for the purpose of scam checking; that you are not knowingly using Ghotala to expose another person’s private information for an unrelated purpose; that the file is not submitted to attack, compromise or disrupt Ghotala; and that you will not intentionally upload malware, executable payloads or malicious active content.

We may reject unsupported formats; enforce size, page and image limits; inspect file signatures and structure; remove or ignore metadata; extract text; inspect embedded images; reject encrypted, malformed or unsafe files; and temporarily process a file on Ghotala infrastructure.

An uploaded file leaves your device in order to be analysed. It is not an on-device operation, and the Privacy Policy sets out where the file is held and when it is deleted.

Before an image is uploaded you choose who reads the text out of it. If you choose Google Cloud Vision, the image is transmitted to Google for that purpose through its global service, and processing is not limited to a particular country or region. If you choose Ghotala’s own server, the image is not sent to Google for text reading.

Ghotala does not change that choice for you. If the reader you chose cannot read your image, Ghotala may offer you the other one — but nothing is sent to the other reader unless you accept the offer, and if accepting would send your image somewhere your choice did not cover, the disclosure for that destination is shown to you again first. Accepting an offer once applies to that image only and does not alter a preference you asked us to remember.

Reading text out of an image is imperfect on either path. Characters can be misread, lines can be lost, and a check can be wrong or incomplete because of it. Ghotala’s own reader is slower and fails more often on difficult images; Google’s availability is outside Ghotala’s control, and while it is unavailable or at capacity that option may not work. A result produced from text read out of an image is subject to clause 4 in the same way as any other result, and carries the additional uncertainty of the reading itself: it is informational, and it is not a guarantee.

The uploaded image or document itself is not sent to OpenAI, and no path exists by which it could be. That is a separate question from who reads the text out of an image. The text read out of it is a third question, and it follows your AI-analysis setting: while that setting is on, which is the default, Ghotala redacts the identifiers it can detect and sends only the redacted text to OpenAI as part of the check, without asking again for each image; while it is off, no text from your image is sent. Choosing where the image is read does not change this setting.

Uploading a file does not transfer ownership of it to Ghotala.

8. Your content

You retain any rights you have in text, images or documents you submit. You give us a limited permission to process that content only as reasonably necessary to perform the check you requested, provide enabled functionality, maintain security, and comply with applicable law.

For an uploaded image that permission includes holding it in private storage while the check runs, and transmitting it to the reader you chose for the sole purpose of reading its text. It extends no further: it is not a licence to publish, sell, share, syndicate or train on your content, it does not survive the check, and it does not cover any destination you did not choose.

This permission does not give us the right to publish your private check content or to sell it as a content dataset. If you separately choose to submit a scam sample, report, correction or feedback for retention, additional notices may apply to that action.

9. Personal and third-party information

Suspicious messages frequently contain personal information. Avoid submitting information the check does not need. If content includes another person’s information, use Ghotala only for a legitimate safety, verification or anti-fraud purpose.

Do not use Ghotala to stalk or profile another person, search for private information, expose credentials, publish private communications, conduct harassment, or impersonate anyone.

10. Acceptable use

You must not use Ghotala to:

• break the law, or facilitate fraud or deception;
• improve a scam so that it avoids detection;
• attack or probe Ghotala without authorisation;
• upload malware or exploit files;
• bypass access controls or rate limits, or overwhelm the Service with automated traffic;
• scrape or reproduce substantial portions of the Service contrary to law;
• reverse engineer protected parts of the Service, except where applicable law expressly permits it;
• misrepresent a Ghotala result as an official determination by a regulator, bank, court or law-enforcement agency.

11. Scam guides, related reading and external sources

Ghotala may show scam guides or other educational material alongside a check, and may refer to government advisories, regulator guidance, bank or payment-network information, police or cybercrime resources, and third-party websites.

A related guide is not a statement that your message is that scam, is not part of your verdict unless Ghotala separately identifies authoritative evidence, may be imperfect or irrelevant, and is provided to help you learn. "Related" must not be read as "matched", "confirmed" or "proven".

Third-party content is controlled by its publisher. A link does not mean the third party endorses Ghotala or that Ghotala controls that site, and external information can change or become unavailable.

12. Intellectual property

Except for user-submitted content and third-party materials, Ghotala’s software, branding, original scam guides, design and compilation are owned by or licensed to us.

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive right to use the consumer Service for personal and legitimate anti-fraud purposes. No rights are granted to Ghotala trademarks or branding except as necessary to identify the Service.

13. Feedback

If you voluntarily provide suggestions about Ghotala, you permit us to use them to improve the Service without an obligation to compensate you. This does not give us ownership of private message or file content merely because it was checked.

14. Availability and changes

Ghotala is an evolving service. We may add or remove features, change detection logic, update scam data, change providers, impose limits, suspend features for security or maintenance, or discontinue the Service. We do not promise uninterrupted availability.

15. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how submitted information and uploaded files are handled. It is a notice about our data practices rather than a mechanism for waiving rights provided by applicable law.

Where we rely on an affirmative choice for a specific processing purpose, we present that choice with a clear disclosure of what it covers.

16. No warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Ghotala is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not warrant that every scam will be detected, that every verdict will be correct, that every guide or recommendation will be relevant, that every source will remain current, or that the Service will always be available or error-free.

Nothing in these Terms excludes warranties or consumer rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

17. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

Subject to that, we are not responsible for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses arising solely from reliance on a Ghotala result, including losses caused by a scammer or other third party. Ghotala is an assistance tool, and you remain responsible for independently verifying important requests involving money, credentials, identity, legal obligations or account access.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, our aggregate monetary liability arising from the free consumer Service will not exceed INR 1,000, unless a higher amount is required by law.

18. Suspension

We may restrict or block access where reasonably necessary to protect Ghotala or its users, investigate abuse, comply with law, enforce these Terms, or prevent attacks or excessive automated use.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service changes, and we will update the effective date. If a change materially affects your rights or materially changes how an enabled feature works, we may provide additional notice, and where affirmative acceptance is appropriate we may ask you to accept a new version before continuing.

20. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of India.

Subject to mandatory consumer-protection or other jurisdiction rules that apply regardless of these Terms, disputes concerning these Terms will be subject to the courts at Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Nothing here prevents either party from using any mandatory statutory complaint or dispute-resolution mechanism.

21. Language

These Terms are published in English, and English is their source version. No translation of this document is currently published or should be treated as authoritative.

22. Contact

Legal questions: legal@ghotala.wtf.

Privacy questions: privacy@ghotala.wtf.

Operator: Piyush Chandra, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.