Document Vault Terms

Version 1.0 · Effective November 4, 2026

These Document Vault Terms apply only to an account whose Document Vault enrollment the Company has confirmed in writing. The Document Vault is in beta, and nothing is held for an account before that confirmation.

1. These terms

1.1 These Document Vault Terms (“Vault Terms”) govern the optional Document Vault service that Golden Ratio, LLC, doing business as mailbox.bot (the “Company”), offers to a customer whose enrollment it has confirmed (the “Customer”). They supplement the General Terms at mailbox.bot/terms, which apply to the Vault except where these Vault Terms say otherwise. If these Vault Terms conflict with the General Terms about a Vault Item, these Vault Terms control.

1.2 A private mailbox is not required. A Customer who also rents a private mailbox remains under the Mailbox Rental Terms for that mailbox. For items received at the mailbox and vaulted from it, Section 22 of the Mailbox Rental Terms also applies, and it controls if it conflicts with these Vault Terms. Rental terms Section 7.5 continues to govern where USPS mail received for that Customer may be remailed.

1.3 Each Release Plan is confirmed as its own short agreement under Section 10.3. That agreement is separate from these Vault Terms and the General Terms.

2. Definitions

• Vault: the Company’s Document Vault service for a Customer’s account.
• Vault Item: a document the Company has accepted into the Vault. It is either a Digital Item (data the Company stores) or an Original (a paper document the Company holds).
• Deposit: delivering a document to the Vault by upload, by mail or carrier addressed under Section 4.2, or, for a mailbox renter, by asking to vault an item already received.
• Hash-Only Deposit: a Deposit of a hash value only, without the content.
• Vault Reference: the code the Company assigns for addressing physical Deposits. It is not an address.
• Facility: the Company’s facility in Manhattan Beach, California, or another facility the Company names for the Vault.
• Receipt: a record of a Deposit (a Deposit Receipt) or of a Release (a Release Receipt) under Section 7.
• Grant: a permission the Customer gives a person or an Agent to view, read the text of, or download a Vault Item.
• Scheduled Send: an instruction under Section 9 to print and mail, or digitally deliver, a Vault Item on or after a chosen date.
• Release Plan: an instruction under Section 10 to release Vault Items when a trigger occurs.
• Confirmer: a person the Customer names in a Release Plan to confirm a trigger.
• Release: carrying out a Scheduled Send or a step of a Release Plan.
• Return Address: the one verified address to which Originals may be returned under Section 11.
• Security Key: a hardware security key, such as a YubiKey, or a passkey on a phone or computer, registered to the Customer’s account.
• Customer-Managed Key: an encryption key the Customer controls and allows the Company to use for the Customer’s Vault Items (“bring your own key”).
• Agent: software, including an AI agent, acting through the Customer’s API key or connected app.
• Credits: prepaid mailbox.bot credits under the General Terms.

3. Eligibility and enrollment

3.1 Any account in good standing may ask to enroll, with or without a private mailbox. The Company decides which Customers, industries, jurisdictions, document types, Scheduled Sends and Release Plans are eligible. It may decline, limit, pause or end any of them when law, a regulator, a court, risk or capacity requires.

3.2 Enrollment begins when the Company confirms it in writing and the Customer accepts the fees shown at enrollment.

3.3 The Company offers the Vault only where it may lawfully do so, and only for uses that do not require it to hold a license, charter, registration, bond or appointment it does not hold.

3.4 Firm accounts. A professional firm may hold client vaults for its clients. Each client vault names its client as the principal. Only the principal may confirm a Release Plan, a Grant to anyone outside the firm, a Return Address, or the return or destruction of an Original. The firm and its Agents may deposit, read and propose.

3.5 The Company may require identity verification before any of these: an Original leaves the Facility; a Release Plan under Section 10.1(c) or (d) is armed; the Return Address changes; or a Grant is used by a new person.

4. The Vault is not a mailbox

4.1 Enrolling does not give the Customer a private mailbox, a mailing address or a street address. The Company receives physical Deposits as its own mail and holds their contents for the Customer under these Vault Terms.

4.2 A physical Deposit must be addressed to the Company with the Customer’s Vault Reference, in the form shown in the dashboard. The Customer must not:

• give the Vault Reference or the Facility address to anyone as the Customer’s own address;
• use it in advertising, on a filing or on a form;
• ask anyone to address an item to the Customer, by name or “in care of” the Company, at the Facility.

4.3 The Company will refuse or return any item addressed to a person at the Facility who has no active private mailbox there, whatever the carrier. It returns items unopened where practicable.

4.4 Enrolling does not make the Company the Customer’s agent to receive service of process. Legal process concerning Vault Items is handled under Section 15.

5. What the Vault will not hold or do

The Vault is not, and the Customer may not use it as, any of the following:

(a) an escrow. The Company will not hold any of the following for delivery to another party when a date or condition occurs, or when another person pays, signs or performs: a deed, title, assignment, bill of sale, stock power, or signed purchase, loan or lease document; other evidence of title; money; source code, software, model weights, data or credentials held for a licensee or counterparty; or any other thing of value (see, for example, California Financial Code sections 17003 and 17200);

(b) a financial or asset custodian: a bank, trust company, safe-deposit company, money transmitter, payment processor, securities custodian, qualified intermediary, or custodian of digital assets. The Company will not hold seed phrases, private keys, recovery phrases, wallet credentials, or passwords and authentication secrets for any account;

(c) a will depository. The Company will not accept an original will or codicil, because applicable law places statutory duties on the custodian of a will (for example, California Probate Code section 8200). A copy may be deposited;

(d) a legal-deadline or records service: a registered-agent, process-server, court-filing, docketing, deadline-monitoring or regulated records-retention service, or the Customer’s system of record;

(e) a HIPAA business associate: a place to hold protected health information, unless a separately signed agreement says so;

(f) a place for valuables: currency, checks, money orders, gift cards, negotiable instruments, securities endorsed in blank, passports, government-issued identification cards, jewelry, precious metals, firearms or other valuables; or

(g) a place for unlawful content: anything unlawful to possess or send, or whose holding or release would be deceptive, defamatory or harassing, or would evade a court order, a regulator or another person’s legal rights.

If the Company learns that an item falls within this Section, it may refuse it, stop holding it, return it to the Return Address at the Customer’s expense, or handle it as law requires. It will tell the Customer unless law forbids.

6. Deposits

6.1 Digital Deposits. Accepted file types and limits are shown in the dashboard and the API documentation. The Company scans each file for malware and removes active content. It makes a print copy for later printing and extracts the text. It keeps the bytes the Customer sent unchanged.

6.2 Hash-Only Deposits. The Company stores only the hash value and the Receipt, never the content. The Customer must keep the file, because the Company cannot recover or print it.

6.3 Physical Deposits. Sending or asking to vault an item authorizes the Company to open it, photograph it and scan every page. An Original is kept only where the Customer chooses and the Company offers it. The intake fees shown at enrollment apply.

6.4 The Customer’s promises. The Customer has the right to deposit each document and to have it released as instructed. A Deposit does not breach anyone’s confidentiality, privacy or intellectual-property rights. The Customer has any consent the law requires from people whose information it contains. The Company does not review content for accuracy or legal effect.

6.5 The Company may refuse any Deposit. After notice where practicable, it may remove a Vault Item that breaks these Vault Terms.

7. Receipts and hash values

7.1 For each Deposit and each Release, the Company makes a Receipt available in the dashboard. The Receipt states the identifiers, times, SHA-256 hash values and delivery records described in the dashboard and API documentation. Where available, a Receipt is signed with the Company’s digital signature and carries time-stamp tokens from one or more independent time-stamping authorities.

7.2 What a Receipt shows. The Company received, or released, data matching the stated hash at or before the stated time, and the carrier and access records stated. What a Receipt does not show: who wrote the content; that the content is true, complete, valid or enforceable; that anyone read or understood it; or that any deadline was met.

7.3 Where Receipts are signed, the Company publishes the public keys needed to verify them, and earlier keys stay published after a rotation.

8. Access and Agents

8.1 Only the Customer may grant or change access to a Vault Item. A Grant names the person or Agent, what it may do, and, if the Customer chooses, when it ends. The Company may require the Customer to confirm a Grant with a Security Key, and may require a grantee to verify their identity. Once a person or Agent has seen or downloaded a Vault Item, the Company cannot recall that copy.

8.2 Agents act only within their key’s scopes, the vaults their key is limited to, and the Customer’s Grants.

• An Agent may: deposit; read the text of Vault Items it deposited or holds a text Grant on; read Receipts; make Scheduled Sends within Section 9.4; and propose Grants, Release Plans and other actions.
• An Agent may not: confirm a Release Plan, make a Grant, check in for the Customer, change the Return Address, or return or destroy an Original.
• Agents never receive images of Vault Items.

8.3 The Customer is responsible for its Agents, keys and credentials as the General Terms provide.

9. Scheduled Sends

9.1 A Scheduled Send is the Customer’s instruction, given directly or through an Agent, to print and mail a Vault Item through the Company’s outbound service, deliver it digitally, or both, on or after a date the Customer chooses, up to the latest date the order screen allows.

9.2 The Customer picks every date. The Company does not calculate, verify or monitor any deadline. It begins processing on the scheduled date, or the next business day, and carriers decide delivery times. The Customer must leave margin, and must not rely on a Scheduled Send alone to meet a legal or contractual deadline.

9.3 Price and reserve. The price shown when the Send is scheduled is charged in Credits at that time. A Send dated far ahead may also carry a reserve for price changes and a holding fee, both shown before the Customer confirms it. At printing, the Company charges the then-current price against the amount held. It refunds any surplus to the Customer’s Credits and charges any shortfall to Credits or the saved payment method. If it cannot collect a shortfall, it pauses the Send and tells the Customer.

9.4 Sends scheduled by an Agent are limited to Vault Items that Agent deposited and to the dates and amounts shown in the dashboard and API documentation. Any other Send needs the Customer’s own confirmation. The Company tells the Customer about each Send an Agent schedules, and the Customer may cancel it.

9.5 Cancellation. The Customer may cancel until printing begins. The price, reserve and holding fees are then credited back, less any work already done.

9.6 Checks before sending. Before a Send, the Company verifies the recipient’s address and checks that funds are available. It may pause a Send if:

• the address fails verification;
• the Customer’s MAILBOX.md policy no longer allows the Send;
• the Company receives conflicting instructions or legal process; or
• the Send appears unlawful.

The Company tells the Customer when it pauses a Send.

9.7 Once printed, each mailpiece is governed by the outbound terms in the General Terms.

10. Release Plans

10.1 Triggers. The Company may offer these triggers:

• (a) a date and time;
• (b) the Customer’s own release instruction;
• (c) the Customer’s failure to confirm a scheduled check-in, after the reminders and grace period stated in the plan;
• (d) the Company’s receipt of a certified death certificate or a court order concerning the Customer, followed by confirmation from a Confirmer and any waiting period stated in the plan;
• (e) any other trigger the Company offers in writing.

No trigger depends on a payment, signature or other performance by another party, and the Company does not decide disputes between the Customer and anyone else.

10.2 Steps. A step may give digital access, mail a printed copy by an outbound class, or return the Original, but only to the Return Address.

10.3 Its own agreement. The Customer confirms each Release Plan as a separate short agreement, distinct from these Vault Terms and the General Terms, with a Security Key where the Company requires one. Until it runs, the Customer may change or delete it at any time. No recipient acquires a right to a Release.

10.4 Verification and pauses. Before running a trigger under 10.1(c) or (d), the Company may verify the documents and identities involved. It may pause a Release if it receives conflicting instructions, legal process, a credible dispute or evidence of fraud. After the Customer’s death or incapacity, it may require letters testamentary, letters of administration, a court order or other evidence of authority before following anyone else’s instructions. Where applicable law conflicts with a plan, it follows the law.

10.5 Release costs are charged or reserved when the plan is armed, as in Section 9.3.

10.6 After each Release, the Company issues a Release Receipt. It makes the Receipt available to the Customer and, if the plan says so, to a person the Customer named.

11. Originals and the Return Address

11.1 Storage. Originals are kept in a locked cabinet in a commercial facility. Unless the Company says otherwise in writing, that storage is not fireproof, waterproof, climate-controlled or high-security. The Customer should keep its own copies. A Customer who deposits the only copy of an irreplaceable document accepts that risk.

11.2 Return Address. Each account has one Return Address, verified with identity verification. A change takes effect after the waiting period shown in the dashboard, with notice to the account’s existing contact details. For a Customer with a private mailbox, the Return Address is the forwarding address on the Customer’s current Form 1583.

11.3 An Original leaves the Facility only for the Return Address. Anyone else receives copies or digital access.

11.4 Destruction. On the Customer’s instruction, the Company destroys an Original by cross-cut shredding witnessed by two staff members and keeps a record of the destruction.

12. Fees and Credits

12.1 Plan fees, per-use fees and Release prices are those in the Fee Schedule or the order screen the Customer accepts. The plan renews as stated at enrollment until cancelled. The Customer may cancel online, and the automatic-renewal disclosures required by law are shown at enrollment.

12.2 Credits, refunds and taxes are governed by the General Terms. The Company gives at least 30 days’ notice of fee changes. A change does not alter the amount already charged or reserved for an armed Send or plan, except through the true-up in Section 9.3.

13. Term, suspension and ending

13.1 The Vault continues until the Customer or the Company ends it. The Company may suspend it for nonpayment, risk, or a legal or regulatory requirement.

13.2 When the Vault ends, the Company gives the Customer a reasonable period, of at least 30 days, to download Digital Items and to choose whether Originals are returned to the Return Address or destroyed. If the Customer makes no choice, the Company may return them or handle them as law allows. It then deletes Digital Items, except Receipts and any records that law requires it to keep.

13.3 If the Company stops offering the Vault, it gives at least 30 days’ notice. For each armed Scheduled Send or Release Plan, it offers to run it early, to cancel it and refund the unused price, reserve and fees, or to return the Vault Items. It returns Originals to the Return Address.

13.4 A Scheduled Send already paid for may continue after the Vault plan ends if the Customer keeps an account and chooses to keep the Send.

14. Death or incapacity

Release Plans and Scheduled Sends continue as confirmed while they are funded. Anyone other than the Customer must show evidence of authority before giving instructions. The Company may follow a court order, and fiduciary access is subject to the plan and to applicable law, including California Probate Code sections 870 to 884.

15. Legal process

The Company may receive and respond to valid legal process concerning Vault Items, and may preserve and hold them and pause Releases while it does. It tells the Customer, unless law forbids it or telling would be unsafe.

16. Security, keys and the Customer’s part

16.1 Vault Items are encrypted at rest, and access is logged in a record the Customer can see. Some Vault Items may be kept in cold storage, which takes longer to retrieve; the Company plans retrievals ahead of Scheduled Sends and Release Plans. Sensitive actions require confirmation with a Security Key or another step-up method the Company accepts. No security method is infallible.

16.2 Customer-Managed Keys. If the Customer has the Company use a Customer-Managed Key, the Company can open, show or release the Customer’s Vault Items only while that key is available to it. If the key is revoked, disabled or unreachable, those Vault Items cannot be opened or released, and nothing under a Scheduled Send or Release Plan that needs them is sent. The Company is not responsible for that result, and it tells the Customer and any Confirmer where practicable.

16.3 The Customer must protect its account, Security Keys, Customer-Managed Keys and devices, should register a backup Security Key, and must tell the Company promptly about any suspected compromise. Lost access is restored only after identity verification, which may require the Customer to appear in person at the Facility or to send a notarized request.

17. Liability

17.1 The General Terms’ limitations of liability apply to the Vault.

17.2 The Company uses reasonable care for Originals. Its liability for the loss of, or damage to, an Original is limited as the General Terms provide, unless before the Deposit the Customer declares a higher value in a record and the Company agrees to it in writing for the fee shown.

17.3 The Company is not responsible for:

• the legal effect, validity or sufficiency of any Vault Item;
• any missed deadline;
• a recipient’s use of a copy or of access;
• a carrier’s acts;
• a Release run as instructed, or paused or not run as these Vault Terms allow.

18. Privacy

The Privacy Policy governs Vault data, including the service providers that store, encrypt and read text for Vault Items and verify identity. Receipts are kept for the life of the account and afterward for as long as law or the Company’s record-keeping requires. A Hash-Only Deposit keeps no content.

19. Changes and notices

The Company may change these Vault Terms with notice, and a material change requires the Customer’s acceptance. Every accepted version stays available online. The General Terms govern notices, governing law and disputes.

20. Contact

Service and support questions: support@mailbox.bot

Formal legal notices follow the notice method in the General Terms.