Terms of Service

Agreement

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and Paul Takisaki, a sole proprietorship operating as MeritPlaybook (“MeritPlaybook,” “we,” “us”). By visiting our site, purchasing a playbook, or submitting an intake, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the site.

Please read the Limitation of Liability section and the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Agreement section carefully. They limit the remedies available to you and require most disputes to be resolved by binding individual arbitration rather than in court.

What MeritPlaybook is (and isn’t)

MeritPlaybook is an AI-assisted research product. When you purchase a playbook and submit the intake form, we build a personalized scholarship strategy document for the student named in the intake. The playbook is delivered as an interactive web dossier and an accompanying email.

MeritPlaybook is not financial, legal, tax, college admissions, or career counseling advice. It is not a registered investment adviser, a licensed financial planner, a licensed financial aid officer, or an educational institution. Nothing we deliver should be treated as a substitute for professional advice tailored to your family’s specific legal, tax, or financial situation. You are responsible for reviewing your playbook and confirming important details (deadlines, eligibility, application steps) with the awarding institution before you apply.

Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract under the laws of your state to purchase a playbook. If the student you are planning for is under 18, you represent that you are the student’s parent or legal guardian and that you have authority to submit the information in the intake form on the student’s behalf. We do not knowingly accept information from children under 13.

Your account, purchase, and intake

The quality of your playbook depends on the accuracy of your intake. You agree to provide information that is truthful and complete to the best of your knowledge and to update it if you request a revision. You are responsible for the content you submit and for the security of the email address you use to receive your playbook.

The intake form asks for sensitive information about the student. All sensitive fields are optional. We use intake information only as described in our Privacy Policy.

AI-generated content

Your playbook is produced by an automated pipeline that uses multiple AI research providers to surface candidates and check each finding against current school financial aid pages, scholarship and program rules, and published aid policies. The current list of AI providers is disclosed in our Privacy Policy and may change from time to time.

AI systems can still make mistakes. Deadlines and eligibility rules can change after we check them, and scholarship providers sometimes interpret their own criteria differently than their public materials suggest. When a rule is unclear, missing, old, or situation-dependent, your playbook labels it and gives you the question to ask the financial aid office. We encourage you to confirm deadlines, eligibility requirements, and application steps with the awarding institution before applying. If you find an issue with your playbook, tell us and we will reconcile it.

What we promise, and what we don’t

We promise to deliver a playbook that is personalized to the information in your intake, built from the research pipeline described on our methodology page, with URL citations verified at the time of generation.

We do not promise any specific scholarship award, grant, admissions offer, or amount of financial aid. Those decisions are made by third-party institutions, scholarship providers, and federal and state agencies whose criteria we do not control. Results vary by student, by year, and by application quality. Our research helps you find and apply; it cannot make anyone else choose you.

Descriptions of the research process, timing, and depth on our marketing pages describe our typical pipeline. An individual playbook may vary based on the content of your intake, the availability of source material, or an unusual research conflict that requires additional validation.

30-day value guarantee

We stand behind your playbook with a 30-day value guarantee. If it misses the mark, we revise at no charge. If you are still not satisfied after a revision, you may request a full refund. The detailed mechanics follow.

Free revisions. If your delivered playbook does not reflect your intake correctly, or if you believe a meaningful opportunity was missed, tell us within 30 days of delivery and we will revise your playbook at no charge. We may ask follow-up questions or request additional intake information so the revised run has what it needs.

Refund. If after a revision you are still not satisfied, you may request a refund within 30 days of your original delivery through our contact form. We will refund the purchase price to your original payment method within 10 business days of approving the request. Refunds are available once per customer and cover the purchase price of the playbook only.

Free minor updates. For 30 days after delivery, you may request a free minor update if your circumstances change in a way that meaningfully affects your strategy (for example, a new test score, a new target school, or a change in financial situation).

Chargebacks. If you have a billing question, please contact us first so we can resolve it. Filing a chargeback without first giving us a chance to help forfeits your free-revision and refund rights under this section.

Delivery expectations

Our target is to deliver a completed playbook in under 5 minutes after you submit your intake. If a research check surfaces a conflict on a high-stakes target, the system re-runs the relevant stage, which can add time. If a run takes meaningfully longer than expected, we will email you with an estimated completion time. If we are unable to deliver a playbook within three business days of your intake submission, you may request a full refund regardless of the rest of this policy.

Changes to the service

We may modify, add, or remove features of the site and the playbook product at any time. We will not use this right to deny a paying customer a playbook they have purchased and paid for; if a change materially reduces what a customer already bought, the Refund and Revision Policy controls.

License to use your playbook

Subject to these Terms and your full payment, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use your playbook for the benefit of the student named in your intake. You may print your playbook, share it with the student’s teachers, counselors, parents, and guardians, and use it to prepare scholarship applications.

You may not redistribute, resell, publish, or post the playbook publicly, use it to train any machine learning model, or use it to build or improve a competing product. If you violate this license, we may revoke access to the playbook and terminate your right to use the service.

Availability. We aim to keep your delivered playbook accessible at its original URL for at least 24 months after delivery. After that we may archive, migrate, or retire the interactive format; if we do, we will make a static export available on request.

Our intellectual property

The MeritPlaybook name, logo, methodology, research pipeline, templates, playbook layout, website copy, and related materials are owned by Paul Takisaki and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of that ownership to you. The intake information you provide remains yours; you grant us a limited license to use it solely to deliver, revise, and support your playbook and to operate the business as described in our Privacy Policy.

Feedback. If you send us ideas, suggestions, or other feedback about MeritPlaybook or your playbook, you agree we may use that feedback for any lawful purpose without obligation or compensation to you. You are not required to send feedback, and we are not required to act on it.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Provide false, misleading, or fraudulent intake information.
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your relationship to the student.
• Use the service in any way that violates applicable law, including consumer protection, privacy, or anti-fraud laws.
• Attempt to probe, reverse engineer, scrape, or disrupt the site or the research pipeline.
• Use the site to transmit malware, spam, or harassing content.
• Purchase playbooks for resale, for aggregating scholarship data, or for any use that competes with us.

We may suspend or terminate your access and refuse future purchases if we reasonably believe you have violated these rules.

Third parties and external links

Your playbook references scholarships, universities, grants, and other third-party programs. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or paid by any of those institutions. Their eligibility rules, deadlines, application processes, and awards are controlled entirely by them, and they may change them at any time. Links to external sites are provided for your convenience; we are not responsible for the content of those sites.

Disclaimer of warranties

The site, the playbook, and any research, materials, or communications we provide are offered “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any specific scholarship, grant, admissions decision, or aid outcome will result from using your playbook. Some states do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, in no event will MeritPlaybook, its operator, or its service providers be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost scholarships, lost admissions offers, lost aid, lost profits, lost data, or lost opportunities, arising out of or relating to the service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to the service will not exceed the amount you paid us for the playbook to which the claim relates. Some states do not allow the limitation of certain liabilities, so some of these limitations may not apply to you.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless MeritPlaybook, its operator, and its service providers from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to (a) your violation of these Terms, (b) the accuracy of your intake information, (c) your misuse of the playbook, or (d) your violation of any law or the rights of any third party.

Termination

You may stop using the service at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe your conduct harms the service or other users, or if we are required to do so by law. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and dispute resolution) will survive.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Agreement below, any action not resolved in arbitration must be filed in the state or federal courts located in King County, Washington, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

Dispute resolution and arbitration agreement

Informal resolution first. Before filing any claim, you agree to contact us through our contact form and give us 30 days to try to resolve the issue informally.

Binding individual arbitration.If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, and except for the small-claims and intellectual property carve-outs below, any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration under the Consumer Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Arbitration will take place in Spokane County, Washington, at another mutually agreed location, or by video, at the consumer’s option. The arbitrator will have exclusive authority to decide any dispute about the interpretation or enforceability of this arbitration agreement.

Class action waiver. You and we each waive the right to bring claims on a class, collective, consolidated, or representative basis. The arbitrator may award relief only to you individually and only to the extent necessary to provide relief required by your individual claim.

Carve-outs. Either party may bring a qualifying claim in small-claims court, and either party may bring a claim in court to stop infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property.

Opt-out. If you do not want to be bound by this arbitration agreement, you may opt out by sending written notice through our contact form within 30 days of your first purchase. Include your name, the email address on your order, and a statement that you decline arbitration. Opting out will not affect any other part of these Terms.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated to active customers by email. The “Last updated” date above always reflects the current version. If you do not agree with an update, your remedy is to stop using the service before the update takes effect.

Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us about the service. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect, and the unenforceable provision will be modified to the minimum extent needed to be enforceable. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them to an affiliate or successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Nothing in these Terms creates any agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship.