Messy Stories/Share your story/Submission terms

Video submission terms

Version web-video-v1.1-selfserve. These cover submitting a video for review. If we make you an offer, the purchase itself happens under a separate agreement you e-sign.

happens when you SUBMIT a video. If we accept your story, buying it happens under a separate signed purchase agreement.*

Who we are. Messy Stories LLC, an Ohio company ("we," "us"). Questions: submit@messystories.com.

What submitting means. You are sending us a video of yourself telling a true story from your own life, so we can review it and decide whether to offer to buy it for a one-time flat payment ($50–$150 depending on length and quality). Submitting is not a sale, and it does not promise you anything.

1. What you give us permission to do with your submission

• Review it. We may watch your video, transcribe it, and run automated checks on it (including AI-assisted scoring and safety screening) to decide whether to make an offer.
• Store it. We keep your submission while we review it.
• Nothing else. We will NOT publish, post, monetize, or share your video unless you sign the purchase agreement. Until then, the video stays yours.

2. Your attestations (the checkboxes on the form)

By submitting, you confirm all of the following. Submitting a video for which any of these is false is a misrepresentation to us and wastes your time — we check.

• I am 18 or older.
• This is my own true story, and I recorded this video myself. No one else's story, no reposts, no AI-generated footage or voice.
• This video has never been posted anywhere — not on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or anywhere else, public or private.
• No one under 18 appears in the video or is a subject of the story, and the story involves no criminal proceedings, incarceration, or graphic violence.
• Only I appear in the video. (If anyone else appears or is heard, don't submit yet — email us first.)
• There is no music in the video — just my voice.
• I live in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand. (Submissions are open in all six. Paid offers are currently limited to storytellers with US tax status — see Section 3.)

3. What happens next

• If we make an offer: we email the contact you gave us with a tier ($50 / $100 / $150) and the purchase agreement to e-sign. Payment follows the signed agreement, identity verification (18+ photo ID), and a tax form (W-9) — normally within 15 days of the last of those.
• Where we can pay, right now: paid offers currently require US tax status. If you're in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia or New Zealand, please still submit — we read and consider every story on the same terms — but we cannot issue a paid offer to you until our international paperwork is finished, and **we will never publish your video without paying you for it.** If your story is one we want, we'll tell you and hold it until we can pay you properly, or you can withdraw it at any time under Section 4.
• If we don't: we won't always be able to reply individually. If we have not made you an offer within sixty (60) days, no offer is coming, and Section 4 applies.
• We may ask you clarifying questions (for example, about whether a story has been told publicly before).

4. If we don't buy your story, it stays yours

If we decline your submission (or make no offer within 60 days), you keep every right to your video and your story. We will delete the submitted video file within thirty (30) days of declining, keeping only a minimal log (your contact, submission date, decision) so we can answer questions later. You are free to post the video anywhere or submit it elsewhere.

5. Honest limits

• We can't review every submission on camera quality alone — story is what we buy. But videos we can't hear clearly can't be scored.
• Anonymity: the purchase agreement offers name-credit choices, including full anonymity — but your face and voice are in the video you record. If being unrecognized matters to you, record without showing your face.
• We may decline any submission for any reason, including stories that are strong but outside our content rules.

6. Legal bits

• These terms are governed by Ohio law. Venue: Butler County, Ohio; qualifying claims may go to small-claims court.
• You submit at your own initiative; submitting creates no partnership, employment, or agency.
• We may update these terms; the version you accepted at upload governs that submission. Version and acceptance time are recorded with your submission.
• Contact for anything here: submit@messystories.com. (A postal mailing address is being set up and will be added here once live.)