Secret Santa terms

One person makes a room, sets what everybody will pay and the day the gifts are exchanged, and shares the link. Everybody who joins pays the same amount and writes a short list of things they would like. On the close date the names are drawn, each person sees who they drew and picks from that person's list, and we go and buy every gift and bring them all on the day.

We do not make the gifts and we are not the shop that sells them. We are the ones who find them, buy them with the money the room put in, and carry them.

A room needs at least 4 people who have paid before it can be drawn. Below that it is not a draw, it is two or three people who already know what each other is getting.

Anybody with the link can join while the room is open. The person who made it can see who is in and who has paid, and can ask us to take somebody out before the draw.

The budget is set by whoever made the room, and it is the whole of what you hand over. A room that calls itself ₦20,000 is ₦20,000 out of pocket and not a naira more, because that is the number the group agreed out loud and the one everybody budgets against.

Carrying comes out of the budget rather than on top of it, so what is actually spent on the gift is the budget less the carrying, and the room page shows you that figure before you pick anything.

Finding, buying and delivering one person's gifts costs ₦4,000. That covers up to 3 gifts for the person you drew. Each gift beyond that adds ₦500, because it is another thing to go and find.

It is one fee for what you were drawn to buy, however many shops it takes us to find it. Nothing is earned before the draw, because nothing has been fetched.

Paying is what puts you in the draw. You transfer the budget and type the reference we give you in the narration: that reference is how we tell whose money is whose, and without it a payment can take a while to find.

Somebody who has not paid by the close date is not drawn and is not drawn for. It is not a punishment; it is that the person who draws them would be buying a gift with money that is not there.

Up to 5 things, with a photograph and a note if it helps. More than that stops being a shortlist and starts being a catalogue for somebody who has one budget to spend.

Write it for a stranger. Whoever drew you cannot ask you what size you are, and a list that says "a hoodie" and a list that says "a black hoodie, large" are two very different mornings for them.

You can change your own list while the room is open. After the draw it is what the person who drew you is looking at, so it is fixed.

On the close date the names are drawn at random into a ring, so everybody gives to one person and gets from one person, and nobody draws themselves.

The draw cannot be run again and nobody can be taken out of it afterwards: every name after theirs is attached to the one before, so pulling one out breaks the ring for everybody. If something has gone wrong, message us and we will sort it out by hand.

You pick from the list of the person you drew, and we go and buy what you picked. If the exact thing cannot be found, or it is not what the photograph showed, we tell you and ask before we spend anything on something else.

If nothing on the list can be found at all, the money for that gift comes back. We do not substitute something nobody chose and call it done.

Nothing above the budget is bought without the person who picked it saying yes to the difference first. We tell you what it really costs and you decide: pay the difference, or pick something else off the list.

That agreement is yours to give and nobody else's. We cannot tick it on your behalf, and neither can whoever made the room, because the whole reason the rule exists is that somebody is being asked for more money than they agreed to hand over.

You set the block your own gift comes to, and you can change it right up until it is driven. The person who drew you never sees it. They chose your gift and paid for it, and neither of those requires knowing which block you sleep in.

While the room is open you can leave it, and your list goes with you: it was written for whoever drew you, and nobody is drawing you now. If you had paid, that money comes back.

Whoever made the room cannot simply walk out of it, because everybody else is relying on them to close it. Message us instead and we will close or cancel it properly.

If a room never reaches 4 people, or the group decides against it before the draw, everything paid in comes back. Nothing has been bought and nothing has been fetched, so there is nothing to keep.

Between the day you pay and the day your gift is bought, your money is money we are holding for the room. It is not our takings and it is not counted as ours: what each room is holding, what it has spent and what it still owes back is worked out from the room's own record every time it is asked for.

Anything left over at the end of a room comes back to the people who put it in. If a gift came in under budget, the difference is theirs, not ours.

Shops sell out, especially in December, and a thing that was on a shelf on the day somebody wrote their list is not always there three weeks later. We will say so rather than guess, and clause 8 says what happens then.

We do not promise a gift will be liked. We promise it is the thing that was picked, off the list the person wrote themselves.

Anything at all about a room: 0903 217 5147 on WhatsApp, or orders@sudu.store. A person reads every message.

The rest of the small print still applies to anything that is not about a room: the terms of service, the privacy policy, and returns and refunds.