Terms of Service
Last updated: October 7, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the DesperateMinds website, educational psychology content, online cognitive, personality and wellbeing assessments, paid reports and related services at desperateminds.com (the "Service"). Some mental-health pages describe screening instruments or clinical topics, but any screening route still awaiting required clinical, rights, privacy, safety or safeguarding review is not offered as a production clinical service. By using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
1. Use of the Service
DesperateMinds provides educational psychology content and non-clinical online assessments for informational and personal-development purposes. Interactive assessments, purchases and report-delivery features are intended for adults aged 18 or older unless a page explicitly states that an adult parent or caregiver is completing a tool about a child. Youth self-report and other clinical screening routes are not part of the production service unless they have been specifically cleared and enabled. Educational articles may be read without taking an assessment.
You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in a manner consistent with these Terms. You agree not to:
- Attempt to reverse engineer, copy, or reproduce any assessment questions or scoring methodology
- Use automated tools, bots, or scripts to take assessments or scrape content
- Share, distribute, or resell access to paid assessments
- Provide false information when registering or purchasing services
- Attempt to manipulate or circumvent the scoring system
- Use the Service in any way that could damage, disable, or impair its operation
2. Assessment Results and Limitations
DesperateMinds assessments are educational or screening tools designed for informational and personal-development purposes. A score or profile is not a diagnosis, treatment recommendation, fitness-for-duty decision, educational-placement decision, or substitute for an evaluation by an appropriately qualified professional. Where a named mental-health screener is described, its intended use and limitations are stated on the relevant page and in the instrument registry.
Assessment results can be influenced by current symptoms, state of mind, environment, fatigue, language, familiarity with test formats and individual variation. A single result does not define your intelligence, personality, mental health or future outcomes. Treat results as one source of information rather than a definitive judgment.
DesperateMinds makes no warranty that an online assessment result is suitable for a professional, academic, employment, legal, medical or clinical decision. Do not rely on a DesperateMinds result as the sole basis for a high-impact decision.
3. Payments and Refunds
Payments are processed securely by Paddle, our Merchant of Record. Paddle handles all payment processing and billing on our behalf. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
We offer a full refund within 14 days of purchase, no questions asked. If you are not satisfied with your purchase for any reason, contact us at admin@desperateminds.com within 14 days of your purchase date and we will issue a complete refund promptly.
To request a refund, email us at admin@desperateminds.com with your order details. Refunds are processed within 5 business days.
If you believe you have been charged incorrectly, contact us at admin@desperateminds.com within 30 days of the charge.
4. Intellectual Property
Except for third-party materials, instruments, trademarks and other content used under applicable licences, permissions, public-domain terms or source-specific conditions, original DesperateMinds website content, original assessments, scoring implementations, report templates, articles and design elements are owned by or licensed to DesperateMinds and are protected by applicable intellectual-property law. Nothing in these Terms claims ownership of a third party's instrument, trademark or copyrighted material.
You may not reproduce, distribute, publish, or create derivative works from any content on the Service without our prior written permission. Personal reports generated from your assessment results are licensed to you for personal use only and may not be resold or distributed.
5. Privacy
Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. Please read it carefully.
6. Third-Party Services
The Service uses third-party providers for functions such as payment processing, cloud infrastructure, email delivery and, on eligible pages and only according to the site's consent settings, analytics. Paddle acts as Merchant of Record for eligible purchases. Third-party providers process information under their own terms and privacy notices.
The Service does not currently display third-party advertisements. If advertising is enabled in the future, applicable disclosures and consent controls will be provided before activation.
7. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or harmful components.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, DesperateMinds shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of or inability to use the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Our total liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or $50, whichever is greater.
8. Not Medical or Mental-Health Advice
DesperateMinds provides educational psychology content, non-clinical assessments and, where specifically cleared and made available, informational mental-health screening tools. A mental-health screening result is not a diagnosis, medical advice, psychotherapy, emergency service or substitute for evaluation or treatment by a qualified healthcare professional. Screening tools can miss important problems and can also flag concerns that have other explanations.
If you may be in immediate danger, cannot stay safe, or are experiencing a mental-health crisis, use appropriate local emergency or crisis services rather than relying on an online assessment. In the United States, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.
9. Changes to Terms
We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. Changes will be effective upon posting to the website with an updated "last updated" date. Your continued use of the Service after changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.
10. Governing Law
These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with applicable law. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of competent jurisdiction.
11. Contact
Questions about these Terms should be directed to:
- Email: legal@desperateminds.com
- Website: desperateminds.com/contact