Jamaica-first, scam-skeptical product law

This file is binding on YardTrade, LoadYard, Hearthline, and Tidewatt. If a feature violates it, the feature does not ship.

The correction this project exists under

Jamaica is not a localization pass. Each idea must work for a household in Kingston, Montego Bay, Spanish Town, May Pen, or a hill district with shaky data — and for the sister in Brooklyn or Birmingham who is sending money home. Jamaicans are rightly skeptical of online products: lottery and investment scams, fake bill-pay sites, “helper” ads that vanish with a deposit, cloned property listings, and a rising pile of mobile-banking fraud complaints (BOJ complaint trend coverage; merchant refusal of tap/wallet over fraud fear).

Hard rules (never break)

1. Value before money. A person can complete the MAIN launch feature without a card, a wallet top-up, or a “processing fee.” 2. No passwords that are not ours. Never ask for JPS, NCB, Scotiabank, JN, WiPay, Lynk, Western Union, or email-bank credentials. Bill/photo ingest only. 3. We do not take other people’s deposits. No escrow that looks like “send the contractor’s money to this app.” No “activation fee.” No gift-card or crypto rail. A provider prepaid lead balance is allowed: the plumber or shop adds *their* credit so we can take a flat cut when they say yes. That is our fee, not the household’s job money. On public screens that balance is called credit, never float. See `PUBLIC_COPY.md`. 4. Named, reachable, Jamaican. A Jamaican registered entity, a +1 876 number answered by a human in a published parish window, and a physical partner desk (credit union, pharmacy, or hardware) where someone can walk in. 5. Pay how Jamaica already pays. Cash at a partner desk, Lynk to a *named* NCB/JN account with a receipt, bank transfer, or an existing remittance company for the diaspora. Card is optional and never required on-island. 6. WhatsApp is a first-class surface. Share a radar, a tide card, or a job packet as a PDF/image into the family or customer WhatsApp thread. Do not force a new social network. 7. Offline and low-data first. The MAIN feature works after first load on a Digicel or FLOW package, including in a basement or after the data runs out (cached packet / last radar / last tide). 8. No miracle numbers. No “guaranteed 25%,” no investment return, no lottery mechanic, no token. Show this household’s paper and the arithmetic on it. 9. Data Protection Act, 2020. Household is the controller of their photos and recordings. Export and delete in one tap. No sale of data. No training-corpus surprise. 10. English that sounds like here. UI in Jamaican Standard English at grade three to four. Voice input must tolerate patois. No Silicon Valley “unlock your journey” copy. No shop words (float, desk, board, lead fee) on a public screen. Same law on every later domain.

Trust UX (every app)

Receipt drawer: every action that touched money or a document is a plain-language receipt the user can screenshot.
Red-flag screen: “If anyone asking you to pay *this app* via a personal Lynk, gift card, or crypto — it is a scam. Close it. Call the 876 number on the box.”
Human confirm for high blast-radius claims (a medication, a “save $X,” a change-order). AI drafts; a person taps yes.
Parish proof (optional, never a paywall): TRN/TCC or a credit-union intro letter can badge a helper or a trade — after the product already worked.

What we will not build

A marketplace that holds customer money for a stranger. Matching + ratings + a provider-paid lead is allowed. Household escrow is not.
A “pay your JPS here” clone.
A coin, a yield, or a referral pyramid.
A US-only integration (MyChart, Jobber, Stripe-only) as the path to first value.