Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 21, 2026

Who we are

Fold Now is an AI peer-support tool for people in voluntary recovery from problem gambling. It operates over Telegram and (optionally) watches your bank transactions to flag early-warning patterns. Operated by Joey Fraser (foldnow@imjoey.me).

What we collect

When you message the bot:

• Your Telegram chat ID, first name, and the messages you send
• Your chosen recovery mode (Full Stop or Budget Guard) and your budget if set
• Any sponsor contact you choose to add

When you connect a bank through Plaid:

• The name of your bank or credit union
• Transaction history (date, amount, merchant, category) — read-only
• Account balances, when available
• A Plaid access token that lets us re-read those transactions on a schedule

We do not collect or store your bank login, your Social Security number, your full account or routing numbers, or any data needed to move money. We never initiate transfers.

How we use it

• To run the conversation between you and your AI sponsor
• To detect transactions that match patterns we've agreed to watch for (ATM withdrawals, crypto purchases, gambling merchants, social-casino purchases)
• To alert a human sponsor you've added, if you don't respond to a check-in within the window you chose

Third parties

We share data with the following services, only for the purposes above:

• Plaid — provides the secure read-only connection to your bank. Plaid's privacy policy lives at plaid.com/legal. We use Plaid's Transactions product only.
• Anthropic (Claude) — we send your conversation history and a summary of detected transactions to Claude so the sponsor can respond in natural language. Anthropic's API is covered by their commercial terms and does not train models on this data.
• Telegram — the chat platform we operate on. Your messages transit Telegram's infrastructure. Telegram's privacy policy applies.

We do not sell, rent, or share your data with advertisers, data brokers, or anyone else.

How long we keep it

• Conversation history: the last 40 messages per user, used as context for the AI sponsor
• Plaid access token: until you disconnect your bank or delete your account
• Transaction sync cursor: until you disconnect your bank
• Account record: until you delete your account

How to disconnect or delete

You're always in control:

• Disconnect your bank — send /connect off to the bot. We stop reading transactions immediately and your access token is removed.
• Delete everything — send /delete to the bot. We wipe your messages, your Plaid record, your sponsor contact, and your account record. This is irreversible.
• Prefer email? Write foldnow@imjoey.me and we'll do it manually within 7 days.

How we protect your data

• Plaid access tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM
• The Plaid client secret is never exposed to your browser or phone
• All connections to our servers use HTTPS
• Access to production systems is limited and logged

Children

Fold Now is for adults (18+). We don't knowingly collect data from minors.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (California, Colorado, Virginia, EU, UK, and others), you have the right to access, correct, or delete the data we hold about you, and to know who we share it with. The/delete command and the foldnow@imjoey.me email above are how you exercise those rights. We respond within 30 days.

Changes

If we materially change this policy, we'll update the "Last updated" date and notify active users via the bot.

Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: foldnow@imjoey.me