Terms of Service

1. What BDAP is, and is not

BDAP is a member organizing project for federal student loan borrowers who applied for Borrower Defense to Repayment and were excluded from the Sweet v. McMahon class settlement.

BDAP is not a law firm. No one operating this platform is acting as your attorney. Nothing on this site — including resource articles, forum posts, affidavit prompts, or communications from administrators — is legal advice. Using this site does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing you post here is protected by attorney-client privilege.

BDAP charges nothing. There is no cost to join, ever. The platform accepts no payments, donations, or fees, and contains no payment processing of any kind. If anyone claiming to represent BDAP asks you for money, they are not acting for BDAP.

2. Membership and real names

Accounts require a real, full legal name and a verified email address. Pseudonymous accounts are not permitted, because a sworn statement only carries evidentiary weight when it is made by an identifiable person. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for all activity under your account.

You must be at least eighteen years old and legally able to make the declarations you submit.

3. Statements you submit

When you submit a sworn statement you affirm, under penalty of perjury, that its contents are true and correct to the best of your knowledge and recollection. Submitting a knowingly false statement may carry legal consequences and will result in removal from the platform.

You retain ownership of what you write. By submitting, you grant BDAP a limited licence to store your statement, display it to administrators for review, display it to other verified affiants inside the vault, and include de-identified summary information in an anonymized case package shared with prospective law firms. Your identifying details are not included in that anonymized package unless you separately and expressly agree.

Do not include Social Security numbers, full financial account numbers, or other people's private identifying information in any field or uploaded document.

4. The vault

Access to the affidavit vault requires an approved statement on file and a signed Vault Confidentiality Agreement. Vault access is a privilege that may be revoked at any time, including for sharing, screenshotting, or redistributing vault contents outside the group.

5. Community conduct

The forum is for organizing and mutual support. You agree not to post harassment, threats, discriminatory abuse, spam, solicitations, or offers of paid services to members. Do not offer legal advice to other members; share your own experience instead. Moderators may edit, remove, lock, or delete content and may suspend accounts.

6. Termination and account deletion

You may delete your account at any time from your profile page. Deleting your account removes your vault access and your forum history and withdraws your affidavit from the vault. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

7. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

The platform is provided "as is", without warranties of any kind. BDAP does not warrant any particular outcome from submitting a statement, from any law firm reviewing the collected material, or from any Borrower Defense application. To the fullest extent permitted by law, BDAP and its volunteers are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the platform.

8. Changes

We may update these terms. Material changes will be announced in the forum and on this page, and continued use of the platform after a change constitutes acceptance.