Terms and conditions
01Who I am
Arvel is a Belgian marketplace where artists sell their work directly. I am neither the author nor the owner of what is sold: I introduce, and I collect the price of the piece in the artist’s name and on the artist’s behalf. My service fee is mine: it pays for the introduction, the holding of the payment and the claim. The money is held by my payment provider, Stripe Payments Europe, a licensed payment institution - never in an account of mine - until the piece passes from the artist’s hand to the client’s. Arvel ships nothing and arranges no transport: every handover happens in person, between the two of you. The sale contract is formed between the artist and the client.
02Your account
You must be 18 and have a valid email address. An account belongs to one person only. You sign in with a six-digit code sent to your address, no password: keep your inbox to yourself. You change your address in your settings: a code sent to the old and the new address confirms the change. You are responsible for what you publish, photos included. You can delete your account whenever you want, from your settings - except while an order is under way or money is still held for you: finish those first, the app tells you what is left. Deleting your account does not lift a sanction under way: if you come back with the same address before it ends, it resumes on the new account, until the same end date. If I change these terms, the app shows you what changes and asks you to accept them again to continue; you remain free to refuse and leave. An order already paid follows the Terms you had accepted at the time of payment. And those 18 years will not stay a mere declaration: they will be proven. Identity checking is not switched on yet; until then, you confirm your age when you sign up. From the day it is, browsing Arvel will stay free, but three actions will first require a check, once: publishing a work, buying, and writing to someone. You will show your ID document and take a photo of yourself; my payment provider will do the checking, not me, and I will only receive the result, your legal name and the fact that you are of age - never the image of your document. You will have three attempts per thirty-day period - an attempt started then abandoned counts. Beyond that, the app offers no more attempts: your case comes to me, I look at what is blocking - never your document - and I answer you by email. If you decline, you keep your account and you can browse; those three actions stay closed. Why: no minors on Arvel, and because two people who do not know each other are going to meet in person. One exception: buying on the spot. When you are at the artist’s and you pay with the QR code they have just displayed for that work, I do not ask you for the check, because the two of you are face to face. It is still required to publish a work and to write to someone; and if a check has already found that you are under 18, you cannot buy, even on the spot. This exception rests on your meeting, and you both answer for it: the artist only shows this QR code to the client standing in front of them, and never sends it remotely; by paying with it, you confirm that you are face to face with the artist and that you are 18 or over. A QR code sent remotely breaches these terms: I can then cancel the sale before the handover, and warn, suspend or close the account that did it (chapter 08).
03Buying a work
The price shown is the price paid: my service fee - my commission - is included, nothing is added on the last page. Your receipt shows it separately: on one side the price of the piece, which goes to the artist, on the other my service fee. The piece is not sent to you - you receive it from the artist’s hands, at a place and time the two of you agree on in the order. If you are already with the artist, you can also buy on the spot: they show you the bank’s QR code for the work in their app, and you pay with your banking app. You then buy the work from that artist through Arvel, under these terms, without an account: the sale is concluded on payment and the work is handed over to you on the spot. With an artist who sells as a professional, you first give them your email address: that is where you receive the confirmation of your purchase, the professional’s identity and the details of your fourteen days to change your mind; to change your mind, you write to us. With a private artist, you receive nothing in writing from Arvel: your bank keeps the record of your payment, and for any question you write to us at bonjour@arvel.be. From the day identity checking is switched on, buying will require you to have done it, once - except when buying on the spot, see chapter 2. It is what will protect the artist from the fake client, and the client from the fake seller. When you open the payment, the work is reserved for you for thirty minutes; if the reservation lapses, the payment page closes and you start again from the listing, at the price of the moment. If two of your reservations of the same work lapse without payment within twenty-four hours of each other, you cannot reserve it again until twenty-four hours after the second; and you cannot hold it for more than one hour in total over twenty-four hours. Pressing “Pay” commits you. Before that, you see the summary of your order and can still correct everything; after, an email confirms it, and it stays in the app, together with these terms. My service to you - the introduction, the holding of the payment and the claim - starts as soon as you pay, because you ask me to, and is fully performed at the handover: so you cannot withdraw from it afterwards. Before the handover, you can cancel. From one hour before an agreed meet-up, your cancellation - or your block of the artist - waits two days before it goes through: the artist is notified and can say they handed you the work; a human then decides, as chapter 06 says. Otherwise, it goes through at the end of the two days, on the same terms as if it had gone through straight away. When a paid sale falls through, the bank keeps its payment fees - at most 3.15 % of the amount paid, plus €0.30 - and they go to whoever let the sale fall through. They stay with you, held back from your refund, in three cases: you cancel yourself before the ten days are over; you block the artist after paying, while the sale is still waiting for its handover (the chapter “The meet-up” says until when) - the sale falls through, and it is your cancellation, unless I uphold your report about them - if I take a decision against them on that report (content removed, account limited or restricted) that they do not overturn on appeal; even if it comes after your block, it gives you these fees back and wipes the cancellation; the artist proposed a meet-up, the app reminded you after twenty-four hours, and you did not answer it. In every other case you are refunded in full: the artist cancels, arranges nothing, does not answer you, blocks you, an agreed meet-up does not take place and no new date is proposed to you afterwards, you opened a claim, or the seller is a professional. I never presume you are at fault: these fees only cost you something if you brought the sale down yourself - by cancelling, or by blocking the artist - or if the app asked you in writing to do something and you did not do it. The decision is taken on its own; a human reviews it on simple request to bonjour@arvel.be. Three cancellations of paid orders in thirty days - bringing the sale down by blocking the artist is one - close buying for the thirty days after the third: that decision is taken on its own, an email gives you the reason, and a human reviews it on simple request to bonjour@arvel.be.
04Selling a work
You receive the price you set: 0 % commission on the artist's side. My service fee is paid by the client, included in the price they see, and their receipt shows it apart from the price of your piece. Only one thing can be held back from a payout: the payment fees of a sale you let fall through yourself, in the cases described below. You declare that you are the author of the artwork and that you have the right to sell it. By publishing it, you allow me to show it: on Arvel, and on the pages where I present Arvel. That permission is free of charge, non-exclusive, limited to that presentation, and it lasts as long as the artwork stays published. You keep all your copyright: I sell no image, I make no reproduction of it, and I pass that right to no one. You do not ship it: you propose a meet-up and you hand it over yourself, within ten days of payment - a deadline that can be extended once, by mutual agreement (chapter “The meet-up”). Past that deadline with no handover, the client is automatically refunded and the sale is lost - unless you declared you handed it over to them: a human then decides. If an agreed meet-up has not started yet when that deadline passes, or started less than two hours earlier, the refund waits until two hours after it starts. The code is what counts: do not let your artwork go before the client has given you their four digits and you have entered them. Without them, nothing proves the handover. If the client leaves with it without giving them to you, say so from your sale: the money stays held, and a human decides on what you both say. If you cancel after payment, the client is refunded in full. The payment fees of that order - what the bank took when the payment was collected and does not give back, at most 3.15 % of the amount paid + €0.30 - are then yours to bear: they are held back from your next sale or sales, never more than half of a payout. As soon as they are due, the app and an email tell you the amount, the sale and why. I send you a single reminder, free of charge, thirty days later, and I never charge any penalty or late fee. The same applies when the sale falls through because something the app had asked of you was not done: you proposed no meet-up within the ten days despite the app’s reminder, you did not answer the one the client proposed despite the reminder, you did not answer their claim, or a human examined a claim and found against you. If you block the client after they have paid, while the sale is still waiting for its handover (the chapter “The meet-up” says until when), the meet-ups close at once and they are refunded in full: it is your cancellation, these fees included, unless I uphold your report about them - if I take a decision against them on that report (content removed, account limited or restricted) that they do not overturn on appeal; even if it comes later, it gives you these fees back and wipes the cancellation. Agreeing to refund a client who opened a claim is cancelling the sale from your side: these fees are then yours to bear too, and the button tells you again before you confirm. The app sends a reminder after twenty-four hours for a date left unanswered. Nothing is taken from your bank account. Nothing is held back when the client cancels before the ten days are over, brings the sale down by blocking you after paying, or does not answer - they then bear these fees -, nor when an agreed meet-up did not take place: I never presume who failed to show up. After a missed meet-up, the rule applies again to what is said next: if one of you proposes a new date and the other, despite the reminder, does not answer it, that person bears these fees. If you declare you handed over the work without the code, nothing is refunded automatically any more: a human reads both your versions and decides. Either they find for you, and the sale is concluded; or they find for the client, who is refunded, and they may then put these fees on you if they find the work was not handed over. Their reason is shown in your sale, and you can contest it at bonjour@arvel.be. If the client does not show up, do not cancel: let the ten days go by - but answer any new date they propose. And if Arvel itself makes a sale fall through, or if nothing shows who let it fall through, Arvel keeps these fees. This rule applies to orders placed after you accepted these Terms. Apart from the case of the two versions and that of a report, the decision is taken on its own; a human reviews it on simple request to bonjour@arvel.be. A sale you cancel yourself, or bring down by blocking the client, counts as a cancellation: three in thirty days close selling for the thirty days after the third - the decision is taken on its own, an email gives you the reason, and a human reviews it on simple request to bonjour@arvel.be. And two paid sales for which you arranged nothing within the ten days - no meet-up proposed, no date agreed - close selling for thirty days: the decision is taken on its own; an email tells you it was taken by the app, which sales triggered it, and the end date. Write to me at bonjour@arvel.be to give your side - an illness, something that stopped you: a person reads it, and I lift the closure at once if I find you are right. Only what happens after you accepted these Terms counts, and after a closure the count starts again from zero.
05Money and payouts
The client’s money is held by my payment provider until the handover; it never passes through an account of mine. It leaves for your account the moment the client gives you their four-digit code and you enter it, or if they confirm receipt themselves; on your first sales it waits two more days, as a precaution. Then allow about a week before you see it in your bank account: the transfer leaves on its own, there is nothing for you to do. With no handover within ten days (or within the deadline extended by mutual agreement, chapter “The meet-up”), the client is refunded and you receive nothing - unless you declared you handed it over to them: a human then decides (chapter 06). There is no payout at the end of a timer: a gesture from the client, on the spot, is what triggers yours - or their payment, when they pay in front of you with the bank’s QR code. If, after the handover, the client’s bank gives them their payment back - a bank dispute -, I take that sum back from your payout, even if it has already gone out. Send me your evidence at bonjour@arvel.be: I pass it on to the bank, and if the bank finds in my favour, the sum comes back to you. The fees the bank charges for a dispute are mine to bear. Payments go through my provider; I never see your card number.
06The meet-up
On Arvel, the work is not shipped: it passes from the artist’s hand to the client’s. That is the heart of Arvel, and it means one thing that has to be faced: two people who do not know each other arrange to meet. Here is what I advise, and it is only advice. Choose a public, busy place, at a time that suits you, and tell someone where you are going. You are never obliged to go to someone’s home, to receive anyone at yours, or to give your address: an artist’s municipality is public, an exact address never is, and the other person knows it only if one of you gives it. An artist may offer you their studio, which is often their home: it is up to you to say yes or no. Agree on the place and the time in the order, never anywhere else: that leaves a trace. Something came up? “I can’t make it”, on an agreed meet-up and up until its start time, cancels it straight away: the other person is told in the app and by email, with your reason, and you suggest other times in the same step. Your other agreed meet-ups on the same day can all be told at once, with the same reason: you then suggest a new date in each order. It is neither a cancellation nor a missed meet-up: no one is penalised if a new date is found. If you both agree on a date beyond the handover deadline, that deadline is extended, once only, until the day after that meet-up and by seven days at most; the “yes” must come before the deadline ends. With no new date in time, the sale falls through at the end of the deadline, and the chapters “Buying a work” and “Selling a work” say who bears the cost: whoever leaves a date unanswered despite the reminder, and no one when a date is declined. When the client uses “I can’t make it” less than an hour before the meet-up, their cancellation still waits two days, as long as no new date is agreed. This rule applies to sales paid after you have both accepted these Terms. If something makes you uncomfortable before, during or after, you do not go or you leave - no one has a right to your meet-up, and you can cancel; the chapters “Buying a work” and “Selling a work” say what that costs. You can also block the person and report them to me - if a paid sale between you is still waiting for its handover (not declared done, not already refunded), before its deadline or up to two hours after the start of an agreed meet-up, blocking brings it down - at the time of the meet-up, the client’s block waits two days, like their cancellation -, and the chapters “Buying a work” and “Selling a work” say who bears the cost. When someone says they are afraid, their report does not go into the queue: it is put in front of me straight away. If you feel in danger, call the police: I am not an emergency service and I do not come to the scene. What I cannot do, I tell you too: I am not there, I choose neither the place nor the moment, I guarantee no one’s identity, and I do not answer for what happens between you during the meet-up. What I can do, I do: the meet-up stays written in the order, the money stays held until the handover, and you can block and report at any time.
07If the handover goes wrong
Look at the work before giving your four digits: that is the moment you have it in front of you and the money is still held. Those digits are never sent by message, nor in advance - they are said in front of the work, and I refuse messages in which I recognise those digits - a message about something else that carries them in the same order may be refused too: write it differently. Giving your code means accepting the work as you saw it: at that instant the sale is concluded and I take no more claims. The money then leaves for the artist - two days later on their first sales (chapter 05), and with a professional seller after the fourteen days of chapter 11, during which I do arrange the return and the refund. Your rights against the artist remain those the law gives you, before a judge if need be; with a private seller there is no right of withdrawal; with a professional, the next chapter applies. As long as you have not given your code, you are protected: you can open a claim from your order, with photos, and the artist is not paid. They are notified and can reply. If everything gets sorted between you, you withdraw your claim, and the artist is paid as if you had given your code. Otherwise, five days after it was opened, you are refunded in full, automatically, without anyone reviewing it: without a code, the work has not been handed over - unless the artist says they handed it to you: a human then decides, as below. If the artist does not show up, you have nothing to do either: ten days after payment - or at the end of the deadline extended by mutual agreement (chapter “The meet-up”) -, you are refunded automatically; if an agreed meet-up has not taken place yet at that moment, two hours after it starts. One case stops these deadlines: if the artist declares having handed you the work without your code, nothing is refunded automatically any more - the money stays held, and you are told. You can no longer cancel: you give your code, or you say what happened from your order, within seven days. A human then reads what you both say, and decides: either you are refunded in full, or the sale is concluded and the artist is paid. If you did not answer and they find for the artist, that silence is recorded: on the second one, buying is closed automatically, without anyone reviewing it - an email gives you the reason and the date, and you can ask a person to look at the decision again. A retouched or AI-generated proof closes buying and selling on your account. Every decision is sent to both of you, with its reason; none of them takes away anyone’s right to go to court.
08Changing your mind
Between two private individuals there is no fourteen-day right of return: a unique artwork bought from its maker is not a shop item. When the artist sells professionally, that right exists and the artwork's page says so. With a professional seller you also have the legal guarantee of conformity: if the artwork does not match what was announced, you can ask for it to be repaired or replaced, and failing that for a price reduction or for the sale to be undone. It lasts two years from the handover; for a second-hand piece, the professional seller may shorten it to one year at the least, provided they tell you clearly before the purchase. A work sold for the first time by the person who made it is not a second-hand piece: there the guarantee runs the full two years. Between private individuals that legal guarantee does not apply - the artist is still bound by what they described, and a claim remains possible. I am the one who gives you your money back, in the artist's name: it leaves when the artwork is back with them, and it returns everything, my commission included.
09What is forbidden
Selling a work that is not yours, a copy, a printed reproduction presented as an original, or a piece you have no right to dispose of. Getting paid outside Arvel, too: the money is no longer held, the claim no longer exists, and buying and selling are closed on the account. Backing a claim with a faked proof, too: buying and selling are closed on the account. Finally, threatening someone, pressuring them or putting them in danger around a meet-up, and messages that insult, harass, or invite someone to leave Arvel to sell or buy elsewhere. Writing to an artist to draw them towards your own gallery, site or private account is not a conversation, it is using Arvel to empty it. An artist stays free to sell wherever they want: this chapter does not target them, it targets whoever approaches them. Depending on how serious it is, the account is warned, suspended, or closed - and the same approach sent to several artists counts as serious. I keep the messages concerned as proof, and if the approach comes from a company, I can put it on formal notice to stop. Nobody speaks in Arvel’s name: a profile name containing “Arvel”, or a work title containing “Arvel” or looking like a website address, is refused at publication. If “Arvel” is part of your real name, write to me: I will look into it. And more broadly: Arvel is made for original art. A flea-market object, a shop item, an image generated by artificial intelligence or a post unrelated to your art has no place here, and is taken down.
10Ranking, and where reviews come from
Nothing can be bought to come first, and there is no secret score: each list applies a single criterion, the one its title names. In the gallery, one rule is added on top of every list: when several artworks by the same artist follow each other, I space them out - an artist does not come back before the third place as long as another can pass - so that everyone stays visible; the order between different artists does not change. Only the lists of the most followed artists and of the artists who sell escape it: they group artworks by artist, that is their point. When you set filters in the gallery, each list shows only what matches them. On the home screen the rows always follow the same order, and that order is my order of importance: first the latest additions (their publication date), then the founding artists (the order in which the very first members arrived), the most liked artworks (the likes received) and the most viewed ones (how many times their page was opened), the new artists (their date of arrival), the large formats and then the small ones (the size of the artwork), the artists who sell (the number of confirmed handovers on Arvel), the artworks under €100 and then those over €500 (the price you pay, fees included), and last the most followed artists (their number of followers). Every row names one measure that applies to all artworks - a size, a price, what others thought: I never put one technique ahead of another. The six showcases at the top add others, and each one rotates among its candidates on every pass: an artwork published less than seven days ago and already liked, an artwork among the most liked, an artwork by an artist who has already sold on Arvel, an artwork by the artist who sold the most in the last thirty days, the one closest to your municipality, and a founding artist in turn. When a home row does not have enough to live up to its title, I never pad it with anything else: it does not appear, and the latest additions at the top keep the gallery full. When a showcase at the top has no candidate at all, it gives up its place to a list that says what it shows: the most recently published artworks. The full-screen feed follows the gallery order and inserts, every six artworks, a founder, one of those showcases or a tip, in turn. In search, you choose the sorting yourself, and your choice comes before everything else. No artist can pay for a place, and Arvel does not push what would earn it more: my commission depends only on the seller’s status, private individual or professional, and no list takes it into account. Reviews are not written freely: the two people of a handover rate each other - the client rates the artist, the artist rates the client - and only once the handover is confirmed, once each. That is not a promise - it is my database that refuses any other review. Both scores are public, and they never mix: the score received as an artist and the score received as a client stay two separate figures. The rated person may reply publicly under the review: that reply is theirs, and it is checked by no one. I do not remove a review because it is bad; I remove only what insults or is off topic, and the rated person is told.
11If you sell professionally
When you sell as a professional, your client has fourteen days after the handover to withdraw from the purchase, without giving a reason. They hand the artwork back to you themselves, as they received it, and they are refunded. If it comes back damaged beyond what was needed to examine it, say so when you take it back: someone at Arvel looks at it and decides, in your name, on a deduction from the refund equal to the diminished value (art. VI.51, § 2 of the Code of Economic Law); your client receives the rest, and the deduction goes to you. During those fourteen days the money from the sale stays with my payment provider, Stripe, never in an account of mine: your payout leaves at the end of the period plus a short safety margin, never before - which is what means nobody has to take a payout back from you for a return (a bank dispute remains possible: chapter 05 says what it takes back). Your client never bears the payment fees of a sale that falls through: the law protects them. When they withdraw, when they cancel before the handover, or when they do not act on something the app asked of them and reminded them of, you bear these fees - at most 3.15 % of the amount paid + €0.30 -, held back from your next sales as the chapter “Selling a work” says. And you ask me to handle it for you: during the return, your client's money stays with my payment provider, and I give it back to them in your name on the day you tell me the artwork is back. It is your right as a seller, not mine - I only exercise it in your place (art. VI.50, § 3 of the Code of Economic Law). You always receive your price in full; my service fee, paid by your client, is higher with a professional seller than with a private seller: it covers what your sale asks of me on top - those fourteen days, your verified identity and the returns I rule on. To sell as a professional, you give me your legal name, your business address, a contact email and a contact phone number: your client reads them before paying and on their receipt, as the law requires (art. VI.45 of the Code of Economic Law), and you keep them up to date under “What you declare”. This chapter concerns only artists who sell as part of a professional activity, and it comes on top of everything else. Ranking is explained to you in the previous chapter, in the same terms as to everyone. If I want to change these terms, I tell you at least fifteen days in advance, and you can terminate before the change applies. If I want to end your account, I tell you thirty days in advance and I give you the reason. If I restrict, suspend or remove one of your offers, you receive the reason in writing and you can contest it: both the notification I send you and the email with it carry the appeal link. Those notice periods fall away when the law requires me to act immediately, or when an offer is manifestly unlawful. The data you generate by selling on Arvel - your artworks, your orders, your sales - remains yours: you take it with you whenever you want, from your settings. I do not resell it to anyone, and I do not use it to compete with you: Arvel sells nothing on its own account. You remain free to sell elsewhere, on whatever terms you choose.
12Reports and moderation
You can report a work, a profile, a post, a comment, a review or a message from the app; on the site, without an account, from the page of a work, a profile or a post; or by writing to me at bonjour@arvel.be. I check whether what is reported falls under the chapter “What is forbidden”. A human decides, helped by automatic tools: a filter that blocks contact details and the digits of the handover code in messages, a detection of messages that invite someone to leave Arvel, and behaviour counters - silences, cancellations, and the number of different artists one account approaches. These tools decide no report: they flag a case to me, and I am the one who decides. Only the closures described in chapters 03, 04 and 06 - cancellations, silences, sales never arranged - are decided on their own, and a human reviews them on request. You receive a reasoned decision, in French, Dutch or English, whether you made the report or were the one reported. If you disagree, you reply in the app or by email, and I look at it again; after that remain out-of-court settlement and the courts, in the chapter “Disputes and applicable law”. For all of this, one single point of contact, for you and for the authorities alike: bonjour@arvel.be, in French, Dutch or English.
13What I answer for, and what I do not
I answer for my service, and it has a precise outline: introducing the two of you, running the claims process, handling reports, protecting your data - and the money is held by my payment provider until the handover, as the chapter “Money and payouts” says. If I do not do what these terms announce, you can hold it against me. The rest does not depend on me, and I would rather tell you plainly. I do not make the works and I never have them in my hands: everything a work’s page announces is declared by the artist, and it is the artist who answers for it. I guarantee no one’s identity, nor their honesty, nor that they will show up for the meet-up; the private or professional badge says what the artist has declared themselves to be. The sale is your contract, between the two of you: I am not a party to it and I hand nothing over myself. What happens at your meet-up does not depend on me either, and the chapter “The meet-up” says so. Once the work is handed over, my service is finished: what happens to it afterwards is settled between you. If you pay or get paid outside Arvel, the money is no longer held, so there is nothing left to claim back. What an artist owes in tax is their own business. And if a client does not show up, they are refunded: I do not pay you for the time you lost. Finally, I do not promise that Arvel runs without interruption or without error. Nothing in this chapter takes away what the law gives you, whether against the artist or against me; and nothing here covers me if I cause you harm on purpose, or if I fail to do what Arvel promises to do.
14Disputes and applicable law
Write to me first: most disagreements are settled through a claim. Otherwise, the Consumer Mediation Service can be contacted free of charge (mediationconsommateur.be). These terms follow Belgian law and, failing agreement, the Belgian courts of the publisher's registered seat have jurisdiction, without removing the consumer's right to bring the matter before the court of their own domicile.