Frequently asked questions
v2.1 · Effective 2026-09-26
What is GoSafe?
GoSafe is AI-orchestrated escrow for South African person-to-person sales on Facebook Marketplace and WhatsApp, built by its founders Ian Groenewald and Charl le Roux. The design is that the buyer's money waits in a bank-controlled vault (in build) until delivery is verified, and only then is it released to the seller. The agent orchestrates the deal over WhatsApp; neither GoSafe nor its agent holds funds. It is a proof of concept: built, verified end to end on emulators, pre-regulatory, and not open to the public.
Who holds the money?
A bank-controlled vault: a bank-controlled account today, and connecting with a bank is the plan (in build). GoSafe's design puts the money in that vault, never in the agent's hands and never in a GoSafe or founder bank account. The AI agent has no tool that can move money; that is a structural property of the code, not a policy. In the proof of concept the vault is a bank-shaped interface, and the only test planned is a small one with named insiders, under written agreement. GoSafe does not accept or hold money from the public.
How does a deal work, step by step?
As designed: two strangers agree a deal on Marketplace or WhatsApp. The buyer pays by EFT into the vault, not to the seller, and the seller sees that the money is held. The courier is paid half by each side, and both legs, out and back, are prepaid up front. The item ships. The buyer receives it, inspects it within the window both parties agreed at deal creation (default three hours, counted from the courier's delivery scan), and confirms with a one-time code sent to GoSafe; the courier's delivery event arrives by API. Two operations approvers then release the money to the seller, and the release produces a bank-verifiable evidence pack: the code, the courier events, the approvals and a slice of the audit chain. Every deal also mints a digital title record timestamped with OpenTimestamps.
What happens if I want to return the item?
The inspection window is agreed by both parties at deal creation, with a slider, and defaults to three hours from the courier's delivery scan; it can run from a few hours to a couple of days. The auto-release clock uses that window. If it is not as described, you return it at once: the return leg was prepaid at the start of the deal, so there is no argument about who pays for it, and the net effect is that each side has paid one courier leg. Once the item is back, the escrow is refunded to the buyer. If you keep the item, the unused return leg is credited back 50/50 to you and the seller. If you return an item that was exactly as described, for no reason, the return costs are yours.
What if the courier loses or damages it?
From the courier's pickup scan to the delivery scan, loss or damage is for the courier's account. Courier insurance can be taken out on the deal. The buyer's money stays in the vault throughout, so a lost parcel is never a lost payment.
What is an OpenTimestamps title record?
Every GoSafe deal mints a digital title record and timestamps it with OpenTimestamps, which anchors a fingerprint of the record in the Bitcoin blockchain. The result is proof that the record existed at that moment and has not changed since, verifiable by anyone without trusting GoSafe. It is the certificate pattern Attesté uses for artworks. It is a timestamped, verifiable record of the deal and, in the NFC scenario, of ownership and provenance. It is not a claim of legal effect beyond that.
What does the NFC tag do?
In the NFC scenario the seller fixes an NFC tag to the item and scans it, which binds that tag to the deal's title record. When the item arrives the buyer scans the same tag. The tag scan and the courier's delivery confirmation together conclude the deal and release the escrow, and the buyer holds an OpenTimestamps certificate of title for the item.
How do vehicle sales work?
For a vehicle, GoSafe is designed to run a TransUnion vehicle verification before the deal can conclude: the registration, VIN and engine number must match, and the outstanding-finance and police-interest flags decide what happens next. A financed car gets a split release, with the financier settled first and the seller paid the balance once the papers are released. Police interest, or identifiers that do not match, is a hard block that no console action can undo. The buyer's money is confirmed received in the vault before the two parties meet, which also keeps tyre-kickers and lowballers away; the handover happens in daylight at a public place, and nobody carries cash. In the proof of concept the verification adapter is mocked; no live data source is connected, and we do not check with TransUnion today.
What is GoSafe Check?
A free "check before you pay" agent on WhatsApp, in build and not live yet. As designed, you forward the listing and the chat screenshots before paying and GoSafe says how risky the deal looks, why, and what to do. It will hold no money. It judges the transaction, never the person: it will say a message matches a known deposit-scam pattern, never that a seller is a scammer, and there is no public blacklist. It says "lower risk", never a promise. As designed, screenshots are purged right after assessment and only derived signals and one-way hashed phone numbers are kept for pattern counts. A privacy notice covering GoSafe Check will be published before it processes anything.
Is GoSafe live? Can I use it now?
No. GoSafe is a proof of concept. It has been built and verified end to end on emulators, a live Firebase project exists for a small test with named insiders only, and nothing is open to the public. It is pre-regulatory: no regulatory approval is claimed. The interest form on kinetic-ops.app is the way to hear when that changes.
Who operates GoSafe?
GoSafe is a South African venture of its two founders, Ian Groenewald and Charl le Roux. The idea came from Ian after working with Attesté, where artworks get a timestamped certificate; the same pattern, lifted to marketplace deals, is GoSafe. Its place of business is Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. The Information Officer and privacy contact is Charl le Roux, reachable at charl@alteragro.com.
What personal information does this website collect?
Only the interest form: an email address (required), an optional name, an optional note, a consent timestamp, and the source and UTM strings on the link you used. The lawful basis is your consent; the checkbox is unticked by default. The entry is stored with Cloudflare (D1) in the same table that held the KIP waitlist, tagged so the two are never mixed, and used for two things only: contacting you about GoSafe, and aggregate demand research. No IP address or browser details are stored with it. Traffic is measured with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookieless and reports only aggregates. Google Analytics runs only if you choose Allow on the analytics banner, and you can change that choice any time via the Analytics choices link in the footer. You can have your entry deleted by writing to the Information Officer, Charl le Roux, at charl@alteragro.com, and you may complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) under POPIA.
Why is GoSafe on kinetic-ops.app?
Because this is the domain the founders had ready. kinetic-ops.app previously described KIP, a voice co-pilot the same team is also building; that material is set aside while the GoSafe pitch is here. Entries made on the earlier KIP waitlist are kept only for the KIP purposes they were given for, and are not used for GoSafe.
Anything this page does not answer: write to charl@alteragro.com. Terms are governed by the law of South Africa.
Change log: v2.1 (2026-09-26) — operator restated as GoSafe (founders Ian Groenewald and Charl le Roux); privacy contact Charl le Roux. · v2.0 (2026-09-26) — KIP content replaced by the GoSafe pitch. · v1.2 (2026-08-29) — last KIP version.