These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Ephraim Neuman, doing business as KolHotline (“KolHotline”, “we”, “us”). They govern your use of our telephone hotline service, our website, and everything connected to them.
By creating an account or using the service, you agree to these Terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a shul, school, or organization, you confirm you are authorized to do so, and “you” means that organization.
KolHotline is operated by Ephraim Neuman, based in Monsey, New York. You can reach us at ephraim@kolhotline.com.
You must be at least 18 years old to open an account. You are responsible for:
PINs matter. Anyone holding an admin PIN can change a recording that your entire community hears. Give each person their own PIN, and turn a PIN off as soon as that person no longer needs it. We are not responsible for recordings made by someone using a PIN you issued.
Tell us promptly at ephraim@kolhotline.com if you believe your account or a PIN has been compromised.
We provide a hosted telephone hotline. In plain terms: we give you one or more phone numbers, and when somebody calls, our system answers, plays audio you supplied, and responds to the keys they press. Depending on your plan, the service may also take voicemail, forward calls, and send text messages.
We deliver calls using third-party telecommunications carriers. We may change carriers, and we may change, add, or remove features. If we remove a feature you are actively relying on, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email.
Phone numbers assigned to you are licensed for your use while your account is active and paid. You do not own them, and they are subject to the rules of our carriers and of telephone regulators.
Do not cancel before porting. If you cancel your account, your number may be released within 30 days and given to another customer. If you want to keep a number, start the transfer to your new provider before you cancel with us.
Our current plans and prices are shown on our pricing page and are incorporated into these Terms.
| Plan | Annual plan | Monthly plan | Included minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $25 / month, billed yearly ($300) | $35 / month | 500 |
| Community | $50 / month, billed yearly ($600) | $60 / month | 1,500 |
| Pro | $100 / month, billed yearly ($1,200) | $120 / month | 4,000 |
Annual plans are billed once a year in advance. Monthly plans are billed each month in advance.
If a payment fails, we will retry and notify you. If it is still unpaid after 7 days, we may suspend your line. If it remains unpaid after 30 days, we may close your account, delete your recordings, and release your numbers.
This section matters, so we have written it as plainly as we can. There are two separate balances.
Plan minutes. Your plan includes a number of minutes each month for incoming calls to your line. They reset on your billing date. Unused plan minutes do not carry over — whatever is left at the end of your billing month is lost, and you start again with a full allowance.
Top-up minutes. Once plan minutes are used up, calls draw from a prepaid balance at 1¢ per minute. The minimum top-up is $10 (1,000 minutes). Top-up minutes do not expire and carry over indefinitely while your account is active.
Minutes are measured on inbound call duration, rounded up to the next whole minute per call. Our records of usage are the authoritative record, absent obvious error.
Where your plan includes live conference calls, conference minutes are not taken from your plan minutes. They are charged to your top-up balance for every participant, at the rate shown in your dashboard before you start or schedule a conference.
If you switch on automatic top-up, you authorize us to charge your saved payment method the amount you selected whenever your balance falls below the threshold you set, until you turn it off. You may set a monthly cap and change or cancel these settings at any time in your dashboard. We will email you a receipt for every automatic charge.
If both balances reach zero, we will notify you and give you at least 24 hours before your line stops accepting calls. During that period the line continues to answer. Once minutes are added, service resumes immediately; your menu and recordings are not deleted.
You may cancel at any time from your dashboard, with no cancellation fee and no notice period. Your line stays active until the end of the period you have already paid for. We do not pro-rate a partial month unless the law requires it.
After cancellation we keep your recordings for 30 days so you can change your mind, then delete them permanently. Numbers may be released within the same period.
Your content stays yours. Recordings, greetings, voicemails, and anything else you upload or record belong to you. You grant us only the licence we need to run the service — to store your audio, play it to your callers, transcribe it if you have transcription switched on, and back it up.
You confirm that you have the right to use everything you upload, including any shiurim, music, or recordings of other people. If somebody tells us your content infringes their rights, we may remove it and will tell you why.
Each plan includes recording storage (Personal 10 GB, Community 30 GB, Pro 100 GB), which covers your recordings and voicemails. If you reach your limit, we will ask you to delete old recordings or move to a larger plan before new ones are accepted.
You may download your recordings at any time while your account is active.
You may not use the service to:
We do not routinely monitor the content of your line. We may investigate if we receive a complaint or a legal request, and we may remove content or suspend a line that clearly breaches this section.
This is your legal responsibility, not ours. If your line records callers — for example, voicemail — you are responsible for complying with the recording-consent laws that apply to you and to your callers. Some states require every party to consent before a call is recorded.
We provide the tools to announce that a call is being recorded, and we recommend you use them. You agree to obtain any consent required by law, and you accept responsibility for claims arising from your failure to do so.
If your plan includes sending text messages, you are the sender and you are responsible for complying with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), carrier rules, and any other applicable law. That means, among other things:
If your plan includes call blasts, you are the caller. You may only send blasts to people who have agreed to receive them, such as members who joined your sign-up list, and you must stop calling anyone who asks. Pre-recorded calls to people who have not agreed can violate the TCPA. Call blasts are not included in your plan minutes. Each person called is charged 1¢ from your top-up balance, and a blast will not send if your balance is too low to cover it.
Carriers may filter, delay, or block messages for reasons outside our control. We may suspend messaging on your account if we receive complaints or if a carrier requires it.
We work hard to keep your line answering, and our systems are built to be redundant. But we do not promise uninterrupted service, and we do not offer a formal uptime guarantee at these prices.
Do not use this service for emergencies. KolHotline does not provide 911, emergency calling, or any emergency service, and cannot connect a caller to emergency responders. If somebody needs urgent help, they must call 911 from a phone that supports it.
We may suspend or terminate your account if you do not pay, if you materially breach these Terms, if we are required to by law or by a carrier, or if your use puts our systems or other customers at risk.
Except where the breach is serious or urgent, we will try to contact you first and give you a reasonable chance to put it right.
The service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
Our total liability to you for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 3 months before the event giving rise to the claim.
We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost business, or lost goodwill — including any loss arising because a call was not delivered, a message was not heard, or a recording was not played.
Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from your content, your use of the service, your breach of these Terms, or your failure to comply with recording-consent or messaging laws.
We may update these Terms. If a change materially affects your rights, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that date means you accept the new Terms. If you do not accept them, you may cancel.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Rockland County, New York, and both of us consent to that jurisdiction.
Before starting formal proceedings, both of us agree to try in good faith to resolve the matter by talking — write to ephraim@kolhotline.com and we will do the same.
Questions about these Terms:
KolHotline
Monsey, New York
Email: ephraim@kolhotline.com
See also our Privacy Policy, which explains what information we collect and how we handle it.