Community Guidelines

Operated by: Tago Rides, Inc., a Delaware corporation
Last updated: August 1, 2026
Effective date: August 1, 2026
Applies to: everyone using TAGO, as a rider or a driver
Contact: support@tagorides.com · Emergencies: call 911

Read this first#

TAGO is not a taxi. It is a stranger's own car, on a trip they were already making, and you are chipping in toward the cost. Nobody is being paid, and nobody is on the clock. That changes what good behaviour looks like — closer to being someone's passenger than being someone's customer.

These Guidelines are the plain-English version of Terms of Service §10. Where the two disagree, the Terms control. Breaking these Guidelines can get your account suspended.

One thing we say up front, in every document, because it is the most important thing about TAGO: we do not check who anyone is. No driving licence check, no insurance check, no background check, no identity check — not on drivers, not on riders, not on anyone. That is unusual and you should know it before your first trip. Terms §5 sets out exactly what we do and do not do.

1. The four rules#

If you remember nothing else:

Be a decent person in someone's car.
Show up where and when you said.
Do not use TAGO to make money.
In an emergency, call 911 — not us.

2. Respect — what is not allowed, plainly#

Any of these can end your account, and the serious ones end it on the first occurrence.

Harassment, threats, intimidation, or stalking. Including after the trip ends — looking someone up, turning up where they live, or continuing to contact them once they have stopped replying.
Sexual advances, sexual comments, or any unwanted touching. There is no version of this that is a misunderstanding. A car is a confined space with a stranger and it is precisely where this must not happen.
Discrimination or hate speech — on race, colour, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, age, immigration status, or any other protected characteristic. Refusing someone a seat for one of these reasons is prohibited, and so is making them feel unwelcome once they are in the car.
Refusing a service animal. A service animal is not a pet and is not subject to a driver's pet policy. Refusing one is discrimination.
Violence, or threatening it.
Recording someone without telling them. If you have a dashcam or are recording audio, say so before the trip starts. California is a two-party-consent state for audio recording; recording a conversation in your car without everyone's consent can be a crime.
Photographing or filming another user, or posting their image, without their agreement.
Bringing a weapon.

Disagreeing with someone is fine. Being unpleasant to them is not. Politics, religion and the rest are all fair conversation between adults who both want to have it; read the room, and drop it when the other person does.

3. In the car#

Wear your seatbelt. Every trip, every seat.
No smoking, no vaping, no cannabis, no drugs — unless everyone in the car has agreed, and never anything unlawful.
No open containers of alcohol. This is a traffic offence in California, and it is the driver who pays for it.
Do not damage the car or anyone's belongings. If you cause damage, you are responsible for it. TAGO does not settle damage claims between users and has no insurance to pay them — Terms §12.
It is the driver's car, so their reasonable rules apply — food, music, windows, whether the aux cable is on offer. Ask.
Pets are between you and the driver, agreed in advance. Service animals are not pets (§2).
Do not leave rubbish behind.

4. If you are driving#

Have a valid, current driver's licence for the car you are driving. We do not check this; the law still does.
The car must be registered, roadworthy and legal to drive.
Carry the insurance the law requires — and read Terms §12 before your first trip. Many personal auto policies exclude carrying passengers for a fee. Call your own insurer and ask. TAGO provides no insurance of any kind, and this is the single most important thing for a driver to get right.
Never drive impaired — alcohol, drugs, medication, or exhaustion. Never drive distracted. Set your navigation before you move.
Report your seat count accurately. It is not a detail: the number of seats is the divisor in the cost-share cap. Overstating it overcharges your riders, and it is a serious breach, not an oversight.
Do not detour materially beyond the trip you posted without your rider agreeing to it.
Do not run a business on TAGO. No taxi, private hire, delivery or courier work, and no soliciting passengers for one.
If you need to cancel, cancel early. Your rider may have no other way to get there. A late cancellation is worse than a decline.

5. If you are riding#

Be at the pickup point on time, and be findable — the driver has a plate and a car description, and so do you.
Scan the QR code to start the trip. No scan, no trip, and no charge — this is also your record that the trip happened.
Check the car before you get in. Plate, make, colour, and the driver's photo. If it does not match, do not get in.
Declare your companions. Everyone travelling must be on the trip — Terms §11.
Bringing luggage, equipment or a child seat? Say so in advance. A boot full of someone else's belongings is a genuine surprise.
Do not ask the driver to break the law for you — no extra unbooked stops that turn a carpool into a taxi run, no speeding.

6. Money — do not try to make any#

TAGO takes 0% of every trip, and drivers are reimbursed rather than paid. The total a driver can collect is capped at the IRS standard mileage rate for the distance actually driven. That is the entire model, and it only survives if nobody games it.

So, prohibited:

Inflating distance, taking a longer route on purpose, or making unnecessary trips.
Understating your seats to raise each person's share.
Side payments — cash, app transfers, anything — on top of the in-app cost share. If someone asks you for cash, report it.
Coordinated posting between accounts, fake trips, or circular trips.
Manipulating ratings, referrals, points or promotional credit.

A full car does not earn a driver more. A fourth person splits the same cost four ways instead of adding to the total. If someone is behaving as if more passengers means more money, they have misunderstood TAGO — or they are gaming it.

7. Messages#

Keep it about the trip. Where you are, what you are wearing, that you are running five minutes late.
No advertising, spam, recruiting or soliciting through TAGO messaging.
Do not continue contacting someone who has stopped replying, and do not use the trip as a way to get someone's personal contact details.
Your messages are stored. They are not scanned by us and no AI reads them — but our staff can read them when investigating a report, and they are retained. Privacy Policy §4 has the detail.

8. Other people's information#

Do not put someone else's phone number or email into TAGO without asking them first. That applies to companions, caregivers and trusted contacts.
Do not share a trip link publicly. It shows a live location to anyone who holds it, with no login, for about four hours, and whoever you send it to can forward it. Treat sending it as publishing it.
Do not repost anyone's photo, name or trip details anywhere else.

9. Safety tools — and their limits#

What exists:

An emergency button during a trip.
Live trip sharing — a link you control, lasting about four hours, revocable at any time.
Trusted contacts.
The QR scan record of when a trip started and ended.
Reporting, during or after a trip.

And what they are not. These are aids. They do not screen anyone, they do not monitor your trip, and they cannot prevent harm.

The emergency button places a 911 call from your own phone. It does not summon help from TAGO, and TAGO does not see that you pressed it.

Two limits we would rather state than let you discover:

There is no block button yet. You cannot currently stop a specific person from being matched with you again. This is a real gap, we know it is a real gap, and it is being built. In the meantime, if you do not want to be matched with someone again, report them and say that explicitly — email support@tagorides.com with their name and the trip, and we will handle it at our end.

Nobody is monitoring the app in real time. Reports are read by people, and people are not awake at 3am. That is why the answer to an emergency is always 911.

10. Reporting someone#

In the app, on the trip. Or email support@tagorides.com.

You can report during a trip or after it. Categories cover driver and rider conduct, harassment in messages, vehicle condition, route problems, pickup and drop-off, cancellations, fare and payment disputes, lost items, and account problems.

A safety report made during a trip is treated as an emergency at the top of our queue, automatically — you do not have to argue for it, and a client app cannot downgrade it.

Reporting is confidential in the sense that matters: we do not tell the other person you reported them. What we may have to disclose is described in Privacy §7.

Please report even if you are not sure. A single ambiguous report is information. Several about the same person is a pattern, and a pattern is what lets us act before someone is hurt.

Do not file false reports. They cost us the ability to see the real ones.

11. What we do about reports#

Honestly and without inflating it:

A person reads it. Not a model, not a scoring system.
Depending on what it is, we may contact you, contact the other person, look at the trip record and the messages in that thread, and suspend an account — which blocks it from the service immediately, with a reason shown.
Serious matters may be reported to law enforcement, and we comply with lawful requests.

What we are not:

We are not an investigator, a court, or a regulator. Where there are two accounts of what happened in a car with no witnesses, we frequently cannot determine who is right, and we will tell you that rather than invent a finding.
We do not adjudicate damage claims between users, and we have no insurance to pay them.
Anything criminal belongs with the police. Report it to us as well — we can preserve records and act on the account — but 911 first.

Appeals. If your account is suspended and you think it is wrong, reply to the email or write to support@tagorides.com. A person will look again. Terms §20 sets out the full process.

12. Ratings#

Rate honestly, and rate on the trip — was the person on time, safe, respectful. Not on their car, their music, their accent, or anything in §2.
Do not trade ratings, ask for a rating, or retaliate with one.
A rating is not the place to report something serious. A one-star does not reach a human. A report does.

13. What we cannot help with#

Said plainly, so you know where the edge is:

We cannot guarantee anyone's safety. No app can.
We do not verify identity, licences, insurance or driving history.
We provide no insurance, and we do not pay damage, injury or loss claims — Terms §12.
We cannot make a driver or rider turn up.
We cannot recover a lost item ourselves — we can pass a message on.
We cannot settle a factual dispute about what happened in a car.

In an emergency, call 911. For anything else: support@tagorides.com.

Related documents: Terms of Service · Privacy Policy · Accessibility Statement