Accounts, Eligibility, Verification, and Privacy

Only Pools combines a Participant account with a Pool-facing profile. Eligibility and verified contact information support private Pool administration; competitive picks remain protected by separate visibility rules.

Eligibility

Every Participant must be at least 18 years old and confirm that eligibility. A person competes as one Participant even when they also hold the Pool Owner or Pool Admin role.

Email and phone verification

Signup and each new sign-in require both a verified email address and verified phone number. If verification changes during an already-valid session, ordinary Pool access continues for that session, but the next sign-in requires both fields again.

If My Pools reports that verification is incomplete, finish the missing email or phone verification through the account flow, then refresh the page.

Participant Profile

Your display name and avatar form your Pool-facing identity. Every current Participant in the Pool can see them.

The Pool Owner and Pool Admins can additionally see a current Participant’s verified email address and phone number for Pool administration. This visibility continues while the Pool is Active, Completed, or Archived.

Ordinary Pool Members cannot see another Participant’s contact fields. Pool roles never grant access to another Participant’s Hidden Pick before its Pick Lock.

Privacy when joining

Before accepting an ordinary or Returning Participant Invite, you must acknowledge that the Pool Owner and Admins can view both verified contact fields. There is no per-Pool opt-out because those fields are part of the Pool administration model.

Opening an invite alone does not share Pool membership or enroll you. Contact visibility begins after explicit acceptance.

After leaving or removal

Leaving a Pool or being removed immediately revokes access and Pool-administrator visibility of your contact fields. Your display name, accepted picks, results, membership status, and standings remain in the Pool as competitive history.

Returning through an eligible invite or Owner reinstatement restores normal Pool access. It does not restore expired picking opportunities or a former administrative role.

Step-up Verification

Sensitive administrative actions require recent reauthentication with a second verified factor. The UI requests Step-up Verification when needed for actions such as:

• retrieving or rotating a Pool Invite;
• promoting or demoting a Pool Admin;
• offering an ownership transfer;
• archiving or restoring a Pool; and
• other identity-sensitive account actions.

Step-up Verification does not interrupt ordinary Pool viewing or picking.

Reports and sensitive information

An Abuse Report is private, but it should not contain Hidden Pick values or raw Pool Invite links. Describe the concern in plain language and let the Pool association provide context.

Help & feedback

When you contact us through Help & feedback, you can review exactly which safe context fields Only Pools proposes to include before you submit. Optional diagnostics (current page, browser summary, and application version) can be turned off without blocking Support or Feedback.

Signed-in Support and identified Feedback may attach your verified account identifier, account email, and a relevant Pool identifier when you have an active membership in that Pool. Anonymous Feedback never includes account, email, or Pool identifiers regardless of what the browser sends.

Submissions are stored temporarily in the application for up to 90 days, delivered to our support mailbox, and handled privately. Feedback is private by default — we do not publish it as a testimonial or share roadmap status.