These terms and conditions are the contract between you and Shotison Media (“us”, “we”, etc). By visiting or using Our Website, you agree to be bound by them.
They are based on a set written by Net Lawman and released under licence. They protect your rights as well as ours.
I / We are Shotison Media.
You are: Anyone who uses Our Website.
Please read this agreement carefully and save it. If you do not agree with it, you should leave Our Website immediately.
The terms and conditions:
In this agreement:
“Carrier” |
means any person or business contracted by us to carry Goods and Services from us to you. |
“Consumer” |
means any individual who, in connection with this agreement, is acting for a purpose which is outside his business. |
“Content” |
means any content in any form published on Our Website by us or any third party with our consent. |
“Goods and Services” |
means any of the Goods and Services we offer for sale on Our Website, or, if the context requires, Goods and Services we sell to you. |
“Our Website” |
means any website of ours, and includes all web pages controlled by us. |
"Post" |
means display, exhibit, publish, distribute, transmit and/or disclose information, Content and/or other material on to Our Website, and the phrases "Posted" and "Posting" shall be interpreted accordingly. |
In this agreement unless the context otherwise requires:
AND
We take care to make Our Website safe for you to use.
This and the following paragraph apply if you buy as a consumer as defined in the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (the “Regulations”). Provided the Regulations apply to the transaction concerned, then the following terms apply to the contract.
These provisions apply if you buy from or hire us other than being a Consumer. The following rules apply to return the faulty Goods:
You agree that you will not use or allow anyone else to use Our Website to Post Content which is or may:
In connection with the restrictions set out below, we may refuse or edit or remove a Posting which does not comply with these terms.
In addition to the restrictions set out above, a Posting must not contain:
If you violate Our Website we shall take legal action against you.
You now agree that you will not, and will not allow any other person to:
You agree to indemnify us against all costs, claims and expense arising directly or indirectly from:
In this paragraph the term “ADR Provider” means an approved body under the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Dispute Regulations 2015.
The following terms apply in the event of a dispute between the parties:
It shall be deemed to have been delivered: |
if delivered by hand: on the day of delivery; |
if sent by post to the correct address: within 72 hours of posting; |
If sent by e-mail to the address from which the receiving party has last sent e-mail: within 24 hours if no notice of non-receipt has been received by the sender. |
Notice of right of cancellation: Right to Cancel and Model Cancellation Form
Information about your statutory right to cancel
Your right to cancel
Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, you have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The cancellation period will expire 14 days after the contract was made. That means you can cancel before you have downloaded the product or we have delivered it to you.
How to cancel
To meet the cancellation deadline, it is enough for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired.
To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement, sent to us by post or e-mail.
You may use the attached model cancellation form, but you can use your own words as long as your intention is clear.
For an online retailer of Goods and Services the new Regulations are evolutionary rather than a revolution. We have written a number of articles explaining each point.
To keep it simple, If you sell physical Goods and Services then the Regulations apply to you as on any seller of Goods and Services and you must comply with the Regulations in respect of Goods and Services.
The main provisions which affect your business are first, provision of information relating to Goods and Services and your identity; and second, the cancellation provisions.
The required information is explained fully in our article “Information requirements for Distance Contract”. Here is a short version:
Next, we will tell you about the cancellation provisions.
If the customer at any time chooses to purchase Goods and Services from your website, he may cancel his order within 14 days without giving any reason. When he cancels the order, you must give him his money back within 14 days after receiving the cancellation order.
Please note: When you sell Goods and Services to consumer, you have no choice but to inform your customer about his cancellation right and provide cancellation form. That means your customer may cancel the order and return the Goods and Services. This document is drawn allowing you to fully comply with the Regulations.
Paragraph Specific Notes:
Drafting notes, using the document paragraph numbers:
Every business is different, not only in terms of the product or service being offered, but also the processes. The defined terms that we use are unlikely to suit most businesses perfectly.
By all means use the search and replace function in your word processor to change them, either to other general adjectives, or to specific product or service names. For example:
We use You might decide to change to
“Goods and Services” “Products or Toys”/ “Headphones”
“Our Website” “The Toy Store Site”/ “The Site”
But if you do change the defined word, make sure it applies to every use of it in the document. Remember too, that when a word or phrase is defined, the defined meaning, capitalised, takes precedence over the common meaning of that word or phrase.
You should first decide on the contents of the document, then return to check what definitions are needed and whether they really fit the text you have left in place.
Leave these items in place unless there is a good reason to edit or remove. Many of them strengthen the framework within which the agreement operates.
This paragraph prevents a party from later saying he was relying on some other document or web site or conversation.
This paragraph establishes the contract. This is very important in an Internet contract because there are so many places in the buying procedure where it could be claimed that the contract has been completed. By leaving the point at which the contract is formed as late as possible, you avoid a position arising where:
There are three options. Make quite sure that one of these accurately reflects the way your order process works.
You must edit these paragraphs to make sure that they reflect how your business works.
This paragraph is more for information than contractual commitment. We have included it here because many users are reluctant to make payment, so this assurance given at the point of sale will allay their fears.
For payment you may have various alternatives like the PayPal, Bacs and cheque. Edit this paragraph accordingly.
If you sell only to businesses and organisations, delete this and the following paragraph.
This paragraph sets out your customer’s rights as a “gold standard”. In the past, the Law has not compelled a seller to disclose his legal obligations. So sellers have not done so. These regulations change that. Because many organisations continue to keep customers in the dark, we believe it is to your advantage to be utterly transparent. Not only will that present you as a high prestige brand, but it will also make clear that you are being unusually helpful and not unnecessarily bureaucratic. There are three pillars of consumer protection:
A buyer’s right to return faulty Goods and Services dates back to 1890. It applies today to all Goods and Services, as it did then. Recent consumer law has re-enforced the right, but not reduced or increased it.
If Goods and Services are not of satisfactory quality, as described and fit for particular purpose they may be returned for a full refund.
The minimum period within which you can insist on returned is six months. However, in common law, the return period depends on the estimated life of the product. If you expect it to last for twenty years, you could reasonably expect replacement for a fault appearing after six years. But your right will dissipate faster in the case of a product which deteriorates fast (shoe laces) or which could have been subject to rough usage (vacuum cleaner, saucepan, carpet)
This paragraph sets out "standard" limits to enable you to comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It also covers your other statutory and common law obligations.
If Goods and Services are defective on arrival or within 30 days, the buyer is entitled to a full refund of the cost, the cost of returning them, and, if the buyer is a business, any economic loss arising from your failure to comply with your implied obligations.
If a defect becomes apparent only later, it will not be clear whether the buyer must accept a repair, an alternative, a precise replacement, or his money back. Then it entirely depends upon the nature of Goods and Services, defect and your business policy as what is most convenient option for you to repair or replace or refund the cost.
Because most buyers of this document supply consumers, we have provided terms which comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
To comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2015, do not reduce the “guarantee” period below six months. This is requirement of the law.
As for the paragraph on price and payment, there are many alternative ways that your business could work. Edit these paragraphs to suit your business.
It is important to make this point clear if any of your sales are to other countries. It is not simply a question of avoiding expense or dealing with these matters yourself. More important is that if you tangle with the tax authorities of a foreign government, you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law if you later travel to that country.
This paragraph includes terms to return defective Goods and Services where your customer is a business or an organisation.
We have provided a sensible set of terms. However, the law everywhere provides that if you sell defective Goods and Services or services you are obliged to pay for all foreseeable resulting loss and expense. That is the common law, pre-dating any sale of Goods and Services act.
We have added for your convenience provisions for returning which may not be enforceable but which will certainly facilitate the procedure.
The WEEE Regulations are a requirement for retailers who sell electrical Goods and Services. If your business does, leave these paragraphs in place, otherwise remove.
We do not have sufficient information about your business to determine how far you can use this paragraph and how binding it will be. We therefore provide an explanation, some parts of which will not apply to you.
Our aim in drawing this paragraph is to limit your liability as far as possible, particularly against events you may not anticipate. We are also aware that you might sell to business, not consumers, and to consumers outside the EU. Note however, that most advanced economies protect their consumers in much the same way as EU consumers are protected. However, a foreign government would have great difficulty in enforcing its rules against you!
There is a substantial set of law which regulates what you can sell to anyone, so no matter what you put in this paragraph, it will not protect you in contract if you sell something different from what an intelligent customer or client would expect. Comparable law covers every part of the sale and return process.
On top of that solid legal structure is an even larger structure relating to protection of consumer rights. That is because consumer protection is extreme in the EU. If you sell to consumers, even occasionally, you must learn what are your legal obligations. The depth of law is huge - far more than we could ever advise here.
We have therefore provided not merely alternative provisions within this paragraph, but two alternative paragraphs. One version is what you can reasonably say if you deal with consumers; the other is the "hard" version which covers everyone else. Select the version according to whether or not you sell to European consumers.
If you sell Worldwide, you could of course arrange for only users outside the EU to receive the hard version - whoever they are.
It is possible that neither of these alternatives will be entirely enforceable. However we have also specified that any provision which offends should be reduced, as opposed to be deleted. In these paragraphs we have provided a terrific contractual shield - but somewhere there may be someone whose arrows will pierce it.
Our best advice to you is to include these disclaimers so far as they apply to your business, but do not expect that you can conduct your business with disregard to the law. The Sale of Goods and Services and Services Act and Misrepresentation Act and a raft of consumer protection law still apply.
You will see that we have also included in the provision for directors and others to have the same protection. One way to get around disclaimer provisions in the past was to claim not against the company with whom the claimant has a contract but against the directors or others in negligence.
These terms provide some protection in case of customer disputes about use of an account. We recommend leaving these if your website records customer information for subsequent purchases. If they are not applicable, remove them.
This and the following four paragraphs relate directly to aspects of the interface between you and your buyers. The more they are allowed to enter data, upload, download, leave messages, and so on, the greater your risk. You cannot stop a criminal by a term in a document, but you can make clear to regular users, before and after the event, that you will take a tough line for bad behaviour.
The paragraphs in this section have two purposes: the first is the obvious and named purpose of preventing damage to your website and establishing a contractual obligation by your site users not to do so. Secondly, it may assist in protecting you from civil or criminal charges for which you may otherwise be liable as a result of what someone else posts to your website.
No matter what you put in these paragraphs, there is no certainty that you may not be the subject of some sort of attack or other problems. However, we do think it is worth providing a full and strict policy. By doing so, you have the best possible defence against anyone who claims he has been insulted, injured, defamed, or whatever.
Of course, anyone who wishes to continue to use your business will comply.
We suggest that you edit these paragraphs in line with the perceived extent of your risk.
This paragraph continues in the vein of the previous one. As you see, we intend to make clear that certain other activities are prohibited.
It is a question of balance and maybe how your buyers will react. You are free to delete all or any of it.
This particular paragraph covers a sensitive issue. You should edit to suit the way you operate your business. You need to provide a balance between making precise promises which could trip you up on the one hand and giving a tight enough framework to convince doubters that you will not sell their data. You should also make sure you have the current Net Lawman privacy policy in support.
This paragraph is targeted at anyone who is aggrieved by your site content. He may or may not be one of your customers. By stating and following this policy you will reduce the chance of any claim for defamation, breach of copyright, and so on. Depending on how you attract acceptance of the terms generally, this paragraph may not be enforceable against a visitor who has not explicitly agreed to these T&C (for example, visitors who are not subscribers).
There is an intentional overlap here with the paragraph on restrictions on posting. Your need for this provision also depends on the extent to which users are able to post content of any sort. Delete provisions which are stronger than you need.
We suggest no edits.
Few business managers appreciate just how much IP is owned by the business. There is an enormous variety of IP rights, from domain names to trade marks.
We suggest that you edit these paragraphs, but keep them within the document.
This paragraph sets out standard terms as required under the Alternative Dispute Regulations 2015. This new law following an EU directive. Our opinions are as follows:
The new law is directed at those EU members whose legal systems have perhaps not been fine tuned for nearly 1000 years and which fail to recognise consumer rights adequately.
UK courts have more or less insisted on litigants going to mediation in cases where the judge concerned is of the opinion that “heads should be knocked together”. (Net Lawman documents have included a mediation paragraph for 15 years!)
The purpose of mediation (the most common form of ADR) is to settle a dispute. In practice it should not matter who is the mediator. Of course you should try to find someone with the appropriate experience of business and commercial life, but the requirement for a “qualified” person is meaningless. Mediation is not a subject you can learn from a book and take at “A” level. So, if you need to find a mediator, you will have no trouble in finding someone acceptable to both sides.
Mediation costs money. £1000 to £3000 would be the approximate rate outside London, for reading the papers and giving a full day. So if the sum in dispute is less than £10,000, even mediation may be unacceptable.
There seems to be some confusion in the EU regulations as to how far arbitration is included in the proposals. In many EU countries arbitration is either unregulated or confined to international issues like shipping and insurance. Here, it is regulated very precisely by the Arbitration Act 1996.
As a result of that act, arbitration entails very similar procedures to those in formal litigation. Most arbitration is as expensive and time consuming as litigation. It is certainly not “alternative” dispute resolution in a way that saves time or money. That is why the courts do not promote it. Avoid!
The new regulations require that if you know of a mediator, you should provide details. However, it seems to us that the last person your opponent would agree to use is someone with whom you already have a relationship. Indeed, it would be immoral if that person even agreed to accept repeated instructions.
Now here is information about the new law – fact, not opinion. Numbering now once again relates to the paragraph in the document.
The law requires that when your internal complaint handling procedure is exhausted then you must tell your customers about using a mediation or arbitration platform. Your obligation is not to force the customer to use these means of dispute resolution but just to provide information. This is to encourage the customer to use ADR rather than litigating.
22.4: in the unlikely event that your business is a large organisation where you have voluntarily committed yourselves (to your trade association?) to use ADR. then by all means provide the name, website and contact details of your selected ADR provider.
However, as an online seller of Goods and Services the law requires you to provide a link to online alternative dispute resolution platform which is at http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/
You may find more details at:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/542/contents/made
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1392/pdfs/uksi_20151392_en.pdf
Do not delete paragraph 22. This is the requirement of law.
A number of special points. Unless you have a good reason to delete any one of these, we recommend that they should remain as drawn.
Email communications are usually binding in the UK, but may not be, elsewhere. In any case, not everyone is aware of the legal position. If your business is such that you do not want email to be binding, you may specify that to be the case and so it will be.
Take care before agreeing to accept service by e-mail. It may be convenient, but you could miss or accidentally delete the message.