Terms & Conditions of Sale
Please read these Terms of use ("Terms") carefully – by accessing or making any use of Group Hugs, you are agreeing to them. You also agree to our Privacy Policy, which sets out how we deal with Group Hugs users' personal information and privacy.
1. Introduction
These Terms set out your rights and obligations, and those of Group Hugs Inc Limited ("we" or "us"), in relation to www.GroupHugs.co.uk (the "Site"), any Group Hugs application that you access and any goods or services available through, and material of any kind accessible or relating to, the Site or us (the "Services"). When we refer to "Group Hugs" in these Terms, we mean us, the Site and/or the Services, according to the context.
You must take the time to read and understand these Terms before using Group Hugs services. By ordering with Group Hugs, you accept that you are entering into a contract with us under these Terms. People who register for Group Hugs establish an "Account", and become "Users". Visitors to Group Hugs who do not become Users, but who nevertheless use the Site and/or download the App, affirm that they are bound by these Terms each time they access Group Hugs. You should be aware that these Terms may change from time to time in accordance with Clause 19 below.
2. Obtaining your Information and providing a Payment Method
When we ask you to provide some information about yourself when you make a purchase with Group Hugs, you must ensure that this information is accurate and current. If you need to make any changes please contact [email protected]
When you place an order, you will need to supply us with details of a payment method, such as a credit or debit card, (your "Payment Method") and other personal details so that we may process the order for you. In the event that you supply or attempt to use an invalid Payment Method, or a Payment Method which has lapsed, an order made using that Payment Method will fail. If we suspect that your Payment Method belongs to someone else or is one which you are not entitled to use, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your order at any time.
Important: you must ensure that the email address and phone number we hold for you is kept up-to-date and that you have full access to it – we will be sending you important messages there. So if you change email address, then you must change it by contacting [email protected]. Should you provide an invalid email address or an email address that belongs to someone else, Group Hugs may terminate your order at any time without notice.
You must also ensure that the postal address to which we send you Products and communications is kept up-to-date this can be done by contacting [email protected].
3. The Essentials of Group Hugs
Group Hugs offers Users the ability to order:
- printed physical copies of a digital journal;
- print of more than one copy;
- to a personal or gifting delivery address;
We refer to the print and services as our "Products".
As Group Hugs evolves and changes over time, we may add Products or remove Products from our Services. Clause 5 contains the terms of purchase for Products. It is the responsibility of Users to have sufficient web and device usage skills to make use of our Services.
Important: your Storage with Group Hugs will expire from 4 months of order and must not be used as your main or back-up storage facility for your Journal. It is up to Users to make sure that their Journals are securely stored elsewhere. The only purpose for us storing the journal is to be able to print the product and we do not have system that will allow you to download the journal at a later date.
Although we incur a cost in providing Storage, we don't charge for providing. We do however only provide Storage for orders where payment has been completed. Please note that without ordering the length of Storage of your Journal would have been set out in communications directly with the software provider: It will not be 4 months.
To reiterate: you must ensure that your Journal and related content are stored elsewhere, and that you do not rely on Group Hugs to store and access them.
4. Your Journal
Group Hugs does not allow any access to your journal once on our system. Please also note that:
- we provide Storage at no cost principally in order to facilitate Users purchase
- accordingly, we do not hold information for any other purposes
- your Journal will be removed from our system after 4 months from the purchase date
- in the course of storing a Journal, we reserve the right to apply various techniques to make generally accepted improvements to the quality of the Image, such as by:
- brightness enhancement; and
- detail enhancement
- we also reserve the right to make changes to Images which are intended to improve their storability, including:
- Compression;
- Size reduction and downscaling; and
- as part of getting the Journal ready for print we will:
- Create a cover and title page containing;
- School Name
- Image
- Child Name
- Years of school
- Manufacturing information
- Create a cover and title page containing;
- Disclaimer: as Group Hugs does not generate or carry any responsibility for the creation any of the information or photos we cannot be held liable for the quality of images, information (including copyright) or errors;
- our policies concerning the storage of Journals and User Content may change from time to time;
As indicated in Clause 3, your journal will not be accessible from our system.
User Content; we have no liability to you or any User if Journal or other User Content become lost or corrupted as a result of any cause (including human error, software or hardware failure, failures of telecommunications or internet services, or events beyond our control).
5. Terms of purchase for Products
These terms of purchase apply to:
- the Journal that will be physically produced – this is a "Personalised Product";
A contract between a User and Group Hugs for the purchase of a Product is created as follows:
- The User places the order for a Product on the Site by pressing an order confirmation button at the end of the checkout process.
- By confirming your order, you are agreeing to purchase the Product/amount of Products you have selected
- At this point, we take payment for your order by means of your nominated Payment Method.
- We will send to you a "Thanks for your order" email detailing your order for the Product, and other information we must provide to you.
- When the Product you have ordered is shipped to you, we will send you a "dispatch" email
Note that Group Hugs may reject an order in certain circumstances, namely:
- Your order breaching the requirements of these Terms;
- Corrupted Journal;
- The stock being unavailable;
- Our inability to obtain authorisation for your payment; or
- A relevant pricing or Product description error being identified.
If we reject your order, we will contact you to confirm this and reverse the payment you have made for that order.
For orders that are accepted, unless we inform you otherwise in the order process, we will deliver the Product you have ordered within 42 days (6 weeks) days of the order.
No right of cancellation for Personalised Products: Note that the right to cancel a contract and return a Product, does not apply to the Journal, because they have been made to specific requirements containing unique information. There is no period where an amend to the product can be made but we can amend delivery details within the first 24 hours of ordering by contacting [email protected].
Your statutory rights: Although there is no right to cancel and return a journal this does not affect your statutory rights.
These include that if the Product you have purchased is faulty, in that it is not as we describe it, of satisfactory quality or reasonably fit for purpose, then within 31 days of the day of its delivery you may exercise the right to a refund. And within six months of the date of delivery, and again only where the Product is faulty, you are entitled to a replacement.
Products should be returned in (or with) their original packaging by arrangement with our customer support team (see Clause 7)
Delivery: We cannot guarantee that a specific carrier will be used when processing your order. In some cases we may use carriers that offer a comparable delivery service to that which you select. Your order despatch email will state the carrier used.
In the event you have not received your order by our Estimated Delivery Date, note that – without limiting your contractual and statutory rights (as referred to above) - we may need to allow 4-6 days for UK services and 10-15 for non-domestic before checking on the whereabouts of your Product with the relevant carriers.
In the event that the buyer is not available to take delivery of the goods, the carrier will leave a contact card with information about how to redeliver or collect the goods. Should the buyer not take steps to contact the carrier within the terms of that carrier, goods will likely be returned to Group Hugs. In this event, where we consider that the buyer has not made a reasonable attempt to facilitate delivery, we may charge a failed delivery / redelivery fee at cost.
7. Customer Support
You can contact us by our chatbot or email at [email protected]
8. International use of Group Hugs
You must ensure that you comply with the laws that apply to you and your use of Group Hugs, including as to User Content, the Journal that may be bought through Group Hugs. That use may be prohibited or restricted in various jurisdictions.
10. Intellectual Property
By authorising Group Hugs to take payment, a User expressly grants to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable licence to produce, adapt and distribute the Journal and Content which is owned by the User. For the avoidance of doubt, the licence under this Clause 10 does not permit us to commercially use or exploit the Journal without the User's consent. Note that we may modify User Content in order to conform it to Group Hugs or the requirements of a Product (such as creating a cover).
You acknowledge that all copyright, trade marks, and other intellectual property rights in and relating to Group Hugs are owned by, or licensed to, us. No-one may copy, distribute, show in public or create any derivative work from Group Hugs, or any of the material which is found on Group Hugs unless properly licensed to do so by us.
You are not allowed to use Group Hugs (or to copy or use any material found on Group Hugs) for any commercial purpose other than to conduct the purchase of a Product from Group Hugs. You are not allowed to remove any copyright, trade mark or other intellectual property notices contained in material taken from Group Hugs. No-one may use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access Group Hugs for any purpose without our prior express written permission.
11. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy governs all users of Group Hugs. If you do not wish your personal data to be handled as specified in our Privacy Policy, then you must not use Group Hugs. Users must not use the Services in connection with the sending of any unsolicited messages, or to harvest or otherwise collect information about Users, including email addresses, without their express consent. Users must not use any information about other Users that is accessible through the Services except as expressly permitted by these Terms or the relevant User.
12. Our Role
Group Hugs is not responsible for Images or Content contained within the Journal. We are responsible for producing a replicated printed copy of a digital journal. As set out in clause 4.
13. Suspension
We reserve the right at any time and without notice (a) to suspend or terminate your ability to access Group Hugs, (b) your use of all of part of the Services, (c) to cancel an order (d) to warn Users and other users of Group Hugs against interacting with a particular User, and/or (e) to take technical and legal steps to stop any Users from using Group Hugs if they appear to us to be in material breach of any provision of these Terms. Should we do so, you acknowledge that we shall not incur any liability to you or to any other person. In addition, we are entitled to suspend provision of all or part the Services, or the availability of any Journal associated with any User, at any time if we are obliged or advised to comply with an order, instruction or request of any limb of government, or any regulator, court or other competent authority.
16. Operation of Group Hugs
We reserve the right to withdraw or modify all or part of the Services or Group Hugs where we have legal or commercial reasons to do so. There may be times when the operation of Group Hugs is adversely affected, or becomes inaccessible, as a result of technical difficulties experienced by Group Hugs, on the Internet or other communications networks, or other matters that are beyond our control. Please note, however, that we cannot guarantee continuous, uninterrupted or secure access to Group Hugs. If we are conducting a period of planned unavailability of the Services, we will inform Users of this by a notice that appears on one or more pages of Group Hugs.
17. Liability
We use reasonable care and skill to provide Group Hugs in accordance with our specifications but:
- the Services are provided "as is" and "as available";
- we do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted or error-free; and
- we cannot and do not guarantee that Group Hugs or the Services will meet your requirements, including (without limitation) as to the availability or speed of delivery of any User Journal purchased through Group Hugs.
Group Hugs does not exclude or limit in any way its liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. Thus we do not exclude liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for breach of your legal rights in relation to Products we supply.
We are only liable for loss that is a foreseeable and natural result of our breach of these Terms. But we will not be responsible if the loss or breach is caused by events that we cannot reasonably control, or by something you do or do not do. This might arise, for example, where you fail to keep or use a Product safely or appropriately. Group Hugs is not liable for business losses. We only supply Products for domestic / private use. We will have no liability to you for any loss of revenue or profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity, including where you use a Product for any commercial, business or re-sale purpose.
Except as expressly stated elsewhere in these Terms, we exclude all representations, warranties, conditions and other terms, whether express or implied, except in the case of fraud, or where exclusion is not permitted by law. For the avoidance of doubt, Group Hugs will not have liability to you or any other person in respect of Journal Content.
18. Your Liability
You will be liable to Group Hugs, and potentially to other Users, where activity by you breaches these Terms.
19. Assignment
We reserve the right to assign these Terms, and to assign or subcontract any or all of our rights and obligations under these Terms, but will not do so in such a way as to reduce any guarantees you are given under these Terms. You may not without the written consent of Group Hugs assign or dispose of these Terms or any of your rights and obligations under it.
19. Entire Agreement
These Terms are intended to contain your entire agreement with us relating to your use of and purchase from Group Hugs; we believe them to be fair and reasonable. They replace all earlier agreements and understandings with you relating to Group Hugs.
21. Changes to these Terms
These Terms may change from time to time. Whey they do, we will post the new version of the Terms on the Site and flag it appropriately.
22. General
If any part of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remainder shall remain valid and enforceable. Our failure to act with respect to a breach of these Terms by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. The headings to the Clauses are for ease of reference only and do not affect the interpretation or construction of these Terms. A person who is not a party to these Terms has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any of these Terms, provided that this shall not affect any right or remedy of a third party which exists or is available apart from that Act.
23. Law
All issues arising out of or relating to the Services, these Terms or any purchase of a Product shall be governed by the laws of England Wales and the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
24. Keeping these Terms
We don't separately file the Terms entered into by Users when they register for Group Hugs. You can access them here. Please make a durable copy of these Terms by printing and/or saving a downloaded copy on your own computer. They are offered in English only.
25. Contact
We are a company registered in England and Wales under registration number 14476547 under the name Group Hugs Inc Limited; the address of our registered office is Dejan Business Park, Second Avenue, Kent ME4 5AU. Our VAT registration number is 429 0060 21. You can contact us by post at our registered address or via email: [email protected].