Terms of use

Terms and Conditions

1. Definitions

In these terms the following words and expressions have the following meanings:

Agreement : the Terms and the Privacy Policy

Communication : as defined in clause 12.3.

Greeting Cards : the text, files, images, photographs, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship or any other materials available via the Website.

Privacy Policy : our privacy policy set out at www.purplehoot.com/privacypolicy.

Prohibited Content : such content as set out in clause 9.1 and 9.2.

PurpleHoot, we, us or our : Digital Gifts Limited (company number 06344867) whose registered address is at 5 Elstree Gate, Elstree Way, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, WD6 1JD trading as purplehoot.com.

Recipient : a person who receives a Greeting Card from a Sender

Sender : a person who downloads or sends a Greeting Card from the Website.

Terms : these terms and conditions.

User, you or your : either a Visitor or a Sender.

Visitor : a person who browses the Website.

Website : www.purplehoot.com, its content, and any services provided from it, including but not limited to, the provision of Greeting Cards.

2. Things you should know before using or accessing the Website.

This Agreement applies to all Users of the Website. The Agreement may be changed at any time by us. The Website is owned and operated by PurpleHoot. You should check the Website periodically for any update and refer to the “last updated” date to see if either the Terms or the Privacy Policy have changed. You accept that you will have no claim for breach of contract or otherwise in respect of any such alteration. Your continued access to and use of the Website will mean that you agree to be bound by the most current version of the Agreement.

3. Changes to the Website

You acknowledge and accept that we may from time to time alter any aspect of the Website, or any of the services provided through the Website, as we think fit and without notice to you.

4. Membership/Free Trial/Payment

4.1 A 'standard/basic member' will have access to the site where from time to time there may be a choice of 'free' cards.
4.2 From time to time, a free trial of the service may be available and will provide access to the full range of cards and personalisation tools for a specifically limited period of time - the trial can only be canceled online by logging into My Account at any time before the trial period expires.
4.3 If a Trial is canceled during the free period, any premium cards sent out during the trial may no longer be viewable by those people to whom they have been sent.
4.3 Only one free trial per user, following a canceled free trial or completed trial from which a subscription was not taken up, if a user then attempts to subsequently subscribe, no free trial will be available, instead the annual fee will be charged immediately.
4.4 If a free trial is made available to you, you will ONLY be charged with effect from the expiry of that free trial period. NB. Purple Hoot will NOT charge you until your free trial expires, but your bank may temporarily treat this authorization like a purchase, holding the authorized amount for 3 days before releasing it back into your account.
4.5 Payments are charged in advance and are not refundable in whole or in part. The account holder is responsible for all charges incurred, including taxes where appropriate, and all purchases made by you or anyone that uses your account.
4.7 'Premium Membership' provides unlimited access to the full range of cards and personalisation features for a standard period of 12 months unless otherwise stated.
4.8 Purple Hoot reserves the right to change fees or billing methods at any time and will provide notice of any such change at least thirty (30) days in advance. Continued use of the Service thirty (30) days after providing notice of the changes means that you accept such changes, if this is not the case, in a timely manner you must notify Purple Hoot in writing and receive a confirmation response.
4.9 Purple Hoot reserves the right to vary or terminate the Paid For Services and does not guarantee that a Paid For Service will remain paid for or that a free-of-charge service will remain free-of-charge
4.10 On expiry of your subscription, your original card will automatically be recharged, thus renewing your subscription for an equal period to that which preceded it or for any other fixed term or automatically renewing payment frequency that we may offer from time to time.
4.11 Subscribers can cancel this automatic renewal by emailing Support@PurpleHoot.com at least 7 days prior to the renewal date - If your email is not acknowledged within 72 hours please resend and cc. Debbie@PurpleHoot.com, NB. unless your email is acknowledged with a message back from PurpleHoot it will not be viewed as having been sent by you and your renewal will be processed accordingly
4.12 Purple Hoot will notify you in advance of any price increases.

5. Downtime

5.1 You acknowledge and accept that computer and telecommunication systems are not fault free and may from time to time require a period of downtime (being periods during which the Website is not available to you) for the purposes of repair, maintenance and upgrading or otherwise.
5.2 We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability of the Website. You accept that you will have no claim for breach of contract or otherwise in respect of any such period of unavailability.

6. Hypertext links

6.1 The Website may incorporate links to other websites of third parties. Such links are provided for your convenience only, and their provision does not constitute an authorisation by us to you to access such third party websites, nor an endorsement of the content of such third party websites by us.
6.2 You acknowledge and accept that we are not, and will not be held responsible for any damages, loss, costs or expenses arising from the use of such third party websites or products or services available through such third party websites.

7. Security and Protection

7.1 We take your online privacy seriously but the security of information transmitted via the Internet cannot be guaranteed. Any losses incurred or sustained by you as a result of transmitting information by means of e mail or other Internet link will be borne solely and exclusively by you.
7.2 We take the protection of Recipients seriously. You acknowledge that PurpleHoot is not an anonymous e mail service. All Greeting Cards sent to Recipients include the IP address from which the login session originated. The source of a communication can often be narrowed directly to your computer.

8. Authorisation

8.1 If you use the Website to send a Greeting Card directly to a Recipient, you are responsible for ensuring that the email address provided is correct and that the Recipient will not object to receipt of the Greeting Card.
8.2 We will not under any circumstances be responsible for any offence taken by a Recipient of a Greeting Card and we draw your attention to the indemnity in clause 14.5.

9. Your conduct

9.1 You must use the Website and the Greeting Cards for lawful, personal and non-commerical purposes only.
9.2 You must not use the Website or the Greeting Cards to send any chain letters or unsolicited e-mail.
9.3 You must not send material containing software viruses or otherwise use the Website in any way that interrupts access to it.
9.4 You must not use the Website to send any Prohibited Content.
9.5 Sending of Greeting Cards in line with the offer of 'unlimited sends' is constrained only by a policy of 'fair web usage' - Excessive usage, as determined solely by the Purple Greetings may result in access to the site being restricted - the same applies to individual cards being viewed, whereby a cap of 50 has been set.

10. Prohibited Content Policy

10.1 It is a condition of use of the Website that you will not:
10.1.1 publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage us or any third party;
10.1.2 submit content or provide links to websites that are unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libellous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourage such conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to breach of contract, break any law, or are otherwise inappropriate;
10.1.3 post or encourage an illegal or unauthorised copy of work protected by a third party’s copyright, including but not limited to providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protected devices, or providing pirated music or links to pirated music files;
10.1.4 submit material that is otherwise subject to third party rights unless you have the relevant permission to use such material on a Greeting Card;
10.1.5 impersonate another person;
10.1.6 post advertisements or solicitations of business; or
10.1.7 solicit personal information from anyone.
10.2 Any content which includes any of the content set out at clause 9.1 is Prohibited Content. We may, in our absolute discretion, deem any other content not listed in clause 9.1 to be Prohibited Content.
10.3 We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate action against anyone who, in our opinion, is in breach of this Agreement, and in particular, provides Prohibited Content. Such action includes, but is not limited to, reporting the Prohibited Content and your details to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and removing the Prohibited Content from our Website.
10.4 We reserve the right to terminate your access to the Website, if you are, in our absolute discretion, deemed to be a repeat infringer.
10.5 If you believe that any Prohibited Content is posted on this Website, please notify us immediately by contacting us at support@purplehoot.com. We will consider your notification and if we consider it to be appropriate we will take all reasonable steps to remove the Prohibited Content complained about within a reasonable time.

11. Additional rules

The Website may contain various bulletin boards, competitions and other features that are each governed by additional rules. Please read those rules, posted or linked at each feature before participating in them, as they form part of the Agreement to which you agree through your continued use of the Website.

12. Privacy

We will only use the details supplied by you in accordance with our Privacy Policy (www.purplehoot.com/privacypolicy).

13. Intellectual property rights

13.1 The Website contains material that is owned by or licensed to PurpleHoot, including but not limited to the Greeting Cards. You may not copy, reproduce, upload, post, distribute, republish, retransmit, or modify in any way any of the material on the Website, including computer code and software save as in relation to the creation and transmission of Greeting Cards.
13.2 All brand names, product names and titles used in the Website are trade names, and in some instances trade marks, of their respective holders. No permission is given in respect of use of any of the above, and such use may constitute an infringement of the holder’s rights.
13.3 By posting messages, sending e mails, inputting data, answering questions, uploading data or files or otherwise communicating with us through the Website, you are granting to us a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty free, unrestricted worldwide licence to use, display, sublicense, adapt, create derivative works from, transmit and copy such Communication and you waive your right to be identified as the author of such content and your right to object to derogatory treatment of it. The foregoing grant shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such Communication, including but not limited to rights under trade mark, copyright, service mark or patent laws in any relevant jurisdiction in any media.
13.4 For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions in clause 12.3 do not apply to any User text included in Greeting Cards sent from a Sender to a Recipient, save to the extent necessary to create and transmit the Greeting Card and its review by the Sender or the Recipient.

14. Limitations of liability

14.1 Nothing in the Agreement excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or any other liability which cannot be excluded on a point of law.
14.2 The Website is provided as seen. You use the Website at your own risk.
14.3 We will not be liable to you for the deletion or failure to store any Communications or Greeting Cards transmitted via the Website.
14.4 Subject to clause 13.1, we will not be liable to you for any loss or damage in circumstances where or to the extent that:
14.4.1 neither we nor our employees or agents are in breach of a legal duty owed to you;
14.4.2 such loss or damage is not a reasonably foreseeable result of any such breach; or
14.4.3 any increase in loss or damage results from a breach by you of any term of this Agreement.
14.5 Except as expressly provided in the Agreement and save for fraudulent misrepresentation, all conditions, representations and warranties (express or implied, statutory or otherwise) are excluded to the extent permitted by law including without limitation any implied warranties or conditions as to quality, fitness for purpose and reasonable skill and care.
14.6 Under no circumstances, (including negligence or breach of statutory duty or otherwise), shall we or any affiliated company or individual be held liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damage (including, without limitation whether for loss of profit, loss of business, lost data, viruses that may infect your computer, depletion of goodwill or otherwise), costs, expenses or other claims for economic loss (howsoever caused) which arise out of or in connection with your use of the Website.
14.7 We further do not warrant that the Website or the products and materials contained on such site are error free, or that errors will be corrected, or that the Website or the server from which it is run are free of viruses or other potentially harmful codes.

15. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us and any affiliated company or individual harmless from any and all liabilities, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, related to any violation of the Agreement by you arising from:
15.1 your use and access of the Website;
15.2 your breach of this Agreement;
15.3 your breach of any third party right;
15.4 any unauthorised use of your account; or
15.5 any claim that any Greeting Card sent by you caused damage to any third party.

16. General

16.1 Our failure to insist upon the strict performance of any of your obligations under the Agreement will not be construed as a waiver and will not affect our rights to require strict performance of such obligations.
16.2 If any provision of the Agreement or part thereof is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the invalidity or unenforceability of such provision or part will not affect any other provision or the remainder of the provision in which such invalid or unenforceable part is contained, which will remain in full force and effect.
16.3 Nothing in the Agreement will give nor is intended to give rights to any third party under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.
16.4 The Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the parties will submit to exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
16.5 Neither we nor our affiliates make any representation that materials on the Website are appropriate or available for use in locations outside the United Kingdom, and accessing them from territories where their contents are illegal is prohibited. Those who choose to access the Website from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

17. Termination

The Agreement may be terminated by us at any time without notice. In the event of termination, you are no longer authorised to have access to the Website and all limitations on our liability and on your use of the Greeting Cards and/or any other material available on it shall survive. The Agreement along with any additional rules or conditions referred to herein constitute the entire agreement and understanding between you and us as to your use of the Website superseding all prior or contemporaneous communications between us. Each of the parties agree that in entering into this Agreement it does not rely on and will have no remedy in respect of any statement, representation, warranty or understanding of any person, whether party to this Agreement or not, other than as expressly repeated in this Agreement. Nothing in this clause will operate to limit or exclude any liability for fraud.

18. Comments on how we may improve our service to you

We aim to provide outstanding customer service. If you have any comments about the service you have received from us, please contact us at support@purplehoot.com

Last updated: 10th January 2009