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Terms & Conditions
Introduction

These terms and conditions of use (user agreement) relate to eQuoteCentral’s websites (including but not limited to buyfocus.co.uk, equotecentral.co.uk, schoolquote.co.uk and their related sites, services and tools), you agree to the following terms with eQuoteCentral Limited (us).

Those who are under the age of 18, or who are not able to form legally binding contracts are prohibited from using our sites and services.

Our agreement with you will be effective as of the date of your acceptance of this user agreement and Privacy Policy by clicking on the accept button or similar buttons or links as may be designated by us, or the date of your first use of any of the sites, services and tools, whichever occurs earlier, and will remain effective until terminated by either us or you as set out below.

Notification of any change to this agreement will be published on our sites, services and tools, one month before it comes into effect. This agreement is effective on 18 September 2009 for current users, and upon acceptance for new users.

Scope

By accepting this User Agreement, you agree that the User Agreement and Privacy Policy will apply whenever you use our sites or services, or when you use the tools we make available to interact with our sites and services. If you use another eQuoteCentral site, you agree to accept the User Agreement and Privacy Policy applicable to that site. Some eQuoteCentral sites, services and tools may have additional or other terms that we provide to you when you use those sites, services or tools.

No agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchiser-franchisee relationship is intended or created by this Agreement.

Using Our Sites, Services and Tools

While using our sites, services and tools, you will not:

  • violate any laws, third party rights or our policies
  • use our sites services or tools if you are temporarily or indefinitely suspended from using our sites, services or tools;
  • fail to deliver payment for goods or services purchased by you
  • fail to deliver goods or services purchased from you
  • manipulate the price of any quotation or deal or interfere with other suppliers quotations and deals
  • dishonestly manipulate your standing as a buyer or supplier on any of our sites, services or tools, or seek to dishonestly interfere with the buyer or supplier standing of other users
  • circumvent or manipulate our fee structure, the billing process, or fees owed to us;
  • Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy) of others
  • Publish, post, distribute or disseminate any defamatory, infringing, obscene, pornographic, sexual, indecent or unlawful material or information
  • Upload or otherwise transfer files that contain software or other material protected by intellectual property laws (or by rights of privacy or confidentiality) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consents
  • Upload or otherwise transfer files that contain viruses, corrupted files or any other similar software or programs that may damage or inhibit the operation of another computer
  • Conduct or forward surveys, contests or chain letters, mass mailings or "spam"
  • Use any communications or Content or other information obtained through the Site in a manner that is competitive with the Site or our business
  • take any action that may undermine the feedback or ratings systems
  • transfer your account to another party without our consent;
  • distribute viruses or any other technologies that may harm us, or the interests or property of our users;
  • copy, modify or distribute rights or content from our sites, service or tools or our copyrights and trademarks; or
  • harvest or otherwise collect information about users, including email addresses, without their consent.

You understand that you, and not we, are responsible for all electronic communications and content sent from your computer to us. You acknowledge that no communication of a third party or any third party Content is endorsed by us and no communication of a third party or Content may be considered reviewed, screened or approved by us. We reserve the right for any reason to remove without notice any communication, Content or other material posted to the Site. In addition, you acknowledge that several of our communications tools, including but not limited to our forums, are public and not private communications.

The framing, mirroring, scraping or data mining of the Site or any of any conduct by you that in our sole discretion restricts or inhibits any other user from using or enjoying the Site (or any linked site) will not be permitted.

Supplier Contact Details

You understand that you must omit your contact details from any quotations and associated communications until such time as the relevant buyer exchanges contact details with you. Exchange of contact details must be initiated by the buyer.

Feedback

Feedback on the outcome of quotation requests, quotations and Bullets is fundamental to the success and sustainability of the service. When asked for such feedback you will provide it with reasonable speed, honesty accuracy.

Whilst some elements of feedback represent a permanent reflection the perception of a supplier’s performance, we retain the right to remove feedback whenever we judge this action to be appropriate.

By posting Feedback, you expressly grant us an irrevocable right and licence to use that Feedback, including but not limited to our right to publish, edit, translate and distribute it in any medium and in any form, including making that Feedback available on our Website or other electronic format and/or otherwise.

Users also agree that Feedback may be used for advertising and promotional purposes without any further requirement for your permission.

Abusing Our Sites, Services and Tools

We and our communities work together to keep our sites and services working properly and the community safe. Please report problems, offensive content and policy breaches to us.

Without limiting other remedies, we may issue you with warnings, limit, suspend, or terminate our service and user accounts, restrict or prohibit access to, and your activities on, the sites, services and tools (including, without limitation, removing quotation requests, quotations, deals, offers), delay or remove hosted content, remove any ranking, standing or status associated with the account, and take technical and legal steps to keep you off our sites if:

  • we think that you are creating problems (including, without limitation, by harassing our staff or other users or by making unreasonable legal threats against us), or exposing us or other of our users to financial loss or legal liabilities;
  • we think that you are acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of this Agreement or our policies;
  • despite our reasonable endeavours, we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us;
  • there is a weight of evidence of ongoing poor performance with regards the level of service that you extend to other of our users

We also reserve the right to cancel unconfirmed accounts or accounts that have been inactive for a long time or to modify or discontinue our sites.

You agree not to hold us responsible for any loss you may incur as a result of our taking any of the actions described above.

Fees

Joining our sites and services and requesting and using quotations, as a buyer, is free. We charge fees for activities relating to selling goods or services. When you submit a quotation or use a service that has a chargeable fee, you have an opportunity to review and accept the fees that you will be charged, based on our fee structure at that time. We may change our fee structure at any time and it is therefore recommended that suppliers review the fees applicable to each individual quotation, on a case-by-case basis, as and when each quotation is submitted.

Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in terms of our credits, which represent our own currency. You are responsible for paying all fees and applicable taxes associated with our sites and services in a timely manner with a valid payment method. If your payment method fails or a balance on your account is over due, we may collect fees owed using other collection mechanisms, including but not limited to charging other payment methods on file with us, retaining collection agencies and legal counsel.

Credits

In order to carry out activities relating to selling goods or services you need a sufficient balance of our credits allocated to your account with which to pay your fees as they accrue. Our credits, which you can purchase online from us, have the following conditions attached:

  • When you purchase or receive credits, you receive a limited right to use such credits in connection with certain features on our sites, services and tools. You do not, at any point, own the credits
  • Purchases of credits are non-refundable and credits are not redeemable for any sum of money or monetary value from us unless we agree otherwise in writing
  • You will not sell credits to anyone, or transfer them to anyone other than us
  • You will not buy credits from anyone other than us
  • We may change the purchase price for credits at any time as well as the ways that you can use or transfer credits. We also reserve the right to stop issuing credits
  • If unused for whatever reason, including our suspending or deleting your account, your credits will automatically expire:
    • 12 months after their purchase
    • If you do not access your account for a period of six months
    • If you delete your account
Release

If you have a dispute with one or more users, you release us (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures and employees) from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

We reserve the right to cancel unconfirmed accounts or accounts that have been inactive for a long time, or to modify or discontinue our sites, services or tools.

Technical Improvement and Maintenance

We may change technical features of our sites, services or tools in order to keep pace with the latest demands and technological developments or to comply with any regulations. We may also have to repair, improve, and/or upgrade our sites, services or tools and this may require us to restrict, limit, suspend, interfere and/or interrupt these sites, services or tools

Electronic Communications

When you use our sites, services or tools or send e-mails to us, you are communicating with us electronically. We communicate with you by e-mail or by posting notices on the website. For contractual purposes, you consent to receive communications from us electronically and you agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing. This condition does not affect your statutory rights.

Confidential Information

You acknowledge that the Confidential Information (defined below) which you obtain through the entering into of this agreement and the use of the Site constitutes the valuable, confidential, proprietary information of eQuoteCentral and its licensors, and you agree that during the term of this agreement and thereafter you shall not, without our express written consent, use or disclose to any other person any such Confidential Information, except as specifically authorized under this agreement or as required by applicable law.

For the purposes of this agreement, "Confidential Information" means any and all data, information, documents, software or materials relating to the business and management of eQuoteCentral, its members, affiliates, licensors or licensees, that is designated as confidential or ought reasonably to be considered confidential, including but not limited to: their business model and operations, processes, products, designs, pricing, promotions, business plans, business opportunities, finances, research, development, know-how, trade-secrets, training materials, personnel, clients, methodologies, Site content belonging to others and other intellectual property.

Intellectual Property Rights

All content included on our websites, services and tools, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software, is the property of eQuoteCentral, its partners, affiliates or its content suppliers and is protected by international copyright, authors' rights and database right laws. The compilation of all content on this website is the exclusive property of eQuoteCentral and its affiliates and is protected by United Kingdom and international copyright and database right l aws. All software used on this website is the property of eQuoteCentral, our affiliates or our software suppliers and is protected by international copyright and author's rights laws.

You may not systematically extract and/or re-use parts of the contents of the website without our express written consent. In particular, you may not utilise any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools to extract (whether once or many times) for re-utilisation of any substantial parts of this website, without our express written consent. You also may not create and/or publish your own database that features substantial parts of this website without our express written consent.

Liability

Nothing in this Agreement shall limit or exclude our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or the negligence of our agents or employees or for any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law.

You will not hold us responsible for any loss you may incur as a result of our taking any of the actions described in the ‘Abusing our sites, services and tools' section above nor for other users' actions or inactions, including, without limitation, quotations they submit and feedback they leave. You acknowledge that we are not a supplier of goods and services other than our sites, services and tools. Instead, our sites, services and tools are a means to allow anyone to request and use quotations, offer, sell, and buy just about anything, at anytime, from anywhere, in a variety of pricing formats and locations. At no point do we have possession of anything quoted or sold through our sites, services and tools.

We do not review users' listings or content and are not involved in the actual transaction between buyers and sellers. We have no control over and do not guarantee the quality, safety or legality of goods and services quoted, the truth or accuracy of quotations, the truth or accuracy of feedback or other content posted by users on our sites, services and tools, the ability of suppliers to sell items, the ability of buyers to pay for items, or that a buyer or supplier will actually complete a transaction or return an item. Unless specified in writing, no action of any buyer represents a binding transaction. Rather quotation requests and their associated communications represent no more than a buyer’s expression of interest in the goods or services to which their various communications, online or offline, relate.

Please do not assume that the offer, sale, purchase, export or import of any good or service is valid and legal simply because it is on one of our sites.

You accept sole responsibility for the legality of your actions under laws applying to you and the legality of any goods or services you offer on any of our sites.

We cannot and do not confirm, and it is not our responsible for ensuring, the accuracy or truthfulness of users' purported identities or the validity of the information which they provide to us or post on our sites.

We cannot guarantee continuous or secure access to our services, and operation of our sites may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control. While we will use our reasonable endeavours to maintain an uninterrupted service, we cannot guarantee this and we do not give any promises or warranties (whether express or implied) about the availability of our services.

We (including our parent, partners, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees) shall not be liable to you in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for any business losses, such as loss of data, profits, revenue, business, opportunity, goodwill, reputation or business interruption or for any losses which are not reasonably foreseeable by us arising, directly or indirectly, out of your use of or your inability to use of our sites and services. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of warranties or exclusion of damages, so such disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you.

Regardless of the previous paragraphs, if we are found to be liable, our liability to you or to any third party is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to us in the 12 months prior to the action giving rise to the liability, and (b) £100.

Passwords

You acknowledge and agree that the user identification you provided so that you may access and utilize the membership portions of the Site (your "Login Name"), and the password selected by and used by you in conjunction with your Login Name are to be kept secret and confidential. You agree that you shall not disclose such Login Name or password to any other party without the express written permission of eQuoteCentral.

You acknowledge and agree that you will be responsible for each and every access or use of the membership portions of the Site that occurs in conjunction with your Login Name and such passwords, and that eQuoteCentral is authorized to accept your Login Name and password as conclusive evidence that you have accessed or utilized the membership portions of the Site. You acknowledge that such password(s) are unique to you and that, although eQuoteCentral does have the ability to require password(s) to meet certain requirements (such as a minimum or maximum number of characters) and to reset such password(s), eQuoteCentral does not have the ability to access the password(s) themselves.

Links on Our Sites, Services and Tools

We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Linked sites are not under our control and hence we are not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. We provides such links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply our endorsement of the linked site.

Privacy Policy

We take your privacy very seriously. To view our privacy Policy please click here

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold eQuoteCentral and its affiliates harmless from and against any and all liability and costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred by such parties in connection with or arising out of your violation of these terms of service, any applicable law or regulation or the rights of any third parties related to the use of our sites, services and tools.

Refund Policy

If the service we provide is not what you ordered or is not fit for purpose, we shall, subject to any prohibition or requirement of the law, have no liability to you unless you notify us in writing at our contact address of the problem within 10 working days of the delivery of the goods or the provision of the service.

If you notify a problem to us under this condition, our only obligation will be, at your option: to replace the service or to refund to you the amount paid by you for the services in question.

Applicable law

The agreement between eQuoteCentral and the user is governed by UK law.