Terms of Service

The not so small print

UK Web.Solutions Direct Terms of Service

By using our service, you agree to be bound by the following conditions:


Content

All services provided by UK Web.Solutions Direct (UKWSD) may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United Kingdom (or any other country) law or regulation, or in breach of UKWSD’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which is published on UKWSD’s website located here is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to:

  1. Child Pornography: The use of UKWSD's services to store, post, display, transmit, advertise or otherwise make available child pornography is prohibited. UKWSD is required by law and will notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on, or being transmitted through, its services.

  2. Adult Content: Due to the special system and network requirements of adult-oriented sites these are prohibited. This includes sites that may infer sexual content or provide links to adult content elsewhere. This is also applicable to sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the Internet or provide links to such sites. However, under the discretion of the management we may allow some types of artistic nudity, or online stores.

  3. IRC: UKWSD does not allow IRC servers or IRC bots to be operated on our servers under any circumstances.

  4. Viruses and other destructive activities use of UKWSD's services or equipment for creating or sending Internet viruses, worms or Trojan horses, or for pinging, flooding or mail bombing, or engaging in denial of service attacks, is prohibited. It is also prohibited for you to engage in other activity that is intended to disrupt or interfere with, or that results in the disruption of or interference with, the ability of others to effectively use UKWSD's services and equipment (or any connected network, system, service or equipment) or conduct their business over the Internet.

  5. Chat Rooms: UKWSD does not allow you to install your own chat rooms. Chat rooms normally require significant system resources and therefore cannot be permitted so that we can maintain server stability and availability.

  6. Other server and system abuse violations of system or network security are prohibited and may result in criminal and/or civil liability. System or network security violations include, without limitation the following: any attempt to undermine or cause harm to any of UKWSD’s servers or customers, unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network; interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks; forging of any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting. Further, content which is offensive to the world wide web community is prohibited. Examples of unacceptable content or links (without limitation) include: pirated software, hacker programs or archives, Warez sites, copyrighted MP3 downloads, and IRC bots, material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.


Shared Hosting Account Usage

Our shared hosting accounts are intended for a single website and you are not permitted to host multiple websites on one account, this includes pointing domains to folders/sub-domains.


System Resources

If a web site is found to be using excessive system resources resulting in degrading the service of other users, we reserve the right to disable the offending script or disable the account if required.

Cron jobs must not be set to run any more frequent than every fifteen minutes. Customers found to be running crons more frequently will have their cron frequency edited and repeat offenders risk having their account suspended.


Refusal of Service

UKWSD reserves the right at its sole discretion to refuse or cancel service. Violation of any of UKWSD's rules and regulations could result in a warning, suspension, or possible account termination. Accounts terminated due to policy violations will not be refunded. Free domains which have been granted for customers paying annually are released to the customer at the end of their hosting period. Domains terminated due to policy violations will not be released to the customer.


Spam Unsolicited Email

Spamming, i.e. the communication of unsolicited electronic mail containing advertising or marketing or nuisance material from or through UKWSD’s network or using an email address that is maintained on a UKWSD machine and either of which is directed to particular individual(s) is strictly prohibited (‘SPAM Policy’). Further, it is a violation of our Spam Policy to engage in spamming using the service of another ISP or IPP, but reference in the spam a website hosted on a UKWSD server, or if you sell or distribute software on your website that facilitates spamming.

If UKWSD suspects a violation of its Spam Policy, UKWSD may suspend a Customer’s account immediately while it conducts any appropriate investigations.


SpamExperts Spam/Anti-virus Protection

Our SpamExperts service is free of charge to our hosting customers and is an opt-out service. All new accounts automatically have this service enabled. If you would prefer for your account not to be included, please email our Support department. Should a customer who is not using the SpamExperts, be causing high CPU usage on our mailserver we reserve the right to activate the SpamExperts service on the account to reduce the CPU usage placed on the mailserver.


Using Email Forwarding/default address to third party email accounts

If you currently have in place email forwarding or your default address from our mailserver to third party email addresses such as Hotmail, AOL, BT, yahoo, we reserve the right to enable our Mailfoundry spam service on your account without prior notice. The reason behind this is due to the SPAM policies that these companies operate, they incorrectly block our mailservers resulting in problems for our customers emailing legitimate email addresses on their networks.

Here is an example of how this happens:

  1. Our customer sets up a forwarder from an email account hosted on our network to his/her Hotmail email account.

  2. The email account hosted on our network receives SPAM which is then forwarded to the Hotmail email account.

  3. Hotmail think that our network is the source of the SPAM as it came through our mailserver last.

  4. This results in our mailservers being blacklisted across the Hotmail mail network, their blacklisting will stop you emailing a Hotmail email address from your account with us.

Therefore, it is only due to the harsh and poorly designed spam policies these companies operate that we have put this measure in place, we do so to give our customers a reliable email service that is unaffected by blacklisting. By having our Mailfoundry spam filtering in place this cuts down the spam forwarded.

Please note that reporting our Mailfoundry digests as SPAM to these 3rd party email providers will result in your forwarders/default address being removed.


Abuse

Any attempts to undermine, slander, libel, threaten, or cause harm to a UKWSD server, customer, employee, or the company directly is strictly prohibited and is grounds for immediate termination without refund. In addition, we will pursue all attempts to the fullest extent of the law.

Any abuse reports should be directed to [email protected]


Indemnity

You shall, at your expense, agree to indemnify, investigate, defend and otherwise hold UKWSD, its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, and employees, harmless from any and all damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, (including reasonable legal fees) incurred by UKWSD arising from or relating to any third party claim, tribunal or proceedings associated with your use of our service in violation or infringement of these Terms of Service, or if information you have provided is factually inaccurate, misleading or deceptive.


Dedicated Servers

All dedicated servers remain the property of UKWSD; you are paying a rental fee and at no time do you own the server.

The minimum contract term for a dedicated server is six (6) months, once this time has passed you may cancel your service by giving thirty (30) days’ notice. All service invoices falling during the cancellation period will remain due in full.

The cPanel licence that comes with our dedicated servers remains the property of UKWSD is non-transferable to another provider.

All dedicated server customers are responsible for the activities and security of their server, we reserve the right to disconnect a server from the UKWSD network should the server be performing network scans or other possible hacking activities.

Dedicated servers are exempt from any restrictions relating to:

  • Adult Content

  • Background-running Programs

  • Banned Scripts


Payment Policies

All accounts are set up on a prepay basis. Although UKWSD reserves the right to change prices of accounts or services at any time, all pricing is guaranteed for the period of prepayment. Any changes to prices will be clearly communicated to customers prior to their application, with customers being given one month's notice of any changes. Notice will be served via email, to the email address held on the UKWSD client account. Payment is due every 30 or 365 days, from the date the account was established. Customers will automatically be charged again at the end of the prepaid period unless confirmation of the wish to close the account has already been received from the customer (see service cancellations).

No bills or invoices will be sent by regular post. All invoices will be sent directly to customers via email shortly after the online purchase has been made. You may print your invoices for your records at any time from within your Customer Portal account.

All payment is in UK sterling. All prices displayed are shown excluding UK VAT.


Client Account

You are assigned a client account upon becoming a UKWSD customer. It is important that you keep the contact information accurate and up to date as the email address on file is where your invoice renewal notices are sent.


Service Renewal

Because your service is an online service, your contract will automatically renew subject to the same specification (unless notified otherwise by us) and these Terms of Service for successive periods. Each successive period shall be the same term as your initial term (each, a “Renewal Term”) unless cancelled in accordance with the provisions set out below.

All invoices must be paid on or before the due date. UKWSD will attempt to automatically re-bill your chosen payment method when your invoice becomes due with your payment card on file. If payment is declined from your payment card our billing system will continue to attempt to take payment until a cancellation request is submitted by the customer.

We reserve the right to suspend all services once they become overdue.

In the event of a cheque payment being returned to UKWSD for insufficient funds, a service charge of £10.00+VAT will be charged to your account.


Service Cancellations

To cancel your service(s) you must submit a cancellation request via your client account at least thirty (30) days before the service renewal date. Telephone cancellation requests are not accepted as we require the request to be logged from your client account. We will confirm your cancellation has been received and any future billing will cease. We do not issue refunds for any unused time on your service should you choose to cancel your service before your billing date.

To cancel your domain name(s) you must disable the auto renew option for your domain(s) via your Customer Portal account, telephone cancellation requests are not accepted as we require the request to be logged. It is your sole responsibility and duty to check you have cancelled your service and any domain name in accordance with the provisions above. UKWSD accepts no responsibility if you fail to cancel your service and/or domain name, and you will have to pay for a Renewal Term in the event you do not cancel your service.

Changing a domain names DNS to another provider, non-payment of the renewal invoice or transferring a domain away from UKWSD does not constitute a cancellation request. A cancellation request must be submitted as outlined above and we will then confirm the cancellation date back to you.

If you wish to move your domain to another provider you need to email [email protected] to request that we a) change the IPSTAG if it's a .UK domain or b) unlock the domain if it's a .COM/.INFO/.NET/.ORG/.BIZ. Requests to move a domain away can only be actioned if the domain is in an active state, if the domain is past renewal we will not be able to release the domain until any outstanding balance has been paid in full. Once you request cancellation of a domain we cancel it in your billing account so that it cannot be renewed through us. If you change your mind about moving the domain you need to let us know so we can re-enable it in your client account.

There are no termination charges if you cancel your service. However, there are no partial or pro-rata refunds if you wish to terminate your service prior to the expiration of the initial term or any Renewal Term (as the case may be).


Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Overage

If you go over your bandwidth allowance you will have the option of either upgrading to an account with more data-transfer or be billed an overage charge of £1.00+VAT per GB. If you choose to pay the overage, data-transfer overage invoices are generated monthly.


Refunds Policy

Subject to the provisions below, UKWSD offer a 14-day money back guarantee on any new service if you are not completely satisfied with the service. If you are unhappy with your service and intimate to us any agreed grounds for dissatisfaction, you may cancel within the first 14 days and we will refund in full the price of your service, less any domain registration charges.

The 14-day money back guarantee cannot extend to dedicated server subscriptions or domain registration fees or supplemental service fees, for example, SSL certificate purchases, due to the non-refundable nature of these services/products.

Nothing in the above provisions shall be construed as affecting any rights of ‘Consumers’ as defined and set out in the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. If you are a Consumer, then you may cancel your contract with us by giving notice to us by any of the means set out in these Terms of Service at any time up to and including 14 calendar days following the day on which your contract is concluded, i.e. the date on which we give notice to you that we have accepted your order. If you have started using the service during the cancellation period, you must pay for the service used up to the point of cancellation. If you use our service in the course of a business, trade or profession, you will not have such rights.

Any refunds shall be issued within 30 days of receipt of your notice of cancellation less any charges for the service used up to the point of cancellation.


Chargebacks

If you have a question about charges made to your account, please contact us immediately. If the charges were made in error, we will immediately refund the payment for the appropriate amount.

Any customer withdrawing payments via bank or credit card (a "chargeback") may be subject to a fee of £50, should the company deem this chargeback to be unfair. The company also reserves its right to defend such chargebacks and recover the original monies from the card issuer.


Domain Expiry and Redemption Fees

If the domain name has entered a "redemption period" to renew the domain at this stage will cost approximately £200.00 plus VAT - this is a cost charged by the registry and passed on to you by us, this in addition to our standard domain renewal charge. After another 30 to 90 days from expiry have passed, the domain is released to the public so anyone can re-register your domain and you will lose it.


Domain name registration

Subject only to the refunds policy above, registration and renewals of domain names through UKWSD are non-refundable due to the nature of the domain registry systems. By using our domain name service you agree to be bound by the specific terms and conditions which you can find below:

.uk Domains – Standard Nominet Terms of Service

UKWSD reserves the right to refuse to transfer domain names on your account if any invoices or fees remain outstanding.

After registration of your domain name it is your responsibility to ensure your domain name does not lapse, for whatever reason, and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for any loss you may suffer should you fail to renew your domain name.


Affiliate Program

Our affiliate program is available to our customers only. Credit is paid out to your billing account once the payout limit of £15 is reached, your credit can then be used for renewing services or purchasing new products. Commission is not available as cash, it's only applied as account credit.

Commission is earned from visitors referred through your site who then go on to sign up for our hosting services. Our affiliate scheme excludes domain names, if someone orders a hosting account with a domain name from your affiliate link then the commission will only be earned on the hosting account.

The payout point is £15. At the end of each month any affiliate with earnings at £15 or above will have this value credited to their billing account. If you don't earn £15 in a given month we will simply carrying your commission over until you hit the payout point.

You earn commission from the initial order, you do not earn further commission from renewals or recurring payments. You cannot refer yourself to earn commission on your own services. We reserve the right to withdraw the affiliate scheme at any time without prior notice.


Data Protection

These Terms of Services are subject to the Data Protection Addendum (see link here). To the extent the Addendum is not consistent with these Terms of Service the terms of the Addendum shall prevail.


Complaints Escalation Procedure

We strive to provide the very best service and aim to resolve any service problems in a prompt and fair manner and our support helpdesk is the primary method of resolving issues.

However, if you feel we have fallen short of your expectations and want to complain about the service received then we want to know. We can then investigate and take appropriate action to resolve the problem that has arisen.

Please send your written complaint, with as much information as possible, to the following location:

UKWSD
Customer Services Manager
Turing House, Archway 5, Manchester M15 5RL

Receipt of your complaint will be acknowledged as soon as reasonably practicable and will be investigated by our Customer Services Manager who will strive to respond within 14 days.

Alternatively, you can email us at [email protected] making sure that you include your original Ticket ID which can be found on the auto responder from our helpdesk and in the footer of each staff reply.

You should expect to receive a response to your query within 5 days of us receiving your correspondence.

On receipt of your complaint our Customer Services Manager will thoroughly investigate any issues raised and propose a course of action for resolution.

If you are a Consumer or Small Business Customer ( i.e. any customer who carries on a business with 10 or less employees) and we have failed to deal with your complaint to your satisfaction within eight weeks, or we have reached a deadlock and there is nothing more we can do to resolve the complaint, you may refer the complaint to the Ombudsman Services.

We are a member of the approved dispute resolution scheme with the Ombudsman Services which provides a free independent service. If we have failed to resolve the dispute within eight weeks you may request a deadlock letter from UKWSD which must be sent to the Ombudsman within 12 months of receiving the deadlock letter. The Ombudsman Services can be found at https://www.ombudsman-services.org/

If you are a consumer and you have purchased the services online you can pass the complaint to an alternative online dispute resolution scheme which can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/odr


Disclaimer

The Service provided by UKWSD is provided on an as-is-available basis therefore (except as expressly provided for elsewhere in this section and to the extent permitted by applicable law) all warranties, conditions, undertakings or terms and conditions as to satisfactory quality performance, durability, fitness for a particular purpose or otherwise are hereby excluded. For the avoidance of doubt, UKWSD shall not be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, resulting from the use or the inability to use the service or for the cost of procurement of substituted services, and UKWSD does not issue any credits or refunds for outages caused by your breach of these Terms of Service.

UKWSD does not guarantee the “uptime” of the service and does not offer any service credits.

UKWSD may also find it necessary to carry out maintenance on both hardware and software. Where possible, UKWSD shall use reasonable endeavours to provide prior notification of any proposed maintenance. Under some circumstances, emergency maintenance may be necessary, and it may not always be possible to provide you with prior notification. UKWSD shall have no liability as a result of the customer being unable to use the service during any period of maintenance.

The following provisions of this section set out the total liability of UKWSD in respect of any breach of its obligations arising under or in connection with these Terms of Service and/or the provision of our service to you whether in contract, tort (including negligence) and breach of statutory duty or otherwise howsoever arising. Subject to following paragraph and to the fullest extent permissible by law in no circumstances will we be liable in contract tort or otherwise for any costs, claims, damages, losses or liabilities or expenses in respect of: any direct loss of profit; any direct loss of anticipated savings; any indirect loss or damage howsoever caused including without limitation; any loss of profit; loss of use of money; loss of anticipated savings; loss of business; loss of opportunity; loss of reputation; loss of data; any wasted expenditure; and/or any other consequential loss including pure economic loss. For the avoidance of doubt, the sub-sections of this section are intended to be severable.

Nothing in these Terms of Service shall limit or exclude UKWSD’s liability for fraud or for death or personal injury resulting from negligence, or to the extent not permitted by law.

Subject to the preceding paragraph, in no event will UKWSD’s total liability to you exceed the amount paid by you for the service.

If a customer provides hosting services (resellers) to others and decides to cancel their reseller hosting account with UKWSD then UKWSD will not be responsible for maintaining hosting for the reseller’s customers.

If you wish to purchase an SSL Certificate and you do not want us to install this automatically you must advise us in advance. We cannot accept any responsibility if an SSL Certificate is installed automatically and there is an issue with the mixed content on your website.

UKWSD perform backups of hosting accounts on a regular basis however they come with no guarantee. UKWSD cannot accept any responsibility for any loss of data or consequences arising from this. UKWSD advises customers to back up their site data regularly for their own protection.

UKWSD also expects that its customers who provide hosting services (resellers) to others will ensure its customers fully comply with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of online communications and any other policy of UKWSD. A customer's failure to comply with those laws will violate this policy.


Modification

UKWSD reserves the right to change the services and/or add, delete modify any provision of its Terms of Service at any time. Depending on whether the proposed change to the services and/or Terms of Service is urgent we shall use reasonable endeavours to provide you with not less than 1 month’s notice. If you are a Consumer or a Small Business Customer and any amendment to the services and/or Terms of Service is likely to be detrimental to the service, you shall have a right to terminate the affected service without any penalty.


Governing Law

These Terms of Service are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English Law and the parties hereto submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.


General

These Terms of Service may not be superseded or amended in any way without the prior written consent of UKWSD.

No failure or omission by UKWSD to carry out or observe any of the stipulations or conditions of these Terms of Service shall give rise to a claim against UKWSD if such failure or omission arises from any cause reasonably beyond the control of UKWSD. In the event that UKWSD is unable to fulfil its obligations in the above circumstances it shall give notice to you of that fact and its obligations shall be suspended until after the removal of that cause. If it is not possible to resume the service within one month following its suspension for a cause beyond the reasonable control of UKWSD, we shall have a right to terminate any affected service without any liability to pay compensation. However, we shall refund any charges you paid in advance relating to any period of suspension of the service.

Any notice, invoice, or other correspondence to be given under these Terms of Service shall be in writing (to include electronic format) and the same shall be deemed duly served:

  • if sent by first class post, two business days after the date of posting if posted in the country of destination and otherwise after seven days; and

  • if sent by electronic mail, after 24 hours from the day and time of sending.