The Story Hive Terms of Service

  1. YOUR STATUS

By accessing our FREE content and/or by placing a subscription (Premium Subscription Package available in 2024) or making a shop product order through our site, you warrant that:

1.1 you are legally and financially capable of entering into binding contracts; and

1.2 you are at least 16 years old; or have express parental consent to access our site: you will be required to show a written letter of permission for this

1.3 you are resident in one of the Serviced Countries; and

1.4 you are accessing our site from that country.

1.5 you will have read, understood and agreed to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

 

  1. COMING IN 2024 – The exclusive Premium Content package: HOW THE PREMIUM CONTRACT SUBSCRIPTION CONTRACT IS FORMED BETWEEN YOU AND US

2.1 After completing your signup to The Story Hive, we will take your subscription request as proof that you have completely read, understood and accepted all our terms and conditions as set out in all the T&C (terms and Conditions) and Privacy Policy documents. Please note that this does not mean that your subscription request to us has been immediately accepted. Your subscription request constitutes an offer to us to that upon our acceptance of it, it then allows you to access the content and shop goods available on The Story Hive by subscribing to our Service Platform.

All Premium subscription subscription orders are then subject to acceptance by us, by agreeing to our T&C and Privacy Policy we will take this to understand we have your permission to contact you regularly by email – regarding this your sign up to our subscription service and follow up with monthly Newsletters and offers, and we will confirm such acceptance of your subscription to you by then sending you an e-mail that confirms that your subscription has been accepted and allows you access to The Story Hive content found on our platform (Welcome Email). The full contract between us (Contract) will only be formed when we have taken your payment and have sent you the Welcome Email. We reserve the right to cancel your subscription at any time if we believe you have/are breaking any of the terms and conditions as set out in our T&C’s and which you have by signing up acknowledged you will abide by.

2.2 The subscription plans to our Premium Services consist of either an initial one off charge covering a one year subscription (365 days from the date of your welcome email granting access) and/or then followed by either a yearly renewal subscription and attendant recurring period charge/s or a monthly regular subscription charge option as agreed to by you and which will then re-occur on a monthly basis unless actually cancelled by you. By entering into these Premium Subscription Agreements, you acknowledge that either of your subscriptions (yearly/monthly) have an initial and recurring payment feature and will roll over unless cancelled and that you accept responsibility for all or any recurring charges prior to your cancellation. The Story Hive may submit periodic charges (e.g., monthly, yearly) without further authorisation from you, until you provide prior notice that you have terminated this authorisation or wish to change your payment method. Such notice will not affect charges submitted before The Story Hive reasonably could act. To terminate your authorisation or change your payment method, you must contact us directly at The Story Hive within 14 days.

2.3 By subscribing to our Premium Services you are agreeing to pay recurring periodic subscriptions for an indefinite time until cancelled by you, on these terms and conditions and the subscription terms set out in the subscription sign up form you have completed (that are also completely in line with the terms and conditions set out here that you have agreed to by taking out a subscription) You can of course cancel your subscription at any time (see below rules regarding account cancellations) You will not be charged for any cancellation in terms of fees. You can of course re-subscribe at any time following your cancellation, but we reserve the right not to permit re-subscription where we/you have previously elected to terminate a subscription. As a small company we cannot reasonably be expected to constantly incur regular costs and administration time. Please bear this in mind before cancelling your subscription.

2.4 Account Cancellations. If you wish to cancel your monthly or yearly Premium subscription with us, for whatever reason, you can cancel at anytime by emailing us, to avoid us taking/receiving the following months’/years payment giving you access to The Story Hive content. Customers cancelling after their monthly payment has been taken will be charged another months/year fee and of course will still receive access to the following months/years stories and products that their fee covers. This is simply part of our reminder service but payments will not be taken without your express renewed agreement. If this does occur please be assured this would be an error on our part which we would immediately correct upon you contacting us. Any monies taken in error would of course be refunded in double quick time. Plus you will continue to receive the monthly Newsletter unless you expressly contact us to opt out of it by clicking on the opt out button or emailing us.

2.5 We reserve the right at our absolute discretion not to renew your subscription at any time without giving any reasons for our decision.

3.1 Access to the Story Hive Facebook group/Social Media platforms are not limited to subscribers only.

3.2 The Story Hive reserve the right to monitor and remove any persons acting outside of the set discussion/comment house rules within the Story Hive Facebook group or Social Media groups. These rules are set out on the Facebook Page. These decisions will be made at our absolute discretion and will not be entered into further discussion.

3.3 The Story Hive will invite all active subscribers to join the Facebook group as soon as the their subscription has been started, via an email link in our Newsletter.

 

  1. CONSUMER RIGHTS

3.1 If you are contracting/signing up as a subscriber, you may cancel any Subscription (Contract) with us at any time within fourteen days, beginning on the day after you received the access information to allow you to access the Story Hive content. However we reserve the right not to refund any or part of any subscription monies as our minimum sign up period is one months or one years access dependant on which premium subscription option you chose to access.

3.2 CANCELLATIONS AND RETURNS: To cancel a subscription (Contract), you must either go to our website and click on the cancel subscription option or email us and request us to cancel your Subscription with The Story Hive. We cannot be held responsible for taking further payments after you wish to cancel your subscription if you have not physically gone on online to cancel or reasonably informed us of your wish to cancel your subscription by email. To return faulty Story Hive shop products you must be aware this will entail the sender/purchaser being charged for its postage and return which we reserve the right not to refund. Items from the shop but not liked/ wanted can be returned but again at the senders own cost, and a full product refund will/can be made at our discretion as long as the returned item has not been incorrectly opened, damaged or ruined in any way that we deem inappropriate making it impossible to be offered for re-sale. In such cases all postal costs will be born by the sender returning the unwanted item. We are a very small business and simply cannot bear the costs of people’s opinions or likes or dislikes.

 

  1. AVAILABILITY AND DELIVERY

4.1 Your Story Hive Shop orders will be fulfilled by the notified dispatch date set out in the Order Email or notification on the shop at point of sale or, unless there are exceptional circumstances such as postal or delivery strikes. The Story Hive shop will aim to notify you in reasonable time if there will be a delay in dispatch or delivery. Delivery is usually between 10-12 working days of the dispatch date in the UK, and from 21 working days upwards for all international shipments. All deliveries and charge parameters are subject to the current and ongoing postage and packaging rules set out by The Post Office limited (The British official postal service) The Story Hive cannot accept responsibility for any delays in delivery that are out of or beyond our control.

4.2 Deliveries are made to the address provided by you during your shop purchase signup, unless immediate email notification to change this delivery address is provided by you. The Story Hive cannot accept responsibility for deliveries that do not reach the customer due to an incorrect delivery address being provided to us.

4.3 The Story Hive audio story/content service requires an Internet connection to use as our audio is streamed to whichever device you are using – clients must further be aware that if they are using The Story Hive whilst travelling by utilising their mobile phone or laptop, the service will use Mobile Data to stream our audio and it important they are prepared for a higher mobile data usage if they use mobile data to access The Story Hive content. We would highly recommend home internet access or careful tracking of your mobile data use as this can be very expensive. The Story Hive cannot be held responsible for any higher costs and how you choose to access our streaming services. Please check with your mobile provider to see how these charges will be applied and make an informed decision.

 

  1. RISK AND TITLE

5.1 The Products from the Story Hive shop will be dispatched at your risk from the time of delivery.

5.2 Ownership/Access and delivery of the Story Hive Shop and audio content Products will only pass/be available to you when we have clearly received full payment of all sums due in respect of the Products or access, including all requested delivery charges.

5.3 We have taken all reasonable steps to avoid offense, upset, harm or distress through our clearly marked story categorisations, descriptions of stories and shop products and all subscribers and shop users who wish to access/listen to our audio content and purchase any our shop goods do so completely at their own risk.

5.4 The Story Hive audio or shop content may feature swearing or bad language or sexual, racial or political references and descriptions which some listeners may find offensive. We would respectfully remind all Story Hive subscribers that they listen to our content at their own risk and we will not accept any responsibility for perceived hurt or damage caused by hearing our content or purchasing items from our shop. All our stories are imaginary, none are true and do not reflect any held views. These are literary endeavours and shop products purely designed to entertain and should be purchased, listened to or read as such.

 

  1. PRICE AND PAYMENT

6.1 The price of the Products and our delivery charges will be clearly set out as quoted on our site from time to time, except in cases of obvious error. We reserve the right to change our prices at any time. No extra charges will be taken during any announced forthcoming price rise without all subscribers being informed of such forthcoming price rises and consenting to paying them.

6.2 Product prices will/may include VAT.

6.3 Product prices and delivery charges are liable to change at any time.

6.4 Payment for all Services are processed via Stripe. We will later also accept all major debit and credit cards via Paypal.

 

  1. OUR REFUNDS POLICY

7.1 If you return a Story Hive Product to us: ie A shop item

7.1.1 The product must be physically faulty or broken. We will need to receive the physical item plus photographic evidence of its arrival condition. Once we have received proof of a faulty or broken products you can elect to have a refund or we will send a replacement shop product out to you. We will process any refund due to you as soon as possible and, in any case, within 30 days of the day you gave notice of the faulty or broken item. In this case, we will refund the price of the Product in full, and any reasonable applicable delivery charges. Please do not use expensive or private/personal courier delivery companies as we reserve the right to refuse all their charges for delivery. However, you may be responsible for the cost of returning the item to us (see clause 3.2). We will provide a list of acceptable postal and/or delivery companies we deem appropriate.

7.1.2 For any other reason (for instance, because you have notified us in accordance with clause 21 that you do not agree to a change in these terms and conditions or in any of our policies, or because you consider that the Product is defective), we will examine the returned Product and will notify you of your refund via e-mail within a reasonable period of time. We will usually process the refund due to you as soon as possible and, in any case, within 30 days of the day we confirmed to you via e-mail that you were entitled to a refund. We will refund the price of a defective Product in full, including any applicable delivery charges and any reasonable costs you incur in returning the item to us.

7.2 We will usually refund any money received from you using the same method originally used by you to pay for your purchase. Please note many or our items are Hand Made and may not be exact replicas of the products as pictured on our website. We reserve the right to deny a refund if the product does not meet your exact artistic criteria where the difference is subjective rather than substantive. Please read the Consumer rights section 3.2.

 

  1. WARRANTY

We warrant to you that any Product purchased from us through our site will, on delivery, conform with its description, be of satisfactory quality, and be reasonably fit for all the purposes for which products of that kind are commonly supplied.

 

  1. OUR LIABILITY

9.1 Subject to clause 9.2, if we fail to comply with these terms and conditions we shall only be liable to you for the purchase price of the Products.

9.2 Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits our liability for:

9.2.1 Death or personal injury caused by our perceived negligence;

9.2.2 Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;

9.2.3 Any breach of the obligations implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979;

9.2.4 Defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987; or

9.2.5 Any other matter for which it would be illegal for us to exclude or attempt to exclude our liability.

 

  1. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS

Applicable laws require that some of the information or communications we send to you should be in writing. However when using our site, you accept that communication with us will be mainly electronic via email in line with our green ideals. We will contact you by e-mail or provide you with information by posting notices to you via our website contact form or in our newsletter. For contractual purposes, you agree to this electronic means of communication and you acknowledge that all contracts, notices, information and other communications that we provide to you electronically comply with any legal requirement that such communications would normally be in writing. This condition does not affect your statutory rights.

 

  1. NOTICES

All notices given by you to us must be given to The Story Hive at info@thestoryhive.co.uk. We may give notice to you at either the e-mail or postal address you provide to us when signing up to a Subscription, or in any of the ways specified in clause 10 above. Notice to you will be deemed received and properly served immediately when posted on our website, 24 hours after an e-mail is sent, or seven days after the date of posting of any letter. In proving the service of any notice, it will be sufficient to prove, in the case of a letter, that such letter was properly addressed, stamped and placed in the post and, in the case of an e-mail, that such e-mail was sent to the specified e-mail address of the addressee.

 

  1. TRANSFER OF RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS

12.1 The contract between you and us is binding on you and us and on our respective successors and assignees.

12.2 You may not transfer, assign, charge or otherwise dispose of a Subscription Contract, or any of your rights or obligations arising under it, without our prior written consent.

12.3 We may transfer, assign, charge, sub-contract or otherwise dispose of a Contract, or any of our rights or obligations arising under it, at any time during the term of the Contract.

 

  1. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

13.1 We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, whether registered or unregistered, and in the material published on it. These works are protected by copyright laws and all such rights are reserved.

13.2 You may not print off copies, and may not download and disseminate extracts, of any images/videos/pages/audio content from our site or shop for anything other than your own personal reference and private use. You must not use any part of our copyright materials for commercial purposes without first obtaining a licence to do so from us and our licensors.

13.3 If you post comments on our Products or Services to any website, blog or social media network (Commentary) you must ensure that such Commentary represents your fairly-held opinions. By subscribing to the Story Hive Services you irrevocably authorise us to quote from your Commentary on our site and in any advertising or social media outlets which we may create or contribute to.

 

  1. EVENTS OUTSIDE OUR CONTROL

14.1 We will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations under a Contract that is caused by events outside our reasonable control (Force Majeure Event).

14.2 A Force Majeure Event includes any act, event, non-happening, omission or accident beyond our reasonable control and includes in particular (without limitation) the following:

14.2.1 Strikes, lock-outs or other industrial action; interruption of online services by our Internet service provider, interruption of telephone signal/connection services by yours or our telephone service provider,

14.2.2 Civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack, war (whether declared or not) or threat or preparation for war;

14.2.3 Fire, explosion, storm, flood, earthquake, subsidence, epidemic or other natural disaster;

14.2.4 Impossibility of the use of our service on railways, shipping, aircraft, motor transport or other means of public or private transport;

14.2.5 Impossibility of the use of public or private telecommunications networks; and your personal devices inability to connect with an online network, its malfunction due to age or incompatibility and its inability to deliver a high quality sound from our audio.

14.2.6 The acts, decrees, legislation, regulations or restrictions of any government.

14.3 Our performance under any Contract is deemed to be suspended for the period that the Force Majeure Event continues, and we will have an extension of time for performance for the duration of that period. We will use our reasonable endeavours to bring the Force Majeure Event to a close or to find a solution by which our obligations under the Contract may be performed despite the Force Majeure Event.

 

  1. WAIVER

15.1 If we fail, at any time during the term of a Contract, to insist upon strict performance of any of your obligations under the Contract or any of these terms and conditions, or if we fail to exercise any of the rights or remedies to which we are entitled under the Contract, this will not constitute a waiver of such rights or remedies and will not relieve you from compliance with such obligations.

15.2 A waiver by us of any default will not constitute a waiver of any subsequent default.

15.3 No waiver by us of any of these terms and conditions will be effective unless it is expressly stated to be a waiver and is communicated to you in writing in accordance with clause 10 above.

15.3 Some of the content and shop product on The Story Hive and in its shop may be considered by some to potentially be of an adult or offensive nature. This may be found in certain use of bad language, graphic imagery and potentially upsetting story lines or wordings both contained within certain audio stories and audio content as well as graphically written/printed on a highly limited number of Story Hive shop products. We cannot be held responsible for causing offence or distress or harm given the literary and open nature of our audio and story content as it is so highly subjective. A personal opinion does not count. We have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that no demonstrably offensive material can be found on our site.

15.4 The Story Hive does not set out to intentionally upset or offend or damage in any way any of its subscribers and this waiver constitutes a warning to those of a highly sensitive nature that we cannot accept any liability for emotional distress/upset and would urge you to avoid listening or purchasing products you then may later consider offensive or harmful. We have taken all reasonable steps through clear categorisations, descriptions and all subscribers shop users access and will once again state that those who access our content and goods do so at their own risk.

 

  1. SEVERABILITY

If any of these terms and Conditions or any provisions of a Contract are determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, such term, condition or provision will to that extent be severed from the remaining terms, conditions and provisions which will continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

 

  1. ENTIRE AGREEMENT

17.1 These terms and conditions and any document expressly referred to in them constitute the whole agreement between us and supersede all previous discussions, correspondence, negotiations, previous arrangement, understanding or agreement between us relating to the subject matter of any Contract.

17.2 We each acknowledge that, in entering into a Contract, neither of us relies on any representation or warranty (whether made innocently or negligently) that is not set out in these terms and conditions or the documents referred to in them.

17.3 Each of us agrees that our only liability in respect of those representations and warranties that are set out in this agreement (whether made innocently or negligently) will be for breach of contract.

17.4 Nothing in this clause limits or excludes any liability for fraud.

 

  1. OUR RIGHT TO VARY THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

18.1 We have the right to revise and amend these terms and conditions from time to time to reflect changes in market conditions affecting our business, changes in technology, changes in payment methods, changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements and changes in our system’s capabilities.

18.1 You will be subject to the policies and terms and conditions in force at the time that you order Services/Products from us, unless any change to those policies or these terms and conditions is required to be made by law or governmental authority (in which case it will apply to shop orders previously placed by you), or if we notify you of the change to those policies or these terms and conditions before we send you the Dispatch Confirmation (in which case we have the right to assume that you have accepted the change to the terms and conditions, unless you notify us to the contrary within fourteen working days of receipt by you of the Products).

 

  1. LAW AND JURISDICTION

Contracts for the purchase of Products through our site and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) will be governed by English law. Any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with such Contracts or their formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.