Terms of Service

For the purposes of this contract, the Terms of Service (TOS) includes the Terms and Conditions, the Privacy Policy, and the Cookie Policy. When using the services offered by this Website, you are subject to any guidelines or rules applicable to those services. All such guidelines and rules are incorporated by reference into this TOS. This agreement shall be governed by the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

You may not use the Website if you are under 18 years of age. If you believe that someone under the age of 18 has used our services, please contact us so that we can remove their data.

By using this Website you hereby accept and agree to be bound by all the Terms of Service, and confirm that you are over 18 years of age. If you do not agree to the TOS, you must stop using this website immediately and are not permitted to use our services. The most current version of these Terms will always be posted on this page, and any revisions to the TOS will apply from the date of publication. These terms were last updated on 31st May 2021.

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Who we are

For the purposes of this agreement, SOS Writing Ltd (hereafter “we” or “us”) is the owner and operator of the website https://soswriting.co.uk and its sub-domains (hereafter “the Website”).

We are registered in England and Wales through Companies House (company number 12887152). Our registered address is 107 Canterbury Road, Herne Bay, CT6 5SA. Note that we offer no customer-facing facilities, so visits are accepted only by prior appointment. 

We can be contacted via: contact@soswriting.co.uk

1 Terms and Conditions

1.1 Accuracy of information

  1. The Website, free Guides, and other services offered on this Website, are offered “as is”. While we will always try to correct factual errors, omissions or inaccuracies in our Guides, and to ensure that the Website is free of faults, we are not obligated to do so. We make no warranties of the accuracy of the information, compatibility with the User’s purposes, usefulness or quality. 
  2. We give no warranty or guarantees of success from using the information contained in the Website or Guides, you use the Website at your own risk. Users are responsible for using their own discretion in applying any advice or information they find on the Website. In case of any doubt, Users should consult with professionals in their own department, who can give advice appropriate to their specific situation, before taking any actions.
  3. While we make every effort to ensure the security of the Website and keep it free of viruses and malware, we make no guarantees in this regard. Users are ultimately responsible for the security of their own electronic devices and personal data.
  4. We try to perform Website maintenance on a schedule that is least disruptive to the majority of our Users, but regular maintenance is necessary and access to the Website and its contents may be occasionally disrupted. We are not liable for any inconvenience caused if the Website is unavailable at any time.
  5. SOS Writing Ltd reserves the right to add/update/remove information on the Website, or add/modify/remove the services on offer at any time. Unless otherwise stated, the Terms of Service still apply.

1.2 Links to Other websites

  1. This Website may contain links to other websites. These links are provided to help Users identify other online resources that may be of help or interest to them. These other websites are not under the control of SOS Writing Ltd and we do not monitor or endorse either their contents or their creators. We accept no responsibility for their contents, or for loss or damage arising out of their use. 
  2. We do not receive any money or other benefits from linked websites in exchange for providing these links, unless otherwise expressly stated.  
  3. These Terms of Service do not cover your interaction with any linked sites, and you should refer to the TOS and privacy policies of these sites before deciding if you want to use them.
  4. If you are a business or other organisation and want to link to this Website, you may do so on the basis that you do not breach section 1.4 of this Policy, and that you do not claim or otherwise imply that we endorse your services, products, or opinions unless we have expressly agreed in writing that you may do so.
  5. If you choose to link to our Website in a way that breaches or contravenes any part of this TOS (especially 1.3.4 and 1.4.5), you will fully indemnify us for all losses and damages suffered due to your actions. 

1.3 Intellectual Property: Acceptable Use

  1. All content shown on the Website (hereafter “the Content”), whether registered or unregistered, is the intellectual property of SOS Writing Ltd unless otherwise specified. This includes (but is not limited to) all text, articles, guides, images, graphics, video, audio, software, and any other content shown on the Website, and any patents, trademarks, domain names, URLs, business names, product names, processes, logos, and confidential information. All Content is Copyright © SOS Writing Ltd. All rights reserved.
  2. Users may, for their own personal and non-commercial use, view the Content on their own electronic device(s).
  3. Users may also print a copy of the Content for their own personal use.
  4. Users may freely share the links to Guides or Articles from the Website on social media platforms.
  5. Users must not copy, modify, reproduce, distribute, translate, create any derivative works, publish, edit, or use for any commercial purpose, any of the Content on the Website without the prior written permission of SOS Writing Ltd.
  6. Any Content not originated by SOS Writing Ltd or our affiliates is used under license and the owner/copyright holder credited. If you believe that SOS Writing Ltd has infringed upon your intellectual property rights, please email admin@soswriting.co.uk or use our contact form to notify us, in writing, of the specifics so that we can rectify the situation.

1.5 Limits of Liability

  1. We make no representation or warranty about the suitability, reliability, availability or accuracy of the information, products, services and graphics or other Content shown on the Website, for any purpose. Users who access the Website and use any product or service do so at their own risk. We accept no liability for any losses or damages in connection with the Website. This excludes claims relating to death or personal injury caused by negligence and does not limit/exclude liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
  2. Nothing in the TOS limits our (or the User’s) liability for; death/personal injury resulting from our (or the User’s) negligence; fraud/fraudulent misrepresentation; or in any way not permitted under applicable law. 
  3. We are not responsible for losses arising out of events beyond our reasonable control, such as power outages, disruption of email or other online services, or clients providing incorrect information.
  4. As far as is permitted by the law, we accept no liability for: business losses of any kind; loss/corruption of data/databases/software; and/or special, indirect or consequential loss/damages.
  5. We cannot be held liable for consequential damages, including (but not limited to) those caused by; the User experiencing delays in academic progression; the User failing their academic program; or the User’s document being failed by an academic institution. 
  6. For Users who purchase one of our paid services, our liability is strictly limited to the purchase price of the service.
  7. We cannot be held liable for failing to discover plagiarism.

1.6 Prohibited Use

  1. You may not use the Website for any illegal purpose, or in any way that could damage or disable the Website, or prevent any other person from using it.
  2. You may not make copies (electronic or otherwise) of, download, distribute or transmit the Content on the website without the permission of SOS Writing Ltd. The Content is protected by copyright and is for personal educational use only. Using the website does not entitle you to derive any commercial benefit from the Website or its contents.
  3. The authors of the Content on this Website must always be acknowledged. You may not use our materials in a derogatory manner. Acknowledging the authors of the Content does not grant the right to use the Content for your own material or commercial benefit. 

1.7 Acceptable use of communications

The Website may contain services such community groups, chat areas, and/or other messaging or communication facilities that enable Users to communicate with each other or with the public. Use of our services and social media pages are subject to them being used fairly. Users may not:

  1. harass, abuse, threaten, stalk or defame others, or otherwise breach their legal rights;
  2. publish, post or otherwise disseminate any obscene, indecent or unlawful content, or any private information about any other individual;
  3. post files that contain viruses or other malware of any kind;
  4. advertise any goods, services or contents, and additionally may not conduct surveys without the prior permission of the administrator of SOS Writing Ltd. Marketing materials should be directed to the administrator of SOS Writing Ltd, and we may share it if we believe it is appropriate and of interest for our Users;
  5. breach the intellectual property rights of any other person or organisation;
  6. breach any terms of service and/or code of conduct applicable to the particular online platform being used.

SOS Writing Ltd reserves the right to review and/or remove any materials at our own discretion and without notice. We reserve the right to deny access to our services or social media pages/communities to any User acting in a threatening, harassing, rude, offensive manner to any other user (including associates and employees of SOS Writing Ltd). Flagrant, repeated or obvious breaches of these terms, or any other illegal or poor behaviour will result in a user’s access to these services being removed at the sole discretion of SOS Writing Ltd. Users may enjoy these services for as long as they do not abuse them, or the patience of the administrators of such services.

SOS Writing Ltd does not control or endorse any content or messages posted on any other platform or communication service and accept no liability for the actions of any third party or other User of these services. Users are responsible for the security of their own personally identifying information and we caution them not to give away such information on any platform. Managers and administrators of community groups on any social media platform (or other third party service) are not authorised spokespeople for SOS Writing Ltd and their views do not necessarily reflect our views.

When posting, uploading, or submitting any message to any of our communication channels, you agree that we may if we so choose (but without obligation) publish any messages we receive on our Website or social media platforms, and to publish your name (for example, in testimonials) in connection with your message. Abusive or threatening messages, or any other illegal postings, may be disclosed to appropriate law enforcement agencies as may be required by law or government request. 

1.9 General

WAIVER: If we fail to enforce/exercise any provision of the Terms, this shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. All rights are reserved, even if not expressly granted in this Agreement. If a court or competent authority finds an unenforceable, illegal or invalid provision, the offending provision shall be considered deleted. This shall not diminish the remaining provisions of the Terms which will remain in full effect, and an enforceable provision that closely reflects our intent will be substituted. Unless agreed otherwise, no delay, act or omission by a party in exercising their rights will be deemed a waiver of those rights.

You may not transfer any of your rights under these Terms to any third party, and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to these Terms of Service. We may transfer our rights where we reasonably believe your rights will be unaffected.

This agreement shall be governed by and interpreted according to the law of England and Wales, irrespective of the place of residence or jurisdiction of the User, and all disputes arising shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

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2 Privacy Policy

Introduction

SOS Writing Ltd (“we”, and “us”) cares about privacy and is committed to protecting it. This Privacy Policy sets out what data we may collect from you, why we need it, and how we may process it. It is important that the information we hold about you is up-to-date and accurate. If you need to update the personal information we hold about you at any time, please email: contact@soswriting.co.uk

According to the regulations set out by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (the UK implementation legislation), the company responsible for your personal data is SOS Writing Ltd. This Privacy Policy is part of the Terms of Service of SOS Writing Ltd and applies to information you send to us through your use of our Website, https://soswriting.co.uk, and your interactions with our social media community/business pages. We do not obtain your data through any other means.

Personal data refers to any information that can be used to identify you (e.g. your name, email address, etc), and does not include anonymised data. The personal data we may process are collected where we have a lawful basis to do under the following categories. If we wish to use any collected data for any other purpose than those stated, we will first obtain your express written permission. We do not use your personal data for marketing purposes, nor do we share it with any third party organisations except for the purpose of collecting payment. We do not collect or store any Special Category data, information about criminal offences, or health information.

2.1 Communication Data

Personal data collected: Any data you choose to send to us, including (but not limited to) your name, email address, other contact options such as telephone number. 

Lawful basis for processing: Consent.

By sending us any of your personal data for the purposes of communicating with us, you consent to our using this information for the purposes of responding to your communication. This information is collected through the contact form on our Website, email correspondence, social media messaging, social media posts, or any other method that you use to communicate with us. You agree that we may, if necessary, store records of any communications you send to us for customer service, regulatory and legal purposes for as long as is necessary, or a period of one year (whichever is the later). We are not responsible for the security of any data you share via third party sites, such as social media platforms, and we recommend that you consult their own Privacy Policies before sharing any data using those platforms.

2.2 Contact Form

Apart from any personal information we collect for the purpose of responding to your communication request (as set out in 2.1), we may also collect non-identifiable data from you via our Contact Form to provide context to us for the purpose of tailoring our response to your needs. You are not required to supply these data, although they do help us to provide you with a better service. They are separated from your identifiable data and anonymised for use in statistical analysis about the Users of our Website. We may store this anonymous data indefinitely since it cannot be used to identify you.

2.3 Customer Data

Personal data collected: Contact details (title, name, email address, phone number, billing and delivery address) and billing information (card details).

Lawful basis for processing: Contract and legal obligation.

The purchase of any of our services represents a contract between you and us (“the Transaction”). By seeking supply of our services, you confirm that you are legally able to enter into such a contract. You agree that we may collect and process your personal data for the purposes of invoicing and supplying the services you have purchased. The personal data we collect for this purpose includes your contact details and purchase details as may be legally required of us for accounting, taxation compliance, and fraud prevention purposes. You agree that your billing and contact details may be passed to a Third Party payment processor solely for the purposes of collecting your payment. You may alternatively choose to provide payment for our services using Third Party websites (e.g. Paypal, Swipe, etc). We are not responsible for data collected on such Third Party websites and you should refer to the privacy policy of your chosen payment processor to understand the data they collect and store.

We store and process this personal and billing data only for as long as is required to provide the services you request from us. However, we hold copies of such transaction records for a period of ten years from the date we receive payment in order to fulfil our legal obligations. 

Before entering into a contract for our services, you may also send us documents which we will used to provide a quote for our services. Any documentation you send to us for this purpose will be held until either; (a) you notify us that you no longer wish to enter into said contract, whereupon your documents and any personal data you have sent us will be deleted, or (b) you enter into the contract with us whereupon your documents will be processed by us and, following successful completion of the contract, your documents will be stored for a period of one year for customer service purposes. Any employee of ours who performs the work on your document will delete it, and any other of your personal data, once you have received your documents.

2.4 User and Technical Data

Personal data collected: Data about your use of the Website, hardware, and software

Lawful basis for processing: Legal obligation and Legitimate Interest

In order to maintain the security and integrity of our Website, we automatically collect information via our analytics tracking system, such as your IP address (which is anonymised prior to registering), browser, when you visited our Website and how long for, navigation paths, etc. These data are processed in the course of operating, administering and protecting our Website, enabling backups of our databases, and understanding how visitors use our Website. In order to comply with GDPR rules about data security, we actively monitor attempted breaches of our security mechanisms and will provide this automatically collected data to the relevant law enforcement authorities if we have reason to believe that a User is attempting to attack, undermine, or in any way sabotage the integrity of our Website. 

2.5 Marketing Data

Personal data collected: Contact details (name and email address)

Lawful basis for processing: Consent

In order to provide news updates related to our work (the publication of new articles, blog posts, special offers, surveys about our service provision, etc), we may collect and store your name and email address where you have opted to receive these emails. You may opt out of these marketing emails at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” in the footer of any of these emails, whereupon your details will be deleted from our mailing list. By opting in, you agree that we may store your name and email address for the purposes of delivery of these emails for as long as you choose to receive such emails.  

Access to our marketing communications is through an opt-in system. We do not send any other marketing communications, even if you have made a purchase or asked for information from us previously. We will never pass on your details to Third Parties for their own marketing purposes. Opting in or out of these communications will not lead to us removing any personal data that we have collected for other purposes (for example, through messages you have sent us, or for delivering services you have paid for). We do not run adverts on our Website, and have no advertising partners.

2.6 Sensitive Data

We do not require any Sensitive Data in order to carry out our legitimate business interests, and we do not request or collect it. Sensitive data includes (but is not limited to) details of your race/ethnicity, religious/philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation or activity, political opinions, criminal history, or health information.

2.7 Legitimate use of your data

Where we have collected your personal data, we will only use it for the purpose it was collected as set out in this data collection policy. If we need to process your data for a new purpose not provided for under our data collection policy, we will contact you to explain the legal basis for such processing and request your written permission. For the purposes of our privacy policy, consent obtained via email communication or on our social media pages is considered as written permission. You can contact us at admin@soswriting.co.uk if you would like more information about the data we have collected about you, and for what purpose(s).

Where we are legally required to collect your personal data for the purposes of delivering services that you have requested, and you do not provide us with the requested data, we will not be able to deliver the requested services. In the event that you do not provide us with the necessary data, we reserve the right to cancel the requested service and will notify you if we take this action. Our cancellation of the service under these circumstances will not prevent you from ordering from us in the future.

We do not carry out automated decision making or any type of automated profiling.

2.8 How we collect your data

We may collect data from you directly, in the form of data you send to us (e.g., by using our contact form, or through messaging our accounts on social media platforms). We collect (through analytics tracking systems) data about your use of our website as set out under 2.4, which may include the use of cookies and similar technologies (see section 3 for our Cookie Policy). Although we are based in the EU, we may receive data from companies based outside the EU (such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc) who use tracking and advertising cookies on your browser that we do not control. We may also receive data from payment providers, data brokers or other technical and delivery service companies who may be based outside the EU. We may use data that is publicly available from sources such as Companies House, among others, if necessary to our business interest. 

2.9 Analytics

In order to best understand how Users access and use the Website, we use the analytics package “WP Statistics”. This package doesn’t store any tracking or advertising cookies. The User’s IP (anonymised), referring site, browser, search engine, OS, language preference, country, and city are collected and held for 365 days in a non-identifiable form for statistical purposes.

2.10 What rights you have over your data

Under the GDPR you have rights over the data we hold about you (subject to certain limitations). To invoke any of these rights, please contact us by email at: admin@soswriting.co.uk – be aware that we are required to take reasonable steps to verify the identity of any person making such a request and although we will attempt to deal with your request swiftly, it may take up to one calendar month to provide this information to you depending on the complexity of the information. We may keep a record of any requests we receive.

  1. You have the rights of access and rectification, i.e. you can ask us to provide you with the data we hold about you, and/or to correct it.
  2. You have the right to data portability, including the right to ask us to send the personal data we hold about you securely to another business.
  3. You have the right to request erasure of your personal data, except where we are obliged to keep it for legal purposes.

You have the absolute right to object to your personal data being processed for the purposes of direct marketing. The only direct marketing we participate in comes in the form of our mailing list. In order to exercise your right to object on these grounds, you can unsubscribe from our mailing list using the “unsubscribe” link at the foot of any of our marketing emails.

There are no fees for exercising your rights under the GDPR, however we are entitled to charge an administrative fee where requests are repetitive, excessive, or manifestly unfounded. We may refuse to comply where the identify of the person making the request is not proven to our reasonable satisfaction, in order to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to a person who may not have the right to access it.

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of how we handle your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would be grateful if you could contact us first with any complaints to give us the opportunity to try and resolve the matter to your satisfaction first. You can view your full legal rights on the ICO website. 

2.11 Who we share your data with

We only disclose Personal Information to third parties under the following scenarios:

  1. When we use payment processing services to collect payment for services you request, or other professional service providers (lawyers, accountants, IT security, etc) for the purpose of meeting our business operating needs. These service providers may only access and process personal information according to our instructions and in performance of their duties to us;
  2. where we determine that disclosure is necessary to protect the Website and ensure the security of other Users of the Website;
  3. where we receive a lawful subpoena or warrant;
  4. where you have given explicit consent to sharing the information for a specific purpose.

We use Dropbox as an option for customers to submit their documents to us prior to contracting us to perform requested services, if they so choose.

International Transfers

Our Website is hosted in the European Economic Area (EEA), but countries outside the EEA do not always offer the same levels of protection to your personal data. European law prohibits transfers of personal data outside of the EEA unless certain criteria can be met. Where our third party service providers may be based outside the EEA, this may necessitate the transfer of your personal data outside the EEA. Where such transfers are necessary, we do our best to ensure a similar level of protection by ensuring that at least one of the following safeguards are in place:

  • We will only transfer your data to countries approved by the European Commission (EC) as providing adequate levels of protection;
  • We may use specific contracts/codes of conduct approved by the EC that give personal data the protection it would enjoy in Europe;
  • We may use US-based providers that are part of the EU-US Privacy Shield, since they have equivalent protections.

Where these safeguards are not available, we will seek your explicit consent prior to any transfer, which you have the right to withdraw at any time.

2.12 Data security

We have security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, disclosed, or accessed by unauthorised persons. We only allow access to your data to employees who may have a need to know such data information for the purposes of supplying services to you. They will process your data only according to our instructions, and must keep it confidential. In the case of any suspected data breach, we will notify you and the applicable regulator of the breach according to our legal obligations.

This Website secures your personal information during transmission to other websites using encryption, such as the Secure Socket layer (SSL) protocol. While we do our best to protect your data, we cannot guarantee the total security of data transmitted across the internet.

We only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. For taxation regulation purposes, the law requires us to keep transaction data about our customers for up to ten years after they stop being customers.

2.13 Third Party links

This Website contains links to third party websites, plugins and applications whose privacy practices are not under our control. Clicking those links may allow third parties to collect or store your data, and any personal data you submit to them is subject to their own Privacy Policies. We strongly urge you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit upon leaving our Website. 

2.14 Changes to this Policy

We will periodically review and update this Policy to reflect company practices and customer feedback. We encourage you to occasionally revisit this Policy to stay informed of how we are protecting your Personal Data.

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3 Cookie Policy

A Cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer by a website in order to monitor how you move around that website so that the options presented to you can be tailored to you based on your previous visit. You can set your browser to refuse all (or selected) browser cookies, and/or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. In general, Cookies may be:

  • Session cookies: these are stored only during your current web session and are automatically cleared from your browser when you close it;
  • Persistent cookies: these are stored permanently (or until deleted) as a file on your computer – these are stored by Google Analytics (used on this Website).

Cookies may be further categorised as either; (a) strictly necessary for the proper functioning of a website (cannot be turned off, but do not gather tracking or marketing information) which are required to make use of e-billing services; (b) performance/analytics cookies that allow us to monitor the performance of our Website (counting page visits, etc); or (c) functionality cookies which let a website remember your choices for your convenience in future visits (such as choice of language).

We may use Cookies to help us deliver services to you, and/or to track your use of our Website to help us understand how you use it and aid us in developing and improving our Website. We do not use Cookies on this Website for the purposes of advertising or marketing, and we do not show adverts to you on our Website. There are well-known third party websites who may set advertising or tracking cookies that we have no control over, according to their own privacy policies. If you use our Website in conjuction with one of these third party websites (particularly if you are logged into their website) and have concerns about your privacy, you may need to check your browser settings to see what types of cookies you are currently accepting. For more information on Cookies, including how to disable or delete them, please refer to aboutcookies.org.

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