User terms

As at 14 December 2023

Plain English Foundation Pty Ltd (PEF/we/our/us) owns and runs the www.plainenglishfoundation.com website (our website/site).

As a website user (you/your), you agree to:

these User terms, including our disclaimers
our Copyright policy and intellectual property terms
our Privacy policy.

You accept our terms, policies and disclaimers when you use our site and buy or use our products, so please read them carefully. If you don’t agree with them, please don’t use our site.

Amendments apply from the date we publish them, so please also check our terms and policies before you buy or use our products.

These terms have the following sections:

How can I use your training and skills test material?
How do I make a purchase?
What fees apply when I buy, change or cancel training?
What are the rules for site conduct?
What happens if I post or comment on the site?
What are the disclaimers?
What about liability and indemnity?
Any feedback or complaints?

1. How can I use your training and skills test material?

Understanding our copyright

We own the intellectual property rights in our Getting to the point® training material, Writing Skills Test, free writing tools and other resources, unless these state otherwise.

We also cover this in more detail in our:

Intellectual property rights means all intellectual and commercial property rights throughout the world including:

copyright
trademarks whether registered or unregistered
designs and patents
the right to keep confidential information confidential
know-how and trade secrets, whether or not now existing
registered or registrable related applications, including the right to apply to register such rights and all renewals and extensions.

Our training intellectual property (IP) is for personal use only

When you buy a public training enrolment, we will supply the enrolled participant with related training material when they attend the training workshop. As part of your purchase agreement with us, you agree that you and/or your participant will:

only use our training material to participate in the training and for subsequent personal reference
not screenshot, copy, record, stream, distribute or assign our training material in any form to another person or entity.

We grant you and/or the participant a non-exclusive, non-transferrable licence to use our Getting to the point® training material only:

to participate in the training that you purchased from us
for subsequent personal reference.

You cannot use our IP for anything other than personal reference

This licence does not give you and/or your participant the right to amend or adapt our training material for any commercial or other purposes including:

printing, changing, repurposing or adapting it
using it to develop any work or product with the same primary function
quoting from it
referring to it without attributing our ownership to us unless it is impracticable to do so
communicating or publishing it to a third party, including the public, you and/or your participant’s employer or a related body
recording, taking screenshots of it, photographing or streaming it in any domain
posting it on a website or on social media
displaying it on a screen for training or instruction
adding it to a database
manufacturing or selling it, or hiring it out
otherwise exploiting it or performing an act that would infringe our intellectual property rights.

If you breach our terms or policies, we can cancel your site registration and take action against you and/or the participant for breaching our intellectual property ownership rights.

2. How do I make a purchase?

You have 2 options for buying online.

Option 1: Pay by credit card – for immediate purchase

A credit card payment will allow you to immediately:

enrol in and buy a confirmed place in a public training workshop on an available date
buy a Getting to the point® Writing Skills Test.

We take Visa and Mastercard payments. The merchant transaction fee for a credit card payment is currently 3%, although this may change over time.

We use the site to process electronic payments for our products, but we don’t store your credit card details on our site or make them public. Our security controls protect our site from unauthorised access.

We also protect communication between your computer and our site with SSL encryption (shown as a padlock icon on your browser).

Option 2: Pay by electronic funds transfer (EFT)

To pay by EFT, contact us and we will arrange to send you an invoice.

Once the invoice is paid, we will confirm your purchase, which may be one of the following:

a confirmed place in a public training workshop on an available date
a Getting to the point® Writing Skills Test.

Only our own terms and conditions apply for all online purchases

Your organisation’s own purchase order terms and conditions do not apply to any of our online products. Only our site terms and conditions apply. We cover this in:

section 1 on our restricted licensed use of our public training material
Getting to the point® Writing Skills Test Agreement.

Different conditions apply for promotions

2023 Webinar promotion: To buy a place in a public training workshop using our 2023 webinar promotional code, you must pay by credit card.

The promotional discount only applies to public training workshops in December 2023 and January 2024. If you cannot attend a workshop that you booked into and want to rebook after January 2024, you cannot use the promotional code. You will have to pay full price.

2023 Family and friends promotion: To buy a place in a public training workshop under our 2023 Family and friends offer, you must pay by credit card.

The discounted price only applies to public training workshops in December 2023 and January 2024. If you cannot attend a workshop that you booked into and want to rebook after January 2024, you will have to pay full price.

2024 50% off promotion: To buy a place in a public training workshop using our 2024 50% off promotional code, you must pay by credit card.

The promotional discount only applies to public training workshops in January 2024. If you cannot attend a workshop that you booked into and want to rebook after January 2024, you cannot use the promotional code. You will have to pay full price.

3. What fees apply when I buy, change or cancel training?

We apply the goods and services tax (GST) on all our services to Australia-based customers. GST is an extra 10% on our stated prices and will be added before you finalise your purchase.

If the Australian organisation you represent is GST exempt, then it can claim a refund of any GST paid to us from the Australian Taxation Office.

Prices are shown in Australian dollars and are correct when published, but we may change them at any time. You pay the price as published on our website when we process your payment.

When you buy a product from us

The total amount you need to pay will include GST.
We will issue you with a tax invoice/receipt.
We will email you an order confirmation.

You must pay in full when you place your order. If you pay by credit card and the bank or credit card issuer does not receive or declines your payment, your order may be cancelled. If we issue you an invoice for payment that you do not pay by the due date, any ensuing payment you make may attract a subsequent fee. If so, we will advise you of this.

When an extra service administration fee can apply

We charge a service administration fee of $130 plus GST for each extra or non-standard service request we process for you. If a fee applies, we will tell you.

Changing a public training enrolment

You can change a public training enrolment up to 3 weeks beforehand and if an advertised optional date is available. But if you want to change it after then, we will apply a service administration fee.

Types of changes that we charge a service administration fee for include, but are not limited to you:

rebooking an enrolled participant on another workshop date
replacing one enrolled participant with another enrolled on a different date
cancelling an enrolment at any time.

You can replace one enrolled participant with another up to 5 working days before the training event at no cost. We will charge a service administration fee for replacements less than 5 working days before the event.

We do not rebook or refund no-shows. So please always contact us before the workshop if you are not going to attend for any reason.

A merchant fee also applies for a credit card transaction for each service administration fee.

Cancelling a public training enrolment

If you cancel a public training enrolment:

15 or less business days before the workshop date: there is no refund and we charge a service administration fee per enrolment
16 to 31 business days before the workshop date: we refund 50% of your payment, less a service administration fee per enrolment and any applicable merchant transaction fee
32 or more business days before the workshop date: we refund your payment, less a service administration fee per enrolment and any applicable merchant transaction fee.

In the rare event that we cancel a workshop, we’ll give you a full refund.

To cancel a booking, please contact us.

4. What are the rules for site conduct?

Avoiding harmful content

You agree that you will not use our site to upload, post, email or otherwise transmit:

content that is illegal, threatening, abusive, defamatory, libellous, harmful, obscene, actionable or legally objectionable
content that invades PEF’s or another’s privacy
content that breaches intellectual property rights, including PEF’s or another’s patents, trademarks, trade secrets, moral rights, copyright or publicity
unsolicited promotional material, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or political campaigning material
content with software viruses or computer codes, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, limit, compromise, delay or divert the functionality of ICT software or hardware.

Protecting our site’s functionality

You also cannot:

copy, store or host material with, or linked to, malicious computer software such as spyware, computer viruses, Trojan horses, worms, keystroke loggers or rootkits
subvert our website functionality or not follow its requirements, procedures and policies or those of the networks it’s connected to
do any systematic or automated data collection like scraping or data mining, extraction and harvesting without our written consent.

Using email appropriately

In supplying our email addresses on our site, we do not consent to you sending unsolicited emails to us.

You also cannot:

use a false email address, impersonate any person or entity on our website, or otherwise mislead others as to the origin of our website content
falsely state or misrepresent an affiliation with us or another
harass our executive, our staff or another user of our website
impersonate a person or an entity, including impersonating our executive, affiliates, staff, contributors, independent contractors, representatives, third party content providers and licensors.

5. What happens if I post or comment on the site?

Managing your content

You agree that:

you own or control the rights to any content you post on our site
the content is accurate
the content doesn’t breach our terms.

If you post anything on any public areas of our site, that gives us a non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license (and consent) to use, reproduce, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, display and remove that content.

Monitoring posted content

We may not regularly review posted content. We can monitor our site, including any forum, but you agree that we are not obliged to do this.

We’re not obliged to keep any public postings, comments or entries confidential. We’re also not liable for any such use or disclosure worldwide.

Linking to our site

Please contact us if you’d like to link to our site. However, you can’t use our trademarks unless we agree in writing.

You also can’t modify our website, or frame or reformat its files, pages, images, information and materials on another site.

We’re not liable for, and you indemnify us against, any loss, damage or expense from you linking to our website.

We can stop linking by letting you know we’re going to do so.

6. What are the disclaimers?

Using the site at your own risk

You use our website at your own risk. While we make every effort to ensure our site material is current, accurate and reliable, we cannot guarantee this and are not liable if it is not. We also don’t endorse material on a linked or mentioned site.

We can change our site at any time, even if it means you will need to change your equipment to access it.

We’re not liable for any loss or damage of any kind, however caused (including by negligence), through you using our site and its products and material.

We’re also not liable if your computer system, software or data is damaged or interfered with because you use our site.

This disclaimer applies to PEF, our executive, affiliates, staff, contributors, independent contractors, representatives, third party content providers and licensors of our website content, products and services.

Accepting loss or damage

This disclaimer covers loss or damage because:

you rely on our website and any third party material to be suitable, accurate and reliable
there is a website failure, error, omission, interruption, deletion or defect; we do not correct a defect; a computer virus or a component causes damage, or data is lost
there is a delay in site operation or transmission, or a communication line fails
issues arise from e-commerce transactions such as wrong credit card details, unpaid invoices or otherwise incomplete or delayed transactions.

It also covers loss or damage because:

a third party acts illegally, like by hacking, stealing, destroying content, or accessing or altering records
you access a third party site or server through our email or website (linking to a third party like a social media site is at your own risk)
a third party’s conduct is defamatory, threatening, offensive or illegal, or material is published about or causes such conduct
we breach our Privacy policy, other than doing so willfully.

7. What about liability and indemnity?

Accepting liability

Our total liability to you (if any) under our website terms and conditions for loss, damage or reliance is limited to resupplying our website information or the resupply of any faulty products you buy through our site.

We are not liable for a product or service we supply to you for free or if you buy a product that does not suit your needs.

We will not be liable for lost profits, lost data, business interruption or other damages including consequential, special or indirect damages.

Indemnifying us against loss

You agree that you indemnify us from and against any action, liability, cost, loss and damage (including legal fees) that you, we or a third party suffers because you or your agents:

breach our website terms, disclaimers and policies
infringe our intellectual property rights or those of a third party linked on our website
have a dispute with a third party from using our website
break the Australian laws and regulations that apply.

Complying with the law

The laws of New South Wales and Australia govern our terms and policies. If any part of them is found to be invalid or unenforceable, it will be removed without affecting the rest.

8. Any feedback or complaints?

Please contact us with any comments or complaints. We really appreciate your feedback.