Terms of Service - Global Penfriends

Please find the Terms and Conditions of use of the Global Penfriends Website. You should read it in conjunction with the Global Penfriends Privacy Policy, of which this Terms and Conditions Policy forms part. 1. This document is a legal agreement between you and Global Penfriends (ABN: 66 709 059 892). By accessing the Global Penfriends website, currently located at www.globalpenfriends.com (The Site) and accessing any services through the site you become a user and agree to and are bound by the following terms and conditions as long as you continue to use the site or services. If you do not agree to be bound by this agreement, please do not use the site or services.

The Global Penfriends service consists of the following, without limitation; An interactive and social platform for penfriends and penpals worldwide. A postal service to print, stamp and send postal mail. Global Penfriends may revise or add additional services at its discretion and this agreement will apply to additional services or revised services. Global Penfriends also reserves the right to cease offering of any services provided without notice.

This agreement is subject to change by Global Penfriends in its sole discretion at any time. Any such changes to the agreement will be updated on the site. Your continuation of use of the site will mean your acceptance of the updated terms of service agreement. We invite users to frequently visit this page to see the last update of the agreement - the last modification date can be seen at the end of this page.

Who is Eligible ?
Global Penfriends is a global friendship club, people of all ages, interests and status are welcomed to join. To protect the younger members of our site, we do not accept registrations from individuals known to be in jail or convicted sex offenders. These individuals will be removed from the club and all members they have been in contact with will be notified for their protection. We do not accept users that are obviously looking for a romantic partner as our site is a friendship platform rather than a dating platform. Any profiles that make it through our vigorous security checks but are later found to be in breach of our terms and conditions will have their access revoked and will not be eligible for a refund for any services paid for.


Use of Site and Services

No False Profile Information
Each user agrees to provide true information in their profile so as not to mislead other users of the site services. If any information you have provided to Global Penfriends ceases to become true - you will immediately notify Global Penfriends so that the misleading information can be modified or removed. Sometimes a premium member or a free member may be asked to prove their identity to ensure the safety of our members. This may involve a request for photo id or a selfie. These id images will be used to verify the accuracy of the profile and will be deleted immediately once the profile is validated. If a member refuses to submit valid id - Global Penfriends will revoke profile access and that user will not be eligible for a refund for any services paid for.

Children aged 13 and under
All children aged 13 and under must use this site with their parents or guardians supervision. We encourage children to let their parents help them with their penpal journey. Penpalling can be a rewarding activity but can also expose children to safety concerns if it is not done in a safe manner. All children 13 and under should ensure they do not share contact details with their penpals until their parent/guardian has approved this. Build trust with your penpal and if your conversation does not feel safe - ask your parent/guardian for assistance. To all parents, we encourage you to be active in reviewing your childs messaging to make sure everything is age appropriate.

Request for valid id
In some cases, Global Penfriends may request a premium member to prove their identity to ensure the safety of our members. This may involve a request for photo id or a selfie. These id images will be used to verify the accuracy of the profile and will be deleted immediately once the profile is validated. If a member refuses to submit valid id - Global Penfriends will revoke profile access and that user will not be eligible for a refund for any services paid for.

Archive of conversations
Premium members have functionality that allows archiving of conversations. In the event that a conversation exceeds 500,000 characters, Global Penfriends cannot guarantee that the conversation will available to archive. In this event we recommend removing the old conversation and starting a fresh one.

Duplicate profiles
Each user agrees to only post one profile at any one time. If two or more profiles are detected on our system relating to the same individual, then all profiles may be removed without notice. Having duplicate profiles is the same as spam and will be dealt with as such.

Change of Heart or Mind
If an upgraded user decides at a later time that they do not wish to be a member, there is no grounds for a refund. Once the service is paid for and delivered, the service is considered utilised. The period of time in which the service was used is a non issue. If you pay for a year and use the service for 1 day - you cannot claim a refund for the remaining period.

Forgetting to Cancel a subscription
When an upgraded member forgets to cancel their monthly or annual subscription prior to it rolling over (being charged again). The member is not entitled to a refund. Likewise, deleting a profile does not ensure that the member is entitled to a refund. Once the upgrade has been applied to the profile, the profile upgrade is considered utilised. Club members have 30 days to cancel a monthly subscription and 364 days to cancel their annual subscription. This is a reasonable period of time.

Approval wait time
This site is used by members of all ages. We are creating a family friendly environment and therefore must review all content prior to approval. Approval times vary depending on various factors but usually we would expect approval time to be anywhere upto 48 hours. Usually we expect to approve within 10 hours. Premium members must accept that profile approval takes time and having to wait for approval is no grounds for a refund.

Sending Spam
Each user agrees to send personalised, individual mail to profiles to prevent other users being bombarded with messages that have just been copied and pasted or have not personalisation. Examples of messages considered spam include "Hi, how are you?" or "send me an email at my address". Upgraded accounts have access to unlimited messaging to existing contacts but will be limited to contacting 40 new members each day to prevent people trying to spam the entire database. If the messages sent from an account are considered spam, users will be suspended and blocked from using the site and have no grounds for seeking a refund.

Editing your Profile
Each user agrees to only submit their profile for approval when necessary to reduce administration load. If users are submitting frequent edits to their profiles, this makes it difficult to review all profiles. Once a user submits their profile more than 40 times in a one year period - Administrators have the right to remove that users access. Premium members that have exceeded their number of profile edits in one year will have their profile suspended and will not be entitled to a refund.

Contact Details
Each user agrees to not post their personal contact details including but not limited to postal address, email, phone numbers, place of work, skype account, whatsapp details in the general description parts of the profile forms. Any such posting of contact details is a security breach and will be treated as a risk to club safety. Such users if identified, will be deleted from the site without notice or Global Penfriends retains the right to amend the profile to remove the insecure contact details. There are specific fields that are designed for personal contact details and these intended fields should be used where directed during profile completion. Once a user has an approved profile they should only share their private contact details in a message after trust has been established. Any instance where trust has not been established could result in profile removal without notice and will not be eligible for a refund.

Reports and Blocks
Global Penfriends has a system of self reporting where all users can report or block other members they have been in contact with. If any user is reported or blocked excessively, this can lead to investigation and subsequent removal from the site. Any user that is removed due to excessive blocks and reports will be deemed unsuitable for the club, their profile removed and they will not be eligible for a refund.

No Advertising
Users agree that they will not advertise or solicit any user of the site to buy or sell products or services through Global Penfriends site services. This includes solicitation of funds through donations or pyramid schemes. If you send unsolicated mail through post, email, internal message system, profile text or any other platform of communication - you will acknowledge that significant harm to Global Penfriends has been caused (the exact level of harm is difficult to ascertain) and therefore you will be responsible to pay Global Penfriends $100 USD for each communication deemed unsolicated.

Collecting via Post
Users agree that they will not solicit any user of the site to send items or goods via post. This includes solicitation of collection items such as but not limited to (Souvenirs, flags, stamps, coins, currency, postcards, magnets etc). If you send item requests through post, email, internal message system, profile text or any other method of communication - you will acknowledge that significant harm to Global Penfriends has been caused and accept removal of your profile access.

Content Removal
Global Penfriends has the right to remove / edit any information you publish to our services to ensure our terms and conditions of use are adhered to. We can also remove users that are not conforming to the agreed terms of use.

Keeping your Data accurate
To ensure your personal data is accurate, we promise to provide you the means to review your data and edit it as required.

Never use your Real Name
We always tell members when they register to use an alias for their profile name. By using your real name you may be searchable on search engines such as google when our site is indexed. Sometimes we receive requests to remove information from orphaned profiles - In these cases the profile owners have forgotten or lost access to the email address they used to register and have forgotten their login credentials. In these cases Global Penfriends must investigate and charge an administration fee to remove the profile.

Know your Rights
Did you realise that companies in the US have been charged over incidences of failing to protect individuals personal data. With this in mind, Global Penfriends is doing everything it can to ensure that information you supply to us is treated with respect and due security to ensure that your personal information is safe and secure. If you are providing your personal data on any website - Please ensure that the website has a privacy policy for peace of mind that they will respect your information. We have members of all age groups, from all over the world and we aim to protect our members from any privacy related issues. Read more in our Privacy Policy.

Exclusive Use
Each users can only register one profile with our site at any one time. Your account is for personal use only and only the profile owner should be using it to communicate with other on the site. The only exception to this is if you are a parent with children under 15 and wish to monitor your childs correpondence through the site or assist your child with corresponding with others on the site. You cannot transfer your account or profile to anyone else.

Internal Messaging Sytem
Our club will do its best to protect you from scammers and spammers but we also acknowledge that individuals may fall through our security checks. Our internal messaging system is the recommended form of communication to avoid being targeted by scammers or spammers. We recommend only disclosing your personal and private contact details such as email, phone number or other details when you have established a degree of trust. During the trust building phase, ask lots of questions to your prospective penpal. Our internal messaging system is in place to keep you safe. Once a member leaves the safety of our internal messaging system the member must assume responsibility over their own safety as it is no longer in our control. Any member that pursues a conversation outside the Global Penfriends internal messaging system will not be eligible for a refund.

Information Provided
You are soley responsible for and assume all liability for the information you provide and contribute to the service. This includes all and any information you may add to your profile or interactions with the site and any information you exchange with other users of the service.

Assumption of Risk
You assume all the risk of using our services. This includes but not limited to all risk associated with interacting online or offline (through the post) or subsequent in person meetings. You must acknowledge that it is impossible for Global Penfriends to verify the validity of any information provided by the users of our service. You must agree to take all the necessary precautions as outlined in our Penpal Safety page which is provided to all users of our services to help provide a safe and secure family friendly platform for people all over the world.

Tone of Communications
All communication you have with members on the site through the internal messaging system should be on a friendly level that promotes friendship. As a user of our services, you will adjust your communciation with other users of the site and WILL NOT engage in any activities that:

• Have a dating nature or tone. Our services are intended as a platform for friends to meet, not for those looking for marriage, visas or casual flings.

• Promote hatred, racism, predudism, bigotry or physical harm.

• Promote bullying or communication intended to harass, annoy, threaten or intimidate

• Contain defamitory, inaccurate or harmful information about others

• Contain sexual related terms or information or images (including partial nudity)

• Contains obscene or explicit language

• Contains images of other people without their prior consent

• Contains material written by other people without their prior consent.

• Promotes or distributes information designed to break or circumvent the law, including instructions related to how to buy or create illegal weapons or drugs, how to violate someones privacy and security and creation and distribution of computer viruses.

• Seek to scam, defraud or swindle other users of the service including 419 Nigerian letter scams, Identity theft, Advance fee schemes, Telemarketing fraud, Letter of credit fraud, Prime bank note fraud, Ponzi Schemes, Donation requests, Pyramid schemes, Market manipulation (pump and dump) fraud.

• Contains viruses, time bombs, trojan horses, cancelbots, worms or other harmful, or disruptive codes, components or devices

• Promotes involvement in or supports a political platform, religion, cult or sect

• Uses scripts, bots or other automated technology to access the Site or Service

• Is in any way used for or in connection with spamming, spimming, phishing, trolling, or similar activities.

• Solicits gambling or engages in any gambling or similar activity


Disclaimer of Warranties and Liabilities

Global Penfriends does not warrant the accuracy of the content provided on the site or submitted to the site by its contractors or users for any particular purpose. We have an extremely talented team of individuals with unique skills that ensure the club runs smoothly and efficiently, however we can not make any promise that the information on our site is accurate, up to date, secure or error free. In the interest of protecting our company we cannot make any promises as far as warranties go. We will do our best to provide an interesting website with helpful and educational information and entertainment. All information on this site is to be used on a "As is, with all faults" basis.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither Global Penfriends or any of its contractors or affiliates will be liable for any loss, be it direct, indirect or incidental resulting from the use of our services or information that has been provided to you from our site.

Indemnification

To the fullest extent of the law, you agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Global Penfriends, its employees, contractors and affiliates from and against any claim, liability, cost, damage or loss we may incur as a result of any violation by you of your obligations under these terms and conditions.

Refund Policy

Users are entitled to a full refund provided they have not utilised the service. For premium memberships, using the service refers to sending internal messages to other users and viewing premium profile data which is displayed on each profile page. We are able to see how many messages you have sent from your account and how many profiles you have viewed since upgrading - so please keep this in mind prior to asking for a refund.

General Information

If any portion of these terms and conditions is not valid or deemed unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full effect.As we are located in Perth (Australia) These Terms and Conditions are governed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the state of Western Australia.

Third Party Content. Opinions, advice, statements, offers, or other information or content made available through the Services, but not directly by Global Penfriends, are those of their respective authors, and should not necessarily be relied upon. Such authors are solely responsible for such content. GLOBAL PENFRIENDS DOES NOT: (i) GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR USEFULNESS OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THE SERVICES, OR (ii) ADOPT, ENDORSE OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY OPINION, ADVICE, OR STATEMENT MADE BY ANY PARTY OTHER THAN GLOBAL PENFRIENDS. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL GLOBAL PENFRIENDS BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE RESULTING FROM ANYONE'S RELIANCE ON INFORMATION OR OTHER CONTENT POSTED ON THE SERVICES, OR TRANSMITTED TO OR BY ANY USERS.

Features Being tested. Global Penfriends may offer new beta features or functionality with which its users may experiment with. Such features or tools are offered solely for experimental purposes and without any warranty of any kind, and may be modified or discontinued at Global Penfriends sole discretion. The provisions of this Disclaimer of Warranty section apply with full force to such features or tools.

Last Modified: 5th January, 2019