Conditions of Use

The terms and conditions governing the use of the Character-Online.co.uk (Character Group) website (the "website") are detailed below and should be read carefully. We may vary these terms from time to time. Any such changes will take effect when posted on the website and it is your responsibility to read these terms on each occasion you use this website or before you make a new purchase. If any of these terms are deemed invalid, that term will be deemed severable and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining terms provided that the contract will still make sense.

Please note that any use by you of this website or purchase made through this website means that you accept these terms and conditions in their entirety. Please do not rely on promises or claims written or verbally made by anyone other than Character-online.com or its authorised agent.

Any contracts or agreements formed between you and us by means of this website shall be governed and interpreted according to English law and any disputes or proceedings shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts. English is the only language offered for the conclusion of the contract.

About Us

Character Options Limited is part of The Character Group plc founded in 1991- an AIM listed company. The Character Group plc is one of the UK’s leading toy companies and is engaged in the design, development, and international distribution of a wide range of licensed and non-licensed product. The Group now has offices in London, Manchester, Denmark, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China, and employs over 230 people.

The Character Group plc are the manufacturer of household brands such as Heroes of Goo Jit Zu, Simbrix, ChillFactor, Doctor Who, Flying Heroes, Teletubbies, Stretch Armstrong, Fireman Sam, and Ben and Holly. The group is also 3rd party distributor for licenses such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Fingerlings, Shimmer N’ Sparkle, Mash’ems, LankyBox, and Aphmau.

Privacy

Character-online.com is committed to the protection of your privacy. All personal information given to us through this website will only be held and used with care and in accordance with this policy and the Data Protection Act 2018. Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Use of Personal Information and Your Preferences

Character-online.com collects data from customers when they register and make a purchase online. We also gather data about our customers from their use of the website. We use this data to corroborate our customers' identity, process payments, manage orders including delivery, communicate with customers about orders, products, services and promotions, manage customer accounts, display personalised content such as wish lists and recommend merchandise and services that might be of interest. We also use this data to further develop this website to be of use to customers and to manage security.

We may also use your contact details to communicate with you. We may use your information to send you information about Character-online.com products and services. If you request, we may also send you offers or information from other carefully selected companies which we think may be of interest to you. We may contact you by post, email, telephone or fax for these purposes.

Once you have registered with Character-online.com you can log in to view your account. If you want to change any of your personal information including the way we communicate with you click on “‘Edit Contact Details”. If you do not want to receive communications from us, please change your communications options by using the boxes available on that page. Please note that there may be instances where it may be necessary for us to communicate with you, in any event, for administrative or operational reasons relating to our service.

When you view this website by linking from another web page Character-online.com may store the name of that web page for the purposes of internal administration and analysis. In order to process your registration and enable management of this website, your personal information may be passed to third party service providers who may process your information on our behalf and under our control. We may share non-personal, anonymous, aggregate statistics (group) data about visitors to this website, use and other traffic patterns with connected, or third parties.

Accuracy and Access to Personal Information:

You can check that the information which we are holding is accurate by accessing your account online if you are registered (click on 'Your Account' at the top of the screen, enter your email address and password to log on and view your details) or emailing us here. Also, even if you have consented to receive marketing information from us you can request that we do not contact you with further information by e-mailing us at any time.

"Cookies"

Character-online.com uses cookies to store information essential for your user experience while browsing the Character-online.com website. There are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive. Our cookies do not in themselves recognise the individual user but will recognise the computer you are using so that we know when you are returning to the Character-online.co.uk Online. Most browsers will automatically accept cookies, but you can change the settings on your browser to prevent this happening. Click here to view our Cookie Policy.

Links to Other Websites

We may from time to time refer to or establish relations with companies, organisations and public bodies that will enable you to access their websites directly from our website. Each company, organisation or public body operates its own policy regarding privacy the sale of personal data and the use of cookies. If you have a particular interest in, or concern regarding the way your data will be used then you are advised to read the Privacy Statement on the relevant website. We will try to provide you with links to high quality, reputable websites which we believe will be of interest and relevant to you, but please note that such third party websites are not under our control and we do not contribute to the content of such websites. When you click through to any of these websites you leave the area controlled by Character-online.com We cannot accept responsibility for any issues arising in connection with the third party's use of your data, the website content or the services offered to you by these websites.

You may provide a link (but not a framed link) to the home page of this site but not (save with our prior written agreement) in any way, which gives the impression that we are associated with or have approved such other site. Apart from this you may not link from another internet site to materials or information on this website or reproduce or store any part of this site on any other website without our prior written consent.

Data Protection Act

In addition to these policies your personal data is protected in the UK by the Data Protection Act 2018. Under this Act we will only process any data we hold about you in a lawful and fair manner. We will keep your data securely to prevent unauthorised access by third parties.

Your personal data may have to be disclosed if we are required to disclose it by law or as a result of a lawful request by a governmental or law enforcement authority.

Policy Changes

Any changes to this Privacy Policy made by Character-online.com will be posted here and will take effect immediately.

How to place an order

When you have found a product that you want just click on the ‘Buy Now’ and the item will be placed in your shopping basket. You can then continue shopping until you have selected all the products that you want. At any time you can just click on 'Review Basket' to see what you have selected and amend the quantities or remove products from the basket.

Pricing Policy

All prices, including the prices subject to price promotions and special offers are valid for the period of which they are displayed on the site. However, once an order is placed we do not change the price to the customer of the item ordered and the price will always be confirmed prior to the completion of an order.

Pricing

Character-online.com aims to bring you exciting offers and price promotions, on new and old products that you can choose from. If you would like to receive news of special offers and promotions from Character-online.com from time to time please submit your email address at this page.

Availability of Products

Availability information for titles is listed on each individual product. All items are usually dispatched within 1 working day. As we process your order, we will inform you by email if any items you have ordered turn out to be unavailable. Please Note: We do charge your credit card or debit cards at the point of order. This is to ensure our financial systems are manageable and for no other reason. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Acknowledgement of Order

When you have completed your order you will be sent an e-mail confirming your order. It will state what the products are, the cost (including VAT and P&P) and delivery and invoice details. If your order has been unsuccessful you will be made aware of the reason why and possible explanations. VAT, at the current UK rate of interest is included in your order. 

Online Shopping

We have taken care in presenting the products on our website as accurately as possible. The images you see will depend on your monitor's display and colour capabilities. We are therefore unable to guarantee that the product images you see are an accurate representation of the actual merchandise. Before you place an order you should read the following: Orders, Delivery Information, Returns Policy and Privacy Policy. These pages form part of these terms and conditions and contain important information about your order.

Orders and Dispatch

Your order represents an offer to us to purchase a product. Once you have completed an online purchase, if we are able to accept your order, we will send you an email confirming receipt of your order and the order details. At that point a binding agreement between us will exist. In certain circumstances, it may be possible for either you or us to cancel the order. Please read those paragraphs for more information.

We now take payment at the point of order as a form of commitment from the customer.

Whilst we are under no obligation to accept your order, we would normally do so where (i) the product is available, (ii) the order reflects current pricing and (iii) your credit card/debit card payment is approved by your credit card/debit card company.

Unfortunately we cannot accept orders from persons under the age of 18.

You can access details of your order and any previous orders you may have made by signing-in to your account. We do recommend however that you print out these terms and conditions and the order acknowledgement for your records.

When Can I Expect My Orders To Arrive?

We aim to process all UK orders and deliver to you within 3 to 5 working days. 

International orders are sent via Royal Mail International Service. Delivery takes 5-10 days to Western Europe, and 10-15 days for the rest of the world.

Can I Track My Order Once It Has Been Dispatched?

All UK orders are dispatched using Royal Mail. Royal Mail will email you directly with your parcel's tracking details once processed. 
If Royal Mail are unable to deliver the goods to you, they are returned to the local Royal Mail delivery centre and a card is left with you advising you of the options available to you.

Character Online send all UK parcels via Royal Mail 48 Hours Tracked service.

I Am Ordering For International Delivery. Can I Still Track My Order?

All orders are sent via Royal Mail International Service and where possible this is a tracked service. 

Customer Services

· Our Customer Services Team are available Monday to Thursday 9am to 5pm and Friday 9am to 2.30pm (excluding Christmas and Bank Holidays) and can be contacted on 0161 633 9808 or by email at [email protected] or [email protected].

Prices & Charges

We try to ensure that all product information and pricing displayed on this website is correct and up to date at the time you place an order. We verify pricing at dispatch, and in the event that we discover an error in the price of the products you have ordered, the following terms will apply:

· If actual price is lower than the price shown on this website at time of ordering we will contact you to let you know of the error and offer you the opportunity to purchase the product at the correct price.

· If actual price is higher than the price shown on this website at time of ordering at our discretion, we will either contact you as soon as possible to discuss whether you wish to continue with the order, or cancel the order and send you an email confirming the cancellation. If we are unable to contact you within 14 days of the placing of the order we will treat the order as cancelled. If the order is cancelled and you have already paid for the products, you will receive a full refund.

All prices shown on the website are in pounds sterling and inclusive of VAT. 

Prices exclude delivery charges which are shown as a separate line item on the order summary page. For full details of our delivery charges please refer to the Delivery section.

Availability

The purchase of all products and/or services displayed on this website is subject to availability. Prices of products may change from time to time. We confirm availability and price at the time your order is placed. If a product is subsequently unavailable when we come to dispatch your order or we are unable to supply the products, we will contact you either by phone or email as soon as possible.

Payment Methods

We accept all major Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay and PayPal payments via Stripe.

Some Financial Services organisations charge a 2.5% handling fee of the value of your purchase. The balance is paid to Character-online.com The total amount you pay is unaffected, regardless of the payment method used.

We take every reasonable care to ensure that your order and subsequent transactions are conducted in a secure environment. If products are not available for any reason after we have accepted your order, we will let you know. We will refund amounts already paid (if any) by way of a credit to your credit card/debit card account. This refund may take up to 28 days to re-enter your account.

You are responsible for payment of all orders placed using your user name and password.

Contact Details

Our primary method of communication with you is by email. Therefore please ensure the email address you provide us with is correct. All order and dispatch confirmations will be sent to the email address you provide.

In the unlikely event of a problem with your order, we will contact you by telephone. Again, please ensure the contact telephone numbers you provide are accurate.

Refund/Returns Policy

We will provide a full refund or exchange should you receive a faulty product or be unsatisfied with a product received on the following conditions:

· In the first instance please call our Customer Services Team on 0161 633 9808 or email [email protected] or [email protected].

· If any product in your order proves to be faulty, please call or email the Character-online.com Customer Services Team to obtain a returns number and also indicate whether you would like to receive a refund (including delivery costs), an exchange or a replacement. If you choose a replacement, we will meet your costs of returning to us any replacement product that is still unsatisfactory to you. Our promise to replace the product or refund your money does not apply to faults or damage caused by wear and tear, accidental damage, neglect or misuse.

· If you change your mind on any non-defective product you may return it to Character-online.com unopened and in perfect condition, within 28 days of receipt of your delivery. Please contact the Character-online.com Customer Service Team to obtain a returns number, include the reason the product has been returned and indicate whether you would like to receive a refund (excluding your original delivery charge) or an exchange.

· If you want to return a gift, we can only offer a refund to the payment card originally used for the purchase.

Cancellations

If we are unable to deliver your order within our standard delivery timescales as explained you are entitled to cancel your order with no charge. As we take payment for online purchases from your credit/debit card at the point of order, you will be refunded for the order.

This also applies to individual products within a larger order, where some products have been delivered but others are not available. In this instance, you are entitled to cancel the whole order with no charge or cancel the order just for the parts not delivered. You will not have been charged for the non-delivered products.

Under the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000, you have the right to cancel your order with us at any time within 7 days of receiving your products for a full refund. Should you wish to cancel the contract within those 7 days, we will then refund you the price you have paid for the products. This will not include the cost of delivery or other services provided to you in connection with your purchase, if you have cancelled after your order has been dispatched or the costs you subsequently incur on returning the products to us, unless you return the product(s) to us because of an error on our part or because it is faulty. Your statutory rights are not affected. You are under a duty to take reasonable care of the products, which means the products must be unused and in their original packaging and condition. Please email or write to our Customer Services Team within 7 days of delivery of your items should you wish to cancel your order.

You can expect a refund in the same form of payment originally used for the purchase, within 3 weeks of our receiving your notification that you wish to cancel the order and all refunds will appear in your account.

Lost Packages

Even though packages are sent via Royal Mail, on rare occasions we do experience losses whilst in transit. If this occurs please allow 10 days for the package to arrive from the date of dispatch. If this time elapses and the products do not arrive, please contact our Customer Services Team who will be happy to assist in tracing your parcel or sending a replacement. Please be aware that if you do not contact us within 30 days in relation to a lost package, an insurance claim cannot be made and thus you will be unable to claim any loss from Character-online.com and you will not be entitled to any refunds.

If we send you a replacement and the original products are also delivered to you, you must return the original products to us within 30 days. We reserve the right to charge the price of the replacement item to the payment card used for the original order if you do not return the original item to us within 30 days of the date on which we confirm we will issue a replacement.

Deliveries

Please note: We advise you to check the description of the product you wish to order, some larger items/orders may take longer than our standard delivery option to arrive.

We deliver to mainland UK and internationally. We make every effort to deliver your order within the specified timescales, however where it is not possible to meet these timescales due to unforeseen circumstances which are beyond our reasonable control, we will notify you and advise you of an anticipated delivery date. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Risk of loss and damage of products passes to you on the date when the products are delivered or on the date of first attempted delivery by us provided that we have processed and received payment in full for the products.

Delivery Prices

For all mainland UK orders the delivery charge is £4.99. If your order is over £25, delivery is free.

For international delivery prices, the cost of delivery depends on the size and weight of your order. This will be calculated during the checkout process.

Delivery Address

All deliveries will be made to you at the address specified by you in the order. We may, at our discretion and expense (if there is any additional expense over the cost of delivering the order all at one time), deliver parts of your order separately. If we cannot deliver the products to you at the address you have specified for any reason, the carrier, Royal Mail will notify you and store the products. If you wish us to redeliver the products to you, you will need to authorise us to charge your credit card/debit card for such re-delivery. If we do not hear from you within 28 days, we will cancel the order and refund your payment to you less any reasonable delivery charges we have incurred.

Ownership of the products shall pass to you once the products have been delivered to you and we have received payment in full in cleared funds.

If you decide to have your order delivered to a different address than your own, a signature will still be required and the general conditions of delivery will remain unchanged.

Copyright, Trade Marks, Website Content and Licence to Use Website

Character-online.com and its subsidiaries own all copyright, database rights and other intellectual property rights in this website and in all materials on this site including content, design, text, graphics and photographs or have obtained a licence from third parties for the use of such intellectual property.

Character-online.com is the owner of the trade marks appearing on this website and all associated trade addresses unless indicated to the contrary; Character-online.com trademarks may not be used by you save as showed under these terms and conditions.

All other trademarks, logos and names appearing on this site are the property of their respective owners, as indicated.

You may download and print content from this website for the purpose of using this website to purchase our products for your own personal non-commercial use only. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Where this material is reproduced, published, broadcast or otherwise issued to others the source and copyright status must be acknowledged. No right, title or interest in any downloaded materials or software is transferred to you by such downloading. You may not make any other use of material on this site (including reproductions, publication, alteration, distribution, broadcast or any other exploitation except as above) without our written permission. You acknowledge that the licence to use this website set out in this paragraph is not a transfer of title in the website or the materials displayed on it.

We may immediately suspend or terminate your right to use this website under these terms and conditions by giving you notice if you breach any of these terms and conditions.

Disclaimers

You may only use this website on a personal, non-business, non-commercial basis in accordance with these terms. You may not use this website in the course of any trade or function or for any other commercial purpose.

We will use reasonable skill and care to fulfil your orders, and to provide products to you of satisfactory quality. However, we cannot guarantee that things may not go wrong on occasion and nor do we make any other promises about the accuracy, completeness, quality or reliability of the information, products, and/or services contained on this website.

We will be responsible for all reasonable and foreseeable direct costs which you incur, which are directly caused as a result of our negligence or a breach of any of these terms by us and which you could not have avoided by taking reasonable steps. We will not be responsible for any loss resulting from your breach of any of these terms and conditions.

Notwithstanding the above, Character-online.com aggregate liability (whether in contract, tort or otherwise) for losses shall in any event be limited to a sum equal to the amount paid or payable by you for the product(s) in respect of one incident or series of incidents attributable to the same cause.

If you are using this website in the course of a business, we will not be responsible for any loss your business may suffer or for any other indirect or consequential loss arising out of or in any way connected with the use of this website or for any information, products and services obtained through this website.

Character-online.com does not exclude any liability for death or personal injury resulting from its negligence or the negligence of its directors, employees or agents.

We use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the website is free from computer viruses and other malicious programs. However, we cannot accept responsibility for any computer viruses or other malicious programs which are transmitted to your computer as a result of your use of the website or any third party website, unless this was due to our negligence or a breach of these terms and conditions by us.

We will endeavour to ensure that transmissions to the website will be error free and that access to the website will be uninterrupted, but due to the nature of the internet, this cannot be guaranteed. Website access may be temporarily suspended to allow us to undertake repairs or introduce new facilities or services, but again we will do our level best to ensure such interruptions are limited. Unless we are negligent, Character-online.com cannot be responsible for any losses you may incur in transmitting information to us by internet link or by email. Any such loss shall not be borne either wholly or partly by us, and shall be entirely your responsibility.

For further information, please refer to our Security Policy.

General

The failure to exercise or delay in exercising a right or remedy under these terms and conditions or under law does not constitute a waiver of the right or remedy or a waiver of other rights or remedies, nor will any single or partial exercise of any rights or remedies preclude any other or further exercise of them. Any waiver must be in writing and signed by a Character-online.com authorised representative.

Character-online.com reserves the right to assign or sub-contract the benefit of these terms and conditions or any part thereof or any related order for products to any third party and will do its level best to ensure that your rights are not materially prejudiced as a result.

You may not assign or sub-contract any of your rights or obligations under these terms and conditions or any related order for products to any third party unless agreed upon in writing by Character-online.com

These terms and conditions do not create or confer any rights or benefits enforceable by any party that is not a party within the meaning of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

Privacy

The purpose of this policy is to set out how Character-online.com gathers and uses personal information that we may obtain about you.

We are committed to the protection of your privacy. All personal information given to us through this website will only be held and used in accordance with this policy and the Data Protection Act 2018 as amended from time to time. Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to the terms and practices described in this Privacy Policy. We may occasionally modify this Privacy Policy, such modifications becoming effective immediately when posted on the website and by continuing to use the website you will be deemed to accept any such modifications.

Electronic Communications

By using this website, you consent to receiving communications from us electronically and agree that electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing. We may communicate with you by email or by posting notices on the website.

Collection & Use Of Information

We collect data from customers when they register and make a purchase online. The type of information our customers will be asked to provide includes their name, email address and telephone number. We also gather data about our customers from their use of the website. We may supplement the information that you provide to us with information that we receive from third parties.

We use this data to corroborate our customers' identity, process payments, manage orders including delivery, communicate with customers about orders, products, services and promotions, manage customer accounts, display personalised content such as wish lists and recommend merchandise and services that might be of interest. Once we have obtained your consent, which you may provide us by clicking on the opt-in box when registering on this website, we may keep you informed of any of our products and services (including discounts and special offers) by email, telephone or otherwise which we believe you might be interested in. We also use this data to develop and improve the services we offer and to enable us to further develop this website to be of use to customers and to manage security.

When you view this website by linking from another web page, Character-online.com may store the name of that web page for the purposes of internal administration and analysis.

With Whom Do We Share Information?

In order to process your registration and any order, and to enable management of this website, your personal information may be passed to employees and agents of Character-online.com and to third party service providers who may process your information on our behalf and under our control. Such persons or organisations are either subject to this Privacy Policy or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Policy.

In addition, we are entitled to carry out any other processing of your personal information as permitted by law and as required by us to protect, defend and establish our legal rights.

We may monitor use and other traffic patterns in order to optimise your use of the website and also share non-personal, anonymous, aggregate statistics (group) data about visitors to this website with connected or third parties, but these statistics will not include information that personally identifies you.

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties except as outlined above or with your consent or in the unlikely event that we are required to do so to enforce or apply our terms and conditions or by court order or other legal requirement. This includes passing on information to other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Accuracy & Access To Personal Information:

You can check that the information which we are holding on you is accurate by accessing your account online if you are registered (click on 'Your Account' at the top of the screen, enter your email address and password to log on and view your details) or emailing us at [email protected]. If any of the information is incorrect, please email us with the correct details. Also, even if you have consented to receive marketing information from us you can request that we do not contact you with further information by emailing us at any time.

You may provide a link (but not a framed link) to the home page of this website but not (save with our prior written agreement) in any way, which (i) gives the impression that we are associated with, sponsored by or have approved such other website or the products or services set out therein or (ii) which damages, appropriates or dilutes the goodwill associated with the name, logo, symbol or trademark of Character-online.com

Apart from this you may not link from another internet site or equivalent entity to materials or information on this website or reproduce or store any part of this website on any other website without our prior written consent.

All links shall be entitled Character-online.com or such other name as specified by Character-online.com from time to time (the "Link Name"). Nothing in these terms and conditions shall grant to anyone any rights in the Link Name, the Character-online.com website or any other intellectual property of Character-online.com or any of its subsidiaries.

Security - Check Software / Server Details

Character-online.co.m is committed to providing a secure service. We have taken all the essential measures to make sure that any information you give us, including credit card details, remains private and secure and that your payment and registration information is processed in confidence.

Our security procedures mean that we may occasionally require proof of identity before we are able to disclose sensitive information to you.

Character-online.com uses a secure server protected by an authentic SSL certificate. Your personal information and credit card information is transmitted in an encrypted form from your device to the server.

This secure server software (SSL) encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. We currently use 128-bit encryption, which is the highest level of protection that is currently available. Furthermore, as required by the UK Data Protection laws, we follow strict security procedures in the collection, storage and disclosure of information, which you have given us, to prevent, unauthorised access. For example, your credit card details are never stored on a server that would be accessible via the Internet. This is a further step for your protection.

Although we endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information, Character-online.com cannot be responsible for any losses you may incur in transmitting information to us by internet link or by email unless this is due to our negligence or wilful default. Any such loss shall not be borne either wholly or partly by us, and shall be entirely your responsibility.

Competition

All Character-Online.com competitions are free to enter, and are finished when the end date arrives. All winners will be notified by email. Our decision is final.

Overseas Orders

Please be aware overseas orders will take longer than 2 days to arrive, the exact timescales are available from the Customer Services tab on the website.

International Deliveries

· We can deliver your order to almost any international destination. The delivery charge for your order will be shown on the delivery details page, based on the total weight and volume of the order and your delivery address.

Customs

· Please note: It is a legal requirement that we declare the full value of the goods on all packages destined outside the European Union, and shipments may be subject to import duties and taxes, which are levied once a shipment reaches your country. Additional charges for customs clearance must be borne by you; unfortunately we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they may be. In the event of returning goods on which duty has been paid, if you have paid import duty for goods received, and subsequently return the goods to us, it should be possible for you to claim a refund of duties from your local Customs authority. To do this, you will need to show them proof of duty paid and proof of export (e.g. certificate of posting) when claiming your refund.

Should you have any further queries on duties payable/refundable, please contact your local Customs authority.