Terms of Service

1. Who we are, and what these terms are

Tell Me Your Story is operated by Mark Griffiths, 38 Botley Gardens, Southampton SO19 0SW, United Kingdom. In these terms, "we" and "us" mean that business, and "you" means the person holding the account.

These terms are the contract between us. By creating an account or buying anything, you agree to them. If there is something here you are not willing to agree to, please do not use the service — and if it is something we ought to reconsider, tell us.

These terms are written for consumers buying for themselves or as a gift. If you are buying for a business, some of the protections described below do not apply to you by law.

2. What the service does

Tell Me Your Story asks guided questions, records the answers as voice recordings or typed text, stores them with your photographs, and can turn them into a printed book with QR codes that play the recordings.

There are three parts:

• A free account. You can answer questions, record stories and see them in the service without paying anything.
• Paid digital features, bought once rather than by subscription, starting at £3.99.
• Printed books, starting at £21.99 including delivery within the United Kingdom.

Prices are shown on the site and include VAT where it applies. We may change our prices, but never for something you have already bought.

3. Your account

You must be 18 or over to hold an account.

Keep your login details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens through your account, unless someone else's fault is the reason it happened.

If you think someone else has got into your account, tell us straight away and we will help you secure it.

4. Your stories belong to you

You own your content. Your recordings, your transcripts, your written answers and your photographs are yours. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of them to us.

You give us permission to store, copy, transcribe, format and print that content, solely so that we can provide the service you have asked for. That permission ends when you delete the content or close your account, except where we have to keep a copy for a reason set out in our Privacy Policy.

We will not use your content to train artificial intelligence models, we will not use it in our marketing without asking you first, and we will not show it to anyone you have not shared it with.

5. Recording other people

Most of our customers record a parent or grandparent. If you do:

• You must have that person's agreement before you record them, upload photographs of them or write down their stories.
• If they cannot agree for themselves, only go ahead if you are legally entitled to act on their behalf.
• If you are recording a child, you must be their parent or guardian, or have that person's agreement.
• You must have the right to use any photograph you upload.

If someone whose stories are in your account asks us to remove them, we will, and we will tell you we have done so.

6. What you must not do

Please do not use the service to store or print anything unlawful, anything that infringes someone else's rights, or anything intended to harass or harm another person. Please do not try to break into other accounts, disrupt the service, or get around its technical limits.

7. Paying

Payments are taken by Stripe. We never see or store your full card details.

You will see the item, the total price and any delivery cost before you pay, and you can correct your details up to that point. Your contract with us is formed when we send you a confirmation email, not when you click to pay.

8. Cancelling a digital purchase

Because you are buying online, you normally have 14 days to change your mind and get your money back.

Digital content can be an exception to that, but only where you have agreed to it. If at checkout we ask you to confirm two things — that you want access straight away, and that you understand you are giving up the 14-day right by taking it — and you agree, then once we have given you access the right no longer applies.

If we have not asked you to confirm that, you keep the full 14 days. Email hello@tellmeyourstory.uk within 14 days of your purchase and we will refund you. You can use the form at the end of these terms, but any clear message is enough.

None of this affects your legal rights if something is wrong with what you bought. See section 11.

9. Printed books

Ordering. You choose what goes in the book and we send it to our print partner, Lulu, who prints and delivers it.

Delivery. Expect ⚠️ SET DELIVERY DAYS ⚠️ working days for UK delivery. We publish a Christmas cut-off date each year; order before it and we expect the book to arrive before Christmas, though once a parcel is with a courier the final leg is not in our hands.

Cancelling. Printed books are made to your specification from your family's own content, and are personalised to you. The law does not give a right to cancel goods that are made to your specification or clearly personalised, so once we have sent your book to print we cannot cancel or refund it. We will tell you clearly at the point of ordering when that moment is, and up to that moment you can cancel for a full refund.

If something is wrong with it, we fix it. This is separate from cancellation and is not affected by the paragraph above. If your book arrives damaged, misprinted, bound badly, incomplete, or materially different from what you approved, tell us within 30 days and we will reprint and resend it free of charge, or refund you if you would rather. If it does not arrive at all, the same applies. We will not ask you to argue with the courier on our behalf.

10. Your recordings are not only in one place

We keep encrypted backups, and we work hard not to lose anything. But no online service should be the only copy of something irreplaceable.

The service lets you download your recordings and your finished book, and we recommend you do, and keep a copy somewhere of your own. If you want help getting your content out, ask us and we will help.

11. If something goes wrong

You have legal rights that these terms cannot take away. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015:

• Digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for its purpose and as described. If it is not, you are entitled to have it repaired or replaced, or to a price reduction.
• Goods must be of satisfactory quality, fit for their purpose and as described. If they are not, you have a short-term right to reject them within 30 days, and rights to repair, replacement or a refund after that.
• If faulty digital content damages your device or your other files, you may be entitled to compensation.

We aim to keep the service running well, but we do not promise it will never be unavailable — we may need to take it down for maintenance, and things occasionally break.

What we do not limit. We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, for your statutory rights as a consumer, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

What we do limit. Beyond the above, we are not liable for losses that were not a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract, or for business losses — lost profit, lost revenue, lost business opportunity. Except where the paragraphs above give you a greater remedy, our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

12. Gifts

If you buy as a gift, the contract is with you, not the recipient. You get the cancellation rights described above; the recipient gets the book.

13. Suspending or closing an account

You can close your account at any time from your account settings, or by emailing us.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, is being used unlawfully, or is being used in a way that endangers other people's content. Unless the law prevents it or there is a serious risk in doing so, we will tell you why first and give you a chance to put it right, and we will give you a reasonable opportunity to download your content.

If we close your account for a reason that is not your fault, we will refund anything you have paid for and not received.

14. Changes

We may change these terms — for example, if the law changes or we add a new feature. If a change affects you, we will email you at least 14 days beforehand. If you do not accept the change, you may close your account and we will refund anything you have paid for and not received.

We may change or withdraw features. If we withdraw something you have paid for and cannot offer a reasonable equivalent, we will refund the appropriate part of what you paid.

15. Complaints

Please email hello@tellmeyourstory.uk and tell us what has gone wrong. We will acknowledge it within two working days and aim to resolve it within 14 days.

If we cannot sort it out between us, you can get free advice from Citizens Advice on 0808 223 1133 or at citizensadvice.org.uk, who can refer the matter to Trading Standards.

16. Law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes may be brought in the courts of England and Wales.

If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in your own courts. If you live outside the United Kingdom, nothing here removes the mandatory consumer protections of the country you live in.

17. Emails we send you

Service emails are part of the product — your order confirmation, delivery updates, the prompts and reminders that make the service work. You get these because you have an account with us, and they stop when you close it.

Marketing emails about new features and offers are separate. We only send them if you have asked for them, and every one has an unsubscribe link that works immediately. You can change your mind at any time, in your account settings or by replying to any email and saying so.

We will never sell or rent your email address.

18. Other terms

If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.

If we do not enforce something straight away, that does not mean we have given it up.

This contract is between you and us. Nobody else can enforce it.

19. Contact

Mark Griffiths, 38 Botley Gardens, Southampton SO19 0SW
hello@tellmeyourstory.uk

Model cancellation form

You do not have to use this form — any clear statement will do — but you may find it easier.

To Mark Griffiths, 38 Botley Gardens, Southampton SO19 0SW, hello@tellmeyourstory.uk:

I hereby give notice that I cancel my contract for the supply of the following:

Ordered on / received on:

Name:

Address:

Signature (only if sending this on paper):

Date: