Terms of use

Description of Service

thebentbox.com is a platform, it is not a financial institution, merchant, creditor, charity, advisor or broker of any kind.

TheBentBox is designed to allow a Creator (see below definition) to register and customise a page such as www.thebentbox.com/username.

Creators can customise the page with images, text and video and use the page to facilitate the acceptance of monetary Donations (“Donations”), the sale of commissions (“Commissions”), and other forms of Creator content which shall be collectively referred to as “Creator Content”.

Supporters are able to follow, donate, purchase or subscribe to receive Creator Content.

Acceptance of Terms

By accessing this platform, you are agreeing to be bound by these terms of use and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws.

If you do not agree with any of these terms, you are prohibited from using or accessing this site. The materials contained in this platform are protected by applicable copyright and trademark law.

Changes to These Terms and our site

We may amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our site, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time. These terms were last updated in March 2022. We may also update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to subscriptions, Memberships, different features, our users' needs, changes in the law, regulatory requirements and our business priorities. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any major changes.

Disclaimer

The materials on TheBentBox's platform are provided "as is". TheBentBox makes no warranties, representations or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights including without limitation in respect of: (i) the materials provided on TheBentBox’s platform; and (ii) all transactions in relation to Creator Content, Donations, Memberships or any other type of good or service. Further, TheBentBox does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the materials on its website or the contents of any sites linked to this site. TheBentBox does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or correctness of user-generated content. TheBentBox does not explicitly or implicitly condone or support any message or claim made by any of its users.

TheBentBox is a listing platform only and doesn't guarantee or endorse any Creator Content. Any disputes, errors, revision requests or other such communication regarding Creator Content, Donations or Memberships should be made directly to the Creator. TheBentBox is not responsible for refunds or managing disputes resulting from any such transactions. All transactions relating to Creator Content, including without limitation, Commissions, Products, Donations, Memberships or any other form of purchase are with the relevant Creator only. Creators are listed as third-party sellers identified on the TheBentBox platform, which facilitates third party sales and transactions. TheBentBox does not identify itself as the seller of any goods or services as aforesaid, and buyers shall have no recourse against TheBentBox for any purchases of the same.

Acceptable Use for Creators

A Creator is defined as someone who registers a TheBentBox page or uses the TheBentBox platform in any way to solicit Donations, messages, post content and sell Creator Content or Memberships. As a Creator you are solely responsible for all text, images, videos, links and other content that you create, upload, post, publish or display using TheBentBox.

As a Creator, whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site, or to make contact with other users of our site, you warrant that you have the necessary authorisation to provide this information. You will be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. This means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.

Any content you upload to our website will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content but you grant us and other users of our site a limited licence to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties. We may use this content to improve our site and our business without liability to you.

You also grant us the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

We have the right to check and remove any content or posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, this is reasonably necessary to protect our business.

As a Creator you agree to become a data controller, personally responsible for the lawful processing of any information provided to you on TheBentBox, for example, email addresses of followers or names and addresses of purchasers of goods or services you sell on TheBentBox. You will only use information about Supporters (including but not limited to donors, followers, buyers, subscribers) to communicate with Supporters in relation to their interactions with you on TheBentBox and in a lawful manner. You must provide Supporters with a way to withdraw their consent for the processing of their information, delete their data from your records and observe all legal requirements for the processing of personal information made available to you by TheBentBox.

To register a ‘Creator’ account you must be a minimum of 18 years of age.

You are prohibited from using the TheBentBox platform, service or page in connection with any of the following;

• Any activity that violates any law or governmental regulation industry requirements or money laundering regulation.
• Anything prohibited by the payment providers connected to the platform such as PayPal Inc and Stripe. For the avoidance of doubt the acceptable use and prohibited activities can be found at
  • https://www.paypal.com/en/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full
  • https://stripe.com/gb/prohibited-businesses
• Content including but not limited to;
• Adult or sexually explicit content including but not limited to:
  • Pornography, nudity and any other obscene content;
  • Literature, imagery (including illustrative), videos, links to external sites or content containing such material; and
  • Sexual services such as prostitution, escorts, pay-per view, adult live chat features;
  • Content including links to and from the platform which is fraudulent, misleading, inaccurate or dishonest;
  • Violent or excessively gory content; and
  • Hate speech, intimidation or abuse of any kind targeting any individual, group or institution.
• Abuse of any kind targeting any individual, group or institution;
• Activity purposefully designed to harm the Creator in any way including financial harm with tactics such as chargebacks or fraudulent disputes;
• Transactions for the sale of items or goods or services with the purpose of avoiding paying taxes;
• Products or services that directly infringe or facilitate infringement upon the trademark, patent, copyright, trade secrets, or proprietary or privacy rights of any third party;
• Raffles, lotteries, giveaways or games of chance where a fee is paid to enter and winners are selected at random;
• Any other activity that TheBentBox may deem in its sole discretion to be unacceptable.

Supporter Specific Terms

A Supporter is defined as any person or entity providing payments, Donations or messages to a Creator page or Commissioning a Creator. TheBentBox does not guarantee that any Creator page, goal, post, message or content of any kind is legitimate, accurate, truthful or lawful. It is always the responsibility of the Supporter to determine if they wish to support a Creator and they should only do so after seeking the appropriate financial, legal, tax or other professional advice where appropriate.

To register as a ‘Supporter’ or use the TheBentBox platform in any way you must be a minimum of 18 years of age.

Some activities such as supporter messages are (by default) public and may be used by TheBentBox across the internal platform or other external websites, social media pages or other entities. To keep messages of support private you must choose the option marked ‘Private’ when using the TheBentBox support service. Even when ‘Private’ is chosen, personal details may still be shared by the Payments provider between the buyer and the seller depending upon the type of account held with the Payments provider.

You are prohibited from using the TheBentBox platform, service and any page in connection with any of the following;

• Any activity that violates any law or governmental regulation industry requirements or money laundering regulation.
• Anything prohibited by the payment providers connected to the platform such as PayPal Inc and Stripe. For the avoidance of doubt the acceptable use and prohibited activities can be found at
  • https://www.paypal.com/en/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full
  • https://stripe.com/gb/prohibited-businesses
• Content including but not limited to;
• Adult or sexually explicit content including but not limited to:
  • Pornography, nudity and any other obscene content;
  • Literature, imagery (including illustrative), videos, links to external sites or content containing such material; and
  • Sexual services such as prostitution, escorts, pay-per view, adult live chat features;
  • Content including links to and from the platform which is fraudulent, misleading, inaccurate or dishonest;
  • Violent or excessively gory content; and
  • Hate speech, intimidation or abuse of any kind targeting any individual, group or institution.
• Abuse of any kind targeting any individual, group or institution;
• Activity purposefully designed to harm the Creator in any way including financial harm with tactics such as chargebacks or fraudulent disputes;
• Transactions for the sale of items or goods or services with the purpose of avoiding paying taxes;
• Products or services that directly infringe or facilitate infringement upon the trademark, patent, copyright, trade secrets, or proprietary or privacy rights of any third party;
• Any other activity that TheBentBox may deem in its sole discretion to be unacceptable.

We have the right to check and remove any content or posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, this is reasonably necessary to protect our business.

TheBentBox will not investigate or be held liable in any way for Donations given in error, refund requests or monetary disputes of any kind between the Creator and the Supporter.

Creator Content

Creators can accept Commissions, solicit Donations and sell Products, Memberships or any other form of Creator Content (subject to applicable fees).

The contractual relationship entered into for any transaction in relation to Creator Content, Donations or Memberships shall be directly between the Creator and the Supporter or buyer. The Creator is responsible for supplying the relevant buyer with its own appropriate terms and conditions relating to any such sales of the Creator Content.

TheBentBox will not be a party to any agreements, discussions, disputes, demands or otherwise in relation to sales of Creator Content or Memberships or in relation to any solicited Donation, and will not be held responsible for any returns, damages, claims or loss arising from them.

Payments

TheBentBox is not a payments provider. Payments are made directly from Supporters to Creators externally to TheBentBox using a third party payment provider (e.g. PayPal, Inc., and Stripe, Inc.).

By using TheBentBox you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of any third party payment providers associated with the Platform and they will be responsible for all matters relating to payment and use of your card details.

Payment providers may display the personal details of your payments account depending upon your account type even when a Donation is marked ‘Private’. You should consult the payment provider directly and prior to using TheBentBox should you have any questions or concerns about the information displayed when making a payment.

Fees

We reserve the right to change our fees and charge additional fees in the future for any type of transaction. We shall charge fees in relation to applicable subscriptions and transactions, as listed from time to time on our site. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you agree that TheBentBox does not identify itself as the seller of Creator Content, Memberships or any other goods or services, and that TheBentBox is not a party to any Donation solicited by a Creator. You agree that any purchases or Donations you make on our site are with Creators, who act as third-party sellers identified on the TheBentBox platform.

Creators may be required to pay fees for subscriptions – you will be notified of the subscription fees at the time of entering into your subscription. Please note that the type of subscription you choose may impact your transaction fees. Depending on subscription or type of transaction, TheBentBox may not take any fees, subject to us reserving the right to charge additional fees in the future for any type of subscription, transaction, purchase or donation.

For other types of subscription, transaction or any other TheBentBox feature, we may charge fees. All applicable transaction fees in relation to Creator Content, Donations, Memberships or any other goods or services, shall automatically be deducted from the relevant transaction by one of our third-party payment providers.

Taxes

It is your responsibility to determine what, if any, taxes apply to the Donations, Subscriptions and Sales you receive through your use of the services. It is solely your responsibility to assess, collect, report or remit the correct tax, if any, to the appropriate tax authority.

Linking to the Site and Scraping

You may not scrape content from this site and repost such content, either manually or automatically, without TheBentBox’s prior written consent. This site must not be framed on any other site without our prior written permission. We reserve the right to withdraw linking, scraping and framing permission without notice. If you wish to make any use of material on this website other than that set out above, please address your request to info@thebentbox.com. Linking to this site should only be for the purpose of promoting a specific page as a Creator and should follow the Creator Specific Terms outlined above. Bots or other automatic means must not be used to interact with our website.

Links to External Sites

TheBentBox has not reviewed the sites linked to its Internet platform and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by TheBentBox of the site. Use of any such linked platform is at the user's own risk. We do not have control over the contents of those sites or resources.

Account Details

If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.

We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us at info@thebentbox.com.

Personal Data

We will use your personal information only in accordance with our Privacy Policy (available at https://thebentbox.com/privacy). Our Privacy Policy describes how we handle the information you provide to us when you use our site. You understand that through your use of our site you consent to the collection and use of your personal information as set forth in the Privacy Policy.

You must not upload or use another individual’s personal information without the consent or approval of that individual.

Any transaction facilitated by TheBentBox is paid by the Supporter to the Creator via PayPal or Stripe. TheBentBox has no control over the information that passes to PayPal or Stripe nor the communication or display of names or personal information on its website that arise from the Supporter’s payment made via PayPal or Stripe. For details of how Stripe or PayPal may use your personal information, you should refer to their respective privacy policies.

TheBentBox and Creators using TheBentBox process Supporters (including but not limited to followers, donors, subscribers and buyers) personal data and as such are considered separate and independent data controllers of Supporters personal data. Each party is responsible for the personal information entered on TheBentBox. Both Creators and Supporters acknowledge TheBentBox will not be held responsible for any disclosure or misuse of personal data by a Creator. By using this service Creators hereby indemnify TheBentBox for any expenses, damages or fines incurred as a result of your use of the personal information obtained from the use of TheBentBox.

Limitation of Liability

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so.

If you are a Creator:

• We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
• We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
  • use of or inability to use, our site; or
  • use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.
• In particular, we will not be liable for:
  • loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
  • business interruption;
  • loss of anticipated savings;
  • loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
  • any indirect or consequential loss or damage.‍

If you are a Supporter:

• You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

Bugs or Viruses

We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses and you are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our website. You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse our website by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

Trademarks and Copyright

Our trademarks and trade dress may not be used in connection with any good or service without the prior written consent of TheBentBox.

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others to content posted on our site. You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

Revisions and Errata

The materials appearing on TheBentBox's platform could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. TheBentBox does not warrant that any of the materials on its platform are accurate, complete, or current. TheBentBox may make changes to the materials contained on its platform at any time without notice. TheBentBox does not, however, make any commitment to update the materials.

Termination

Creators:

TheBentBox may terminate or suspend any and all services and/or your TheBentBox Creator account immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.

If you have signed up to a subscription, you can find information about your cancellation rights on our site. You will need to cancel your subscription in accordance with these cancellation rights to stop your recurring payments for the relevant subscription. Merely deleting your account without cancelling your subscription will not stop these payments.

TheBentBox may terminate or suspend your subscription, at anytime and without liability, in the event that:

• You fail to pay any amount due for your Creator subscription account on the due date for payment and remain in default not less than 30 days after being notified in writing to make such payment; or
• You commit a material breach of these terms of use.

We can also terminate or suspend your subscription at any time without giving a reason. In these circumstances, we shall provide you with a refund of your subscription fees for the remainder of your subscription period.

Supporters:

TheBentBox may terminate or suspend any and all services and/or your TheBentBox Supporter account immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach these terms of use.

Upon termination of your account, your right to use thebentbox.com will immediately cease. All provisions of the terms of use shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

Governing Law

These terms of use, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by Swiss law. You and TheBentBox agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Switzerland.