General Terms & Conditions

1.0 Contractual Object:

The following General Terms and Conditions (GTC) apply to orders and delivery of products ordered by means of online shopping on the internet via www.upgradingearth.org and form an integral part of each purchase agreement concluded between a customer as buyer (hereafter referred to as “customer”) and TwelveGates as seller, the proprietor of the Upgrading Earth website, books, and branded products.  In order to be valid, deviations from these GTC’s must be agreed in writing.  In the event individual provisions of these general sales terms are fully or partially invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions or the remaining parts of such provisions shall not be affected.

2.0 Exclusive Application of the GTC:

The following GTC shall exclusively apply within the framework of these services.

3.0 Contractual Partner/Customer Service:

The contractual agreement is made with TwelveGates e.U., for further information about us please see the Disclaimer. If you have any questions, please us between Monday to Friday from 09:00 – 17:00 Central European Time (CET) at support@upgradingearth.org. You will have a response from us within 24 hours.

4.0 Conclusion of the Contract:

By clicking the order button, you place a binding order for the goods in the basket.  Confirmation of receipt of the order takes place together with acceptance of the order immediately after sending by an automated email.  The purchase agreement is concluded upon delivery of the goods.

5.0 Termination of Order:

You can amend your order any time by means of the delete key prior to placing the order.  You can also end the order process any time by closing the browser window. Pease see further section 12 on right of cancellation, withdrawal and returns

6.0 Prices:

6.1 All prices are quoted in the regional currency zone as defined by the seller. Pricing is quoted in one of the following currencies: USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, SEK, DKK, CHF, AUD, NZD, JPY. This is defined by the respective Geocaching address of the region and the defined currency zone.

6.2 All prices quoted include all applicable taxes. Prices exclude shipping which will be calculated at the time of checkout according to the sales region.

6.3 TwelveGates e.U. currently sits registered as a small company in Austria according to the small business rules of § 6 [1] Z 27 UStG > Kleinunternehmerregelung. This means as a company, we are legally obliged to pay sales taxes on the supplier side of our business. Yet, at the same time the company sales thresholds do not fall into the category of needing to legally charge and collect VAT or sales tax on the buyers side. These regulations also fall in line with National standards of each country. Key countries including 50 states of the United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and across the entire European Union. Therefore, final sales price to the customer is not required to be displayed until at which time, by legal requirements the company has crossed the sales thresholds and are required to charge sales tax and VAT to the customer at point of sale.

7.0 Delivery:

7.1. We work with an on-demand order fulfillment company with facilities worldwide! Unless otherwise stated in the offer, orders are made on demand and shipped within 2-7 working days after receipt of payment. 97.66% of our orders are processed and shipped within 5 business days. More than 50% of our orders are processed and shipped within 3 business days or fewer.

7.2 Delivery Times Currently Stand as Follows:

United States: 2 – 5 Days
Canada, India, South East Asia, Korea: 6-10 Days
Mexico: 8 – 14 Days
South America, China: 8 – 14 Days
Nordic Countries: 5 – 7 Days
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: 3 – 6 Days
Rest of Europe Not Mentioned: 3 – 7 Days
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus: 7 – 12 Days
Turkey, Central Asia, Middle East Regions: 8 – 11 Days
Africa incl RSA: 8 – 20 Days
Australia, New Zealand: 2 – 14 Days
Japan: 4 – 8 Days

7.3 In the event that a specific product is only being fulfilled from only the USA or only Europe. Please allow between 15 – 20 days timeframe for delivery.

7.4 In the unexpected event a product ordered by a customer is not available, despite timely arrangements, for reasons beyond TwelveGates control, TwelveGates will notify the customer immediately about the product not being available. In the event of a cancellation due to unavailability of the product. TwelveGates will refund the customer for any payments made.

7.5 In the event of delays of a delivery due to reasons beyond TwelveGates control (force majeure, third party’s fault, etc.) the deadline will be adjusted accordingly.

7.6 In the event of a default of acceptance by the customer we are entitled to withdraw from the contract and to demand and keep the costs arisen in connection with the default of acceptance.

7.7 An additional customs and duty-tax fee can occur on international orders. This fee is not in our control and is assessed by your local customs office. Customs policies vary widely for every country so please check with your local customs office directly to see if they apply duties and taxes to your purchases. These costs will not be borne by TwelveGates but by the customer.

8.0 Retention of Title:

TwelveGates (Upgrading Earth) retains the title to the ordered products until the purchase price has been paid in full by the customer.

9.0 Payment:

Payment is made in advance, by instant transfer or credit card. Current processing of payments is conducted via our payment’s providers of either: PayPal or Stripe.

10.0 Shipping Costs:

Shipping costs will be calculated at the time of checkout and provided to the end customer in the sales cart. Prices will be displayed in one of the following currencies depending on the sales region: USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, SEK, DKK, CHF, AUD, NZD, JPY.

11.0 Collection by the Customer:

We only deliver by way of shipping as all products are printed on demand from the regional print facility.

12.0 Right of Cancellation, Withdrawal and Returns:

12.1 Returns
Due to the print-on-demand nature of all our products we cannot offer returns or exchanges for change of heart or incorrect sizes chosen. Please check the size guide provided within each product listing together with the detailed product description before placing your order. If you have any doubts or questions we are happy to assist you. You can contact us at orders@upgradingearth.org and you will receive a reply within 24 hours.

12.2 Faulty and Incorrect Items
In the rare event that you have received wrongly shipped items or damaged items, please contact us within 3 days of receipt of your goods. We require 2 photographs of the damage or error, a close up and full product photo.

We cannot accept any claims for faulty goods if they have been used, worn or in any way tampered with and we cannot accept any consequential losses relating to the purchase of these goods.

Please register the problem by contacting us at orders@upgradingearth.org providing your name, order number and photos and a brief explanation of what went wrong. You will receive a reply from us within 24 hours and if your claim is approved we will organize a replacement for you.

12.3   Right of Withdrawal
Our customers from EU countries are legally entitled to withdraw from this agreement within fourteen days without providing reasons as per EU Law. Customers from all other countries including Switzerland are excluded from the right of withdrawal and are held to the terms found in section 12.1.
The right of withdrawal will expire fourteen days from the day on which you or a third party named by you other than the carrier have or has taken possession of the last goods. In order to exercise your right of withdrawal you must notify us per physical post at TwelveGates e.U. Erdberger Lände 26/1/10, 1030, Vienna, Austria or email: orders@upgradingearth.org by means of a clear statement about your decision to withdraw from this agreement.

12.4   Consequences of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this agreement, we must refund all payments received from you immediately and within fourteen days from the day we received the notice concerning your withdrawal from this contact, at the latest. For this refund we will use the same means of payment used by you for the original transaction, unless another type of refund was expressly agreed with you; under no circumstances will we charge a fee for these refunds. We are entitled to refuse a refund until we get the goods back or you provide us with proof that you have returned the goods, whichever happens earlier. You must return or present the goods to us immediately and in any event within fourteen days from the day you notified us of the withdrawal of this agreement at the latest.

Address for returns within the EU countries: 
Erdberger Lände 26/1/10, 1030, Vienna, Austria. The deadline is met if you send the goods prior to expiry of the deadline of fourteen days. You shall bear the immediate costs for the return of the goods. You are only responsible to pay for loss in value of the goods if said loss in value is due to the fact that you handled the goods in a way that was not necessary for inspection of the quality, characteristics and functionality of the goods.

13.0 Offsetting

You are only entitled to offset your counter claims if these have been legally established or are uncontested or have been acknowledged by us in writing.

14.0 Warranty terms

Customers’ claims against TwelveGates in the event of defects depend on the legal provisions within the statutory time limits, unless deviations result from the following regulations. Damages caused by the customer’s incorrect measures or measures in breach of the contract in the course of handling or storage, do not constitute a claim against TwelveGates.  The incorrectness and breach of contract is determined by the manufacturer’s or TwelveGates specifications, in particular.  In the event of obvious defects and transport damages, the customer is asked to notify TwelveGates immediately of these defects and will be managed according to section 12.2 above.

15.0 Vouchers and Discount Codes

Discount codes sent by mail or email are only valid until the respective expiry date. Only one discount code may be redeemed per order. Cash settlement of vouchers or discount codes is not possible.

16.0 Data Protection

For information on data protection please see here.

17.0 Links to other websites

To the extent that we refer or provide links to third party websites on our website, we cannot accept any warranty or liability for the correctness or completeness of the contents and data security of these websites. As we do not have any influence on compliance with data protection regulations by third parties, you should examine the respective privacy statements separately.

18.0 Newsletter

With your consent we will use your email address for sending you our newsletter.  You can cancel our newsletter at any time by contacting the email address stated in the disclaimer. We will confirm your cancellation of the newsletter by email.

19.0 Final provisions

In the event one or several of the provisions of these GTC is / are ineffective, this does not entail the invalidity of the entire agreement.  The ineffective provision will be replaced by the relevant statutory provision. English is the contractual, order and business language.

19.1 Any disputes shall be settled by the competent court at the contractor’s registered office.

19.2 Austrian substantive law applies. The application of the UN sales convention shall be excluded.

19.3 With regards to all claims brought against consumers having their place of residence, habitual domicile or place of employment in Austria, due to disputes arising from this agreement, the competent court shall be one of the courts of the district where the consumer has his / her place of residence, habitual domicile or place of employment.

Link to the EU-Commission’s platform for out-of-court online dispute resolution (so-called ODR-platform): https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/index.cfm?event=main.home.show&lng=EN

Status quo: Version 15.12.2020-20201215, Dec 2020