Assistance IT - Your Local IT Company

0845 017 9710

Terms and conditions

Agreement for the use of the Assistance IT site

Welcome to the User Agreement and privacy statement for assistanceit.co.uk

a) Privacy Statement and the Data Protection Act 1998
We will treat all your personal information as private and confidential, except where disclosure is made at your request or with your consent or where we are required by law to disclose.
We will use your information for the purposes of administration and general statistical and management information and to identify suppliers that might meet your needs.
Except where Assistance IT Limited is required to disclose by law, we will treat all your information as confidential and will not disclose any such information except where a disclosure is made at your request or with your consent.
Where necessary for the above purposes you consent to our processing data that is defined as sensitive by the Data Protection Act. Assistance IT Limited, its agents and sub-contractors will apply appropriate technical and organisational measures against the unauthorised processing of personal data and against accidental loss of, or damage to personal data. By providing your data you agree to your data being used and transferred as stated above.
We may wish to contact you by mail, telephone, email or fax about forthcoming events or site enhancements which may interest you.
If you do not wish to receive such information, please email to unsubscribe@assistanceit.co.uk.
Any individual (eg a supplier’s technician) has the right to ask for a copy of their information (subject to a £10 fee). Please write to: The Data Protection Officer, Assistance IT Ltd, 1 Hammersmith Grove, London W6 0NB.
We also obtain data and information by using cookies. A cookie is a piece of software that is placed on your computer's hard drive. A cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets us know when users visit a particular web page. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual user. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You may disable the cookie function in your browser should you choose to do so.

b) The User Agreement ("User Agreement")
The services available at http://www.assistanceit.co.uk are provided by OrderWork Ltd (Registered No: 05662167), of 145-157 St John St, London EC1V 4PY ("Assistance IT", "we", "us" or "our").
You are a user ("User") of our services. This User Agreement describes the terms and conditions applicable to your use of our services ("Services") available under the domain and sub-domains at http://www.assistanceit.co.uk (the "Site"). If you do not agree to be bound by this User Agreement, you may not use or access our services. The acceptance of this Agreement means that you agree to be legally bound by all of the terms and conditions in this Agreement, as related to Clients as the case may be.
You must read, agree with and accept all of the terms and conditions contained in this User Agreement, which includes those terms and conditions expressly set out below and those incorporated by reference, before you may become a user of the Site
We may amend this User Agreement at any time by giving you notice ("Notice") by either e-mail or by posting the amended User Agreement on the Site. Any amended User Agreement will govern new user registrations from the date that it is posted on the Site. Existing users will be bound by the amended User Agreement after the expiry of 14 days following the date of a Notice. No other amendment to this User Agreement will be effective. Please note that different notice provisions apply to our Fees and Credit policy as set out below.
The Assistance IT Site is designed to be used within the United Kingdom (“UK”) only. Use of the Site for any activity outside of the UK is prohibited.
Information on the Site is restricted for the sole purpose of obtaining the Services. Any other use, commercial or personal, is prohibited.
This User Agreement describes the terms and conditions applicable to your use of our Services available under the domain and sub-domains of the Site and the general principles for the web sites of our other divisions or subsidiaries as they may exist. If you do not agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this User Agreement, please do not use or access our Services.

I. General Terms and Conditions (applies to all Users)

A. Eligibility to use our services
Our Services are available only to corporate or other entities, or individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. Without limiting the foregoing, our Services are not available to minors, to anyone under 18 years of age, or to temporarily or indefinitely suspended Assistance IT members. If you do not qualify, please do not use our Services. Further, your Assistance IT account (including feedback) and User ID may not be transferred or sold to another party without our prior written consent. If you are registering as a business entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind the entity to this User Agreement.

B. Fees and services
Our current fees vary depending on the exact nature of the service requested and are listed on the site from time to time. We may change our Fees and credit policy from time to time. Our changes to the policy are effective immediately upon posting on the Site. We may in our sole discretion change some or all of our Services at any time and the Fees associated with them. In the event that we introduce a new service, the fees for that service will be effective at the launch of the service.
All Fees are quoted in GB Pounds Sterling. You are responsible for paying all Fees associated with using our Services and Site and all applicable taxes, such as VAT, if any.

C. Our Site is only a venue
Our Site acts as a venue to allow suppliers of IT services ("Suppliers") and customers for IT services ("Clients") to offer, sell, and buy IT services at any time using work orders ("Work Orders"). An agreed Work Order is a binding contract for services between the Supplier and the Client. Unless stated specifically in a work order, we are not involved in the actual transaction between Clients and Suppliers. As a result, we have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the services offered or advertised, the truth or accuracy of the services or the ability of Suppliers to provide services. We cannot ensure that a Client or Supplier will actually complete a transaction.

Identity verification
We use many techniques to identify our Users when they register on our site. However, because user verification on the Internet is difficult, and although Assistance IT does attempt to verify credentials of all Suppliers, Assistance IT cannot and does not confirm each User's purported identity. Thus, we have established a user-initiated feedback system ("Feedback System") to help you evaluate Suppliers. We encourage you to communicate directly with potential Suppliers through the tools available on our site to find out more about their credentials.
Liability
Because we are only a venue and not involved in the actual supply of services between Users, in the event that you have a dispute, claim or action with one or more Users, you agree that the dispute is between you and the other User(s) and you agree to release Assistance IT (and our officers, members, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures and employees) from all claims, demands, legal costs and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such dispute, claim or action.
Issues
In the event any User has any issues which may result in a claim against Assistance IT, arising solely from the provision of our Services, the User must raise such issue in writing with Assistance IT within thirty (30) days of the occurrence. Otherwise, Assistance IT shall be deemed released from any obligations it might have.

D. Information control
We do not control the information provided by other Users that is made available through our Site. You may find their information to be harmful, inaccurate or deceptive. Please use caution, common sense, and safe business practices when using our Site.

E. Third-party links and content
Links contained on the Site may cause a User to leave the Site. Any linked websites are not under the control of Assistance IT and Assistance IT is not responsible for the contents of any linked website or information contained in a linked website, or any changes or updates to such website. Assistance IT provides these links from the Site only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply any endorsement of the website or any of its contents. All Users' use of materials and information in third-party websites is at their own risk.

F. Your information

Definition
"Your Content" means any information you provide to us or make available to other Users which is designated as being publicly available content for use on the Site. You are solely responsible for Your Content, and we act as a passive conduit for your online distribution and publication of Your Content.
Restricted activities
Your Content, any information you provide to other Users and your activities on the Site must not:

be false, inaccurate or misleading;
be fraudulent or relate to the provision of services for which you are not qualified;
infringe any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy;
be in breach of English law or any other applicable law or regulation (including, but not limited to, those governing consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination or false advertising);
be defamatory, libellous, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing;
contain any viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, easter eggs or other computer programming routines that may damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information;
link directly or indirectly to or include descriptions of goods or services that are prohibited under this User Agreement; or
consummate any transaction that was initiated using our Site that, by paying to us any Fees could cause us to break any applicable law or regulation.

Licence
To enable Assistance IT to use Your Content, you grant us a non-exclusive, world-wide, perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid-up, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) licence to exercise the copyright, trade mark, publicity, and database rights you have in Your Content, in any media now known or not currently known. You also waive all moral rights you have in Your Content to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Data
All data derived or collected by Assistance IT from our Site, including but not limited to statistical information, IP addresses, or other relevant data shall belong to Assistance IT and you agree that Assistance IT shall have the right to use such data as it determines in its sole discretion. This includes the right to display industry affiliations, certifications and / or preferred provider network logos, where appropriate on the Site or in User profiles.

G. Access and interference

Our Site contains robot exclusion headers and you agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor or copy our Web pages or the content contained herein without our prior written consent.
You agree that you will not use any device, software or routine to bypass our robot exclusion headers, or to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site or any activities conducted on our Site.
You acknowledge that our Site and our Services are protected by our intellectual property rights. You will not take any action which might infringe those intellectual property rights.
You agree to receive all email/electronic transmissions sent by Assistance IT in connection with or relating to the Site or our Services. You also agree that Assistance IT may notify you of available Work Order(s), or Work Order updates by telephone, including automated message(s), using the telephone number(s) provided by you in your registration details.
Much of the information on our site is updated on a real-time basis and is proprietary or is licensed to Assistance IT by our Users or third parties. You agree that you will not copy, reproduce, alter, modify, create derivative works, or publicly display any content (except for Your Information) from our Site without the prior written consent of Assistance IT or the appropriate third party.

H. Breach
Without limiting other remedies, we may limit your activity on the Site, immediately remove you from the Site, warn our community of your actions, issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our Services to you if:

you breach this Agreement or the documents it incorporates by reference;
we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us ; or
we believe that your actions may cause any loss or liability for you, our Users or us.

I. Data Protection
We view protection of Users' privacy as a very important principle. Please note that your personal information will be stored and processed on our computers and Assistance IT will use reasonable endeavours to hold and transmit such information in a safe, confidential and secure environment in compliance with United Kingdom data protection laws. If you object to your information being transferred or used in this way please do not register.

J. No Warranty
We (and our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees) do not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted or secure access to our services, and operation of the Site may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control. Our Site and our Services are provided "as is" and as and when available, and to the extent permissible by law we exclude all implied warranties, conditions or other terms, whether implied by statute or otherwise, including without limitation any terms as to skill and care or timeliness of performance.

K. Force Majeure
If the delivery of our Services is delayed, prevented or otherwise made impracticable by reason of any acts of God, floods, earthquakes, or other natural catastrophes; national emergencies, strikes, lockouts or other labour difficulties; computer "hacking" attack or computer virus; any law, order, regulation or other action of any governing authority; or any other cause beyond Assistance IT's reasonable control, Assistance IT shall be excused from such delivery to the extent that its delay is prevented by such cause.

L. Assistance IT limit of liability
Nothing in this User Agreement shall limit or exclude our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, or for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or the negligence of our, agents or employees. Subject to the foregoing, we (including our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees) will not be liable for any economic losses (including, without limitation, loss of revenues, profits, contracts, business or anticipated savings), any loss of goodwill or reputation, or any special, indirect or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with this User Agreement.
We (including our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees) also have no liability of any sort (including liability for negligence) for the acts or omissions of other providers of telecommunications services or for faults in or failures of their networks and equipment.
Our liability to you or any third party, and the liability of our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees, in any circumstance is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you have paid to us in the one month period prior to the action giving rise to the liability, and (b) £100.

M. Supplier Limit of Liability
The Supplier's liability to the Client for death or injury resulting from his own negligence or that of his employees, agents or sub-contractors shall not be limited. The Supplier's entire liability to the Client in respect of any breach of his contractual obligations, any breach of warranty, any representation, statement or tortious act or omission including negligence arising under or in connection with this agreement shall be limited to the value of the Work Order, unless otherwise specified in the particular Work Order that has been accepted by the Supplier. The Supplier shall not be liable to the Client for any indirect or consequential loss the Client may suffer, even if the loss is reasonably foreseeable or the Supplier has been advised of the possibility of the Client incurring it.

N. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold us and (as applicable) our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents, and employees, harmless from any claim, demand or loss, including reasonable legal fees, made by any third party arising out of your breach of this User Agreement or use of the Site or Services. This indemnity shall not apply where such claim, demand or loss arises solely due to (a) our negligence or (b) our breach of this User Agreement.

O. No agency
You and Assistance IT are independent contractors, and no agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchiser-franchisee relationship is intended or created by this User Agreement.

P. Notices
Unless otherwise explicitly stated, notices to Assistance IT must be sent by registered mail to OrderWork Ltd, 145-157 St John St, London, EC1V 4PY, and notices to you will be sent to the email address that you provide to Assistance IT during the registration process (receipt is deemed 24 hours after an email is sent, unless we receive notice that the email address is invalid), or by registered mail.

Q. Arbitration
Any controversy or legal claim arising out of or relating to this User Agreement or our services, excluding legal action taken by Assistance IT to collect our Fees and/or recover damages for, or obtain an injunction relating to, the Site, intellectual property, and our Services, shall be settled by binding arbitration in accordance with the rules of the London Court of International Arbitration ("LCIA") which rules shall be incorporated by reference into this User Agreement. The number of arbitrators shall be three. The place and seat of arbitration shall be London, England. The language to be used in the arbitration proceedings shall be English.

R. Assignments
You agree that this User Agreement and all incorporated agreements may be automatically assigned by Assistance IT, in our sole discretion, to a third party in the event of a merger or acquisition or similar corporate transaction. You may not assign, license or sub-contract any of your rights or obligations under this User Agreement.

S. Third Party Rights
A person who is not a party to this User Agreement has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of this User Agreement but this does not affect any right or remedy of a third party specified in this User Agreement or which exists or is available apart from that Act

T. Intellectual Property Rights

The Client grants to the Supplier a royalty-free, world-wide, non-exclusive licence to use their content and other intellectual property solely for the purposes of completing the Work Order.
The Supplier assigns all right, title and interest to any intellectual property created during the completion of a Work Order to the Client with full title guarantee.
The Supplier shall at the request of the Client from time to time do all things and execute all documents the Client may reasonably require to give effect to the assignments in clause 2 above.
Except as expressly set out in clause 1 above, this agreement does not transfer or grant to the Supplier any right, title or interest in any intellectual property rights in or to the Client Content.

U. Non-solicitation of Staff
A User, whether acting as a Client or a Supplier, shall not directly or indirectly canvas with a view to offering or providing employment to, offer to contract with or entice to leave any employee of, or contractor to, another User who has been involved in the provision of services to that Client or Supplier as the case may be through Assistance IT within the last six months, without the prior written consent of Assistance IT and that Client or Supplier.

V. General
This Agreement shall be governed in all respects by the English law. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed deleted and the remaining provisions shall be enforced.
Headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section. Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. Except as otherwise indicated, all provisions of the User Agreement shall survive any termination or expiration of this Agreement.

II. Additional terms and conditions for Clients
You warrant that:

You agree to pay to Assistance IT the Fee specified each time you enter a Work Order request.
You acknowledge that Assistance IT has expended significant sums to create its Site, which is proprietary. You will not attempt to circumvent any aspect of the Site in any way, including dealing outside of the Site with any Supplier introduced to you through the Site. In addition, you may not employ directly any such Supplier.
You understand and agree that Assistance IT has no responsibility for the actions or inactions of Suppliers listed on the Site, and you will indemnify and hold harmless Assistance IT against any claims, liabilities and losses arising directly or indirectly from your action or inaction.
Data Loss: you acknowledge that Assistance IT is not responsible for any data loss by any User or any end user/customer of any User as a result of the fulfillment of a Work Order. You are solely responsible for any data or information stored in or on any equipment or for having the end user responsible for making "back up" or security copies of such data or information.
You acknowledge that the Suppliers are "independent contractors" and will comply with the terms of engagement for Suppliers contained in this User Agreement.
You acknowledge that Suppliers who are asked as part of a Work Order to supply parts may use new OEM parts, refurbished parts or after-market parts at the Suppliers discretion, unless you specifically request otherwise in the Work Order.
You acknowledge that Work Orders completed by the Supplier are subject to auto-closure within 5 business days, if no further action is taken by you to approve and close the Work Order, or to raise an issue with respect to it.
You hereby authorise Assistance IT to use your name, and relationship with Assistance IT in any reports and publications, including websites. Assistance IT may also use your logos and trade marks in connection therewith. This includes the right to display industry affiliations, certifications and / or preferred provider network logos, where appropriate on the Site or in User profiles.
You agree that Assistance IT may deduct a Fee for each authorised payment from your Assistance IT account to your designated bank account.
You agree that if any instructions contained in the Work Order should cause a claim (e.g., to ask a Supplier to represent himself to your end user in a manner which gives rise to a claim from the end user) that you shall indemnify Assistance IT and the Supplier from any loss.

C. Refund Policy

Assistance IT will refund any unused portion of your funds on deposit with us in the event that you are unsatisfied with the use of our Site. All refunds will be made within 30 days after your account is closed on the Site. An account cannot be closed if there are any open, pending or disputed Work Orders.

D. Expiration of Deposits

Client deposits with Assistance IT do not have any expiration date. However, if your account is inactive on the Site for twelve months, the account may be subject to maintenance and administrative fees, or closure at our discretion