Privacy/data policy & Ts and Cs

By using this website, and/or by signing up for a subscription, you accept these terms and conditions.

1. Privacy & data protection policy

2. Terms & conditions for subscriptions

3. Shop, returns, delivery etc

1. Privacy & data protection policy

The Flying Reporter website, like many others, collects user information in order to manage subscriptions, monitor website traffic, and serve adverts.  By your continuing use of this website, you agree to the processing of your information as outlined below.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, this website collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request.  The purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is so that the website can analyse traffic trends.   

This website also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The website does not use such information to identify its visitors, however, and does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to this website choose to interact in ways that require the website to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that this website gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who subscribe to one of our membership levels, or sign up for the newsletter to provide their name, a username and email address.  We also ask for this information if you wish to comment on a post on this website.  In each case, the website collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with the website. If you provide your name when making a comment on a web post, your name will be publicly displayed on the website.  Other than this, the website does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

The website will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations, the website discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when the website believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of the website, third parties, or the public at large. If you are a registered user of/subscriber to the website and have supplied your email address, we may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with the website.  The website takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

When purchasing a subscription, this website will transmit your user information to our payment gateway companies (PayPal/Stripe) to process your payment.  This information will be processed securely.  This website does not process your payment data itself, and your payment data is not shared with this website, as your payment will be processed securely by PayPal/Stripe.

We use an email marketing service provided by Mailchimp to process our email interactions with you.  Your personally identifiable information, such as your email address and name will be transmitted to Mailchimp, in order that it can transmit emails on this website’s behalf.  Mailchimp may collect information, such as when emails are opened, and what links are followed, in order to assist this website in understanding user behaviour.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. This website uses cookies to help it identify and track visitors, their usage of the website, and their website access preferences. Website visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using the website, with the drawback that certain features may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Adverts

Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve adverts based on a user’s previous visits to this and other websites.  Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads on this website based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.  Users may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Ads Settings

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, the website may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and your are encouraged to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Withdrawing consent for the use of personal information and data

Users of this website can contact the administrator at any time.  Should you wish to withdraw consent for the use of your personal data and information, then please contact us here, specifying your request.  We will then contact you to discuss your request if necessary, or confirm the deletion of your data.

2. Subscription terms & conditions

You can choose whether or not to sign up for a subscription to this website.  There are a variety of subscription options, ranging from a free newsletter, to one-off payments or recurring monthly payments.  The terms of those subscriptions will be made clear to you at the time that you choose to sign up.  In essence, my signing up to a recurring subscription (Supporter 1, Supporter 2, Early Bird) you are agreeing to pay a monthly fee, until you decide to cancel.  Paid subscriptions are only available to those living in the UK because of international VAT/Tax jurisdictions.  If you live outside the UK, please sign up to my supporters’ club through Patreon, where you will be charged in a currency better suited to you.

Recurring subscriptions, can be cancelled by you at any time, but you must do so through your account page on my website.  By cancelling your payment, you will have access to your bonus content until the anniversary of your present subscription ends, and then access will cease.  No further payments will be taken from you after you unsubscribe.  You will be sent an email, confirming the cancellation of your subscription, and please keep a copy of this, as it will be required in the event of a dispute.  In the event of a dispute, you will be required to produce this email as evidence that your subscription was cancelled.

In the unlikely event that a payment was taken that you were not expecting, or in the event of any problem you encounter during the cancellation of your subscription, you must contact us first, before disputing any payment with your bank.  This enables us to quickly resolve the dispute, usually to the customer’s satisfaction.  If you do not follow this process, and if you dispute the payment with your bank before contacting us first, my payment service will apply a penalty fee, in addition to your payment, on my account.  By not adhering to these terms and conditions, and by disputing any payment with your bank without contacting us first, this website reserves the right to recover that penalty fee from you.

By signing up to The Flying Reporter Supporters’ club, you agree that you will receive periodic emails, alerting you to new content available to view.  You can unsubscribe from these emails by clicking the link at the bottom of the email.  

3. Shop, WooCommerce & Merchr

The Flying Reporter Shop is powered by WooCommerce & Merchr.  We collect information about you during the checkout process on our store.

What we collect and store

While you visit our site, we’ll track:

  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order!

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of basket contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
  • Improve our store offerings
  • Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. 

We will also store comments or reviews, if you choose to leave them.

Who on our team has access

Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Shop Managers can access:

  • Order information like what was purchased, when it was purchased and where it should be sent, and
  • Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information.

Our team members have access to this information to help fulfil orders, process refunds and support you.

What we share with others

We share information with third parties who help us provide our orders and store services to you; for example most of our products are produced, printed and fulfilled by Merchr.  Your can read their privacy policy here.

Payments

We accept payments through Stripe.  When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to Stripe, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information.

Refunds, cancellation & returns of shop orders

Our fulfilment partner  produces high-quality customised products with rapid delivery. To make this a reality, it uses a print-on-demand model. This means they might get an order onto a print machine in less than an hour and ship it shortly after that. Because products are printed as orders come in and are unique and customised, we cannot offer a refund if a customer changes their mind about an item.

If you have a problem with your order, please get in touch with us in the first instance.  

Delivery

Our products are usually printed on the day of your order and delivered to you within 3-4 days.  Please contact us if you have been waiting longer than this for your order to arrive.  We currently only deliver to addresses in the UK under a flat-rate postage and packaging price.