(1) Introduction
These terms were last updated on 17th December 2020.
The Chapa Link name, oval shaped brand with two triangular symbols, ChapaLink.co.tz and ChapaLink.com are a product of Lateral Labs, a web design agency operating in Tanzania since January 2017.
By using and submitting your information through this website, you agree to being referred to as a “customer” and to being aware of the privacy policy, benefits you receive, and the conditions attached to benefits, as follows below.
(2) Privacy
We solicit your name, business name, preferred domain, address, email address and phone number for the purposes of registering your domain, communicating with you to set up your website, and keep you up to date on opportunities to improve your digital presence.
We do not use your personal information in any other way.
The information you submit will not be shared with any person or organization outside the Lateral Labs organization without your initiation or consent.
We use WordPress to manage content on this website, and the WordPress plugin Contact Form 7 to administer forms that solicit the fields mentioned above. We also use a private CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that is only visible to our company.
We do not use tools to exchange client information with other platforms that can use information for other purposes.
Since we do not control WordPress, Contact Form 7 or our private CRM system, we are therefore not liable for any changes that take place with their systems, unless we are notified beforehand.
If we are notified beforehand of any changes to WordPress, Contact Form 7 or our private CRM system that may compromise your information, we will notify you.
(3) Payment
An ongoing subscription with Chapa Link is generally charged at a minimum of the equivalent of Tsh 25,000 per month.
We reserve the right to provide value added services at a higher subscription rate.
An initial sign-up requires a 3-month advance in order to set up a website. Thereafter, that is from month # 4 onwards, you are able to pay on a monthly basis.
We accept payment via electronic transfer such as Mobile Money, and will issue a government-authorized receipt for your records.
We reserve the right to add more payment methods in the future and will make these clearly available on our order forms.
(4) Refunds
Once subscription payments are made, they are generally non-refundable.
We reserve the right to decide on special case refunds as and when we deem them necessary on a customer by customer basis.
(5) Domains
Domain names are subject to availability and will be purchased in accordance with the law, including copyright and top-level domain requirements of the country the website will serve.
We register your domain on behalf of our customers. Each customer’s final domain will list their name, address and phone number as the registered user of the domain, and will also list our company name, address and phone number as the technical contact of the domain.
If customers would like to transfer their domain to another provider, they may get in touch with us to request the EPP code required for the transfer.
If a customer would like our services but already has a domain name registered elsewhere, we reserve the right to negotiate and adjust their subscription on a customer by customer basis, even if it may include additional value-add services such as Google Advertising.
(6) Set up time
We work hard to get your website live within 3 business days of all your details and content being submitted. We do not guarantee this, as we are not responsible for third-party services we subscribe to on your behalf. For example, domain registration is a third party service we subscribe to on your behalf, but over which we have no control.
We reserve the right to take up to 30 days as a maximum time to get your website live.
(7) Themes
We provide a fixed number of themes with a fixed number of fields to all our customers.
Customers will be provided with demo websites to view prior to their subscription. We do not change the layout of the theme or the type of fields available. We can switch existing text, image and some color changes depending on customer preferences as part of your subscription.
For additional changes, customers are liable to additional change fee, which is generally the equivalent of Tsh 10,000 per change, depending on the number of sections or components you request changes for. Such arrangements and fees required will be negotiated and communicated with you in advance.
Over time, we may add new themes and website functionality and these will be made available to all our customers. Customers are welcome to change themes within their subscription period at no extra fee, provided that they are able to submit content to us for the theme change.
We reserve the right to add new functionality and themes at our own time.
(8) Hosting
Customer hosting space will not be resold unless you discontinue your monthly subscription with Chapa Link.
Customers have at least 400 MB, onto which a theme and your content will be set up. We generally do not provide customers with access to the host for subscription plans, also known as FTP or cPanel access, although we can provide more advanced and direct hosting plans that customers can manage themselves on a contractual basis.
We reserve the right to provide more hosting space, content management facilities and/or other website-related apps and support services at a higher subscription rate.
If a customer would like our services but already has a hosting service registered elsewhere, we reserve the right to negotiate and adjust their subscription on a customer by customer basis, even if it may include additional value-add services such as Google Advertising.
(9) Design support and services
Customers can share content, that is text and/or images, to populate the fields we provide and we will update these on our customers’ behalf.
If customers do not have text or images, we will endeavour to suggest text and images for them based on an initial conversation with them to learn about the purpose of your website.
We reserve the right to share limits on how much content we can provide to customers depending on the scope of their website.
As part of a monthly subscription, we provide 1 update per month for any section of the subscription website, eg: About is one section, Portfolio is another section, Contact is another section.
For additional changes to additional sections, customers are liable to additional change fee, which is generally the equivalent of Tsh 10,000 per change, depending on the number of sections or components you request changes for. Such arrangements and fees required will be negotiated and communicated with you in advance.
Customers may decide that they want to discontinue their subscription with Chapa Link and consult us for a website with a larger scope and a different contractual arrangement. Customers can do this with notice within their subscription period and as long as any past dues have been paid.
We reserve the right to add additional services as part of the Chapa Link product at any time, and may not always communicate changes to our services.
(10) Marketing
We reserve the right to use customer websites on mock-ups for marketing purposes, and when doing so will link to the relevant website.
The Chapa Link team will also solicit testimonials from customers for sharing with the public.
(11) Plagiarism
We understand that plagiarism is the act of copying ideas, text, images and other works of one person and using them as another person.
We do not plagiarise. We do not support plagiarism.
If we find that customers are using text or images that belong to another party, we will advise them to replace these with their own work. Failure to do so will result in us as the hosting administrators replacing the plagiarised content on our customers’ behalf.
We reserve the right to stop subscription services if we find that the customers business or website content poses a risk to our business, technology or the rest of our customer base.
(12) Subscription
We process new customer accounts after a 3-month advance payment has been made, and we keep accounts live on the basis of a monthly fee paid in advance after the first 3 months.
New accounts will not be created if a 3-month advance payment has not been made. Retainer accounts will not renew if the advance monthly payment has not been made.
We reserve the right to expire subscriptions at any time after their end-date and if renewal payments have not been made.
If customers lapse a payment, we reserve the right to take their website down. If customers would like to reactive a previous subscription, but did not renew before the expiry date, we reserve the right to will charge reactivation fee, which is generally the equivalent of Tsh 10,000, for a period of up to 12 months after they made their initial sign-up payment.
Beyond 12 months, subscriptions will need to be re-initiated with a 3-month advance in addition to the reactivation fees.
Customer bills are initiated the day they make their first payment, for instance the 7th of January, and will continue on the same day every month, eg: 7th of April, 7th of May, 7th of June, etc.
(13) No liability
We are not responsible for how our customers manage their business or their dealings.
Chapa Link is also not responsible for customer business planning, modeling, performance, results or third party liabilities. We focus on building and maintaining beautiful and sustainable websites, not businesses.
(14) Non-exclusivity
The Chapa Link product is not an exclusive website provider to customers, that is, customers are free to work with any other provider at any time.
When we process a new order, we are not committing to dedicate all our resources to that single order, that is, we provide the same service to any customer that signs up.
(15) Governing Law and dispute resolution
As a customer of Chapa Link, you agree to abide by Tanzanian law.
If a dispute arises between Chapa Link and a customer, we will endeavor to settle the dispute amicably. Where amicable resolution fails, we will appoint an arbitrator to assist in settling the dispute. Only when arbitration fails will Chapa Link and associated parties seek legal advice to settle disputes.
We seek to make our customers happy all the time and will do our best to prevent disputes from arising.