Terms and conditions for the Brooke website

Please read these terms and conditions (“Terms”) carefully before using this or any of our sites or placing an order with us. These Terms and the documents and terms that they refer to including without limitation Brooke’s privacy policy and cookie policy are the only terms that apply to your use of our sites and/or purchase of any products and services.

If you don’t accept these Terms please don’t use or order from our sites. If you visit or use any of our sites and/or place any orders with us you will be bound by these Terms. If you have any questions relating to these Terms, email us at [email protected] or write to us at the above address.

If we need to contact you we will do so by telephone or by writing to you at the email or postal address you provided to us in your order.

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time.  Every time you wish to use our sites please check these Terms to ensure that you understand which terms apply at that time.  We may also update and change our sites from time to time and may also suspend or withdraw any of our sites at any time.

Provisions which apply when you order Christmas cards or Brooke Shop gifts

1. Payment

1.1. We accept Mastercard and Visa card. We cannot accept payment by cheque for orders made online.

1.2. Payment will be taken when you place your order. In case of query, please call 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm), quoting your order reference number.

1.3. By placing an order you consent to payment being charged to your debit or credit card as provided on the order form.

2. Delivery

2.1. Ordering from the UK and Channel Islands

The standard postage and packaging charge for Christmas cards is £3. We will normally despatch your order within 7 days of your order being placed.   If you do not receive your cards within two weeks, please contact our Supporter Care Team on 020 7470 9393 or [email protected]. We may, at our discretion and expense, deliver parts of your order separately.

2.2. Ordering from outside the UK and Channel Islands

Delivery periods for orders placed from outside the UK and Channel Islands will be longer. Please contact our Supporter Care Team on 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 or [email protected] if you require more information about overseas orders.

3. Cancellations and returns

3.1. If the Christmas card you have ordered is unavailable we may supply you with a suitable substitute. If you don’t wish to accept this substitute you may return it to us and we will issue you with a full refund. If you receive damaged Christmas cards or we supply you with a substitute for a card which is unavailable and you do not want the substitute, you should notify us as soon as possible. You may return the cards and a replacement or full refund will be provided. Please contact our Supporter Care Team on 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 or [email protected] for details of a freepost address that cards may be returned to.

3.2. You can cancel your order without giving any reason, either before or after we deliver it. If you wish to cancel your order after we have delivered it you should notify us within 15 days of delivery or, where we deliver your order in instalments, within 15 days of the last item delivered. You can notify us by completing our cancellation form or contacting our Supporter Care Team on 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 or [email protected]. To meet the cancellation deadline it is sufficient for you to tell us that you wish to cancel before the cancellation period has expired. You then have 15 days to get the cards back to us. This right to cancel does not apply to Brooke Shop Gifts as they are donations to Brooke.

3.3. If the right to cancel applies and you want to return your order once you have received it, for either a refund or exchange, fill out the cancellation form, package the relevant items securely in a re-saleable condition in their original packaging and send them to us within 15 days of delivery (or 15 days of your notifying us of your wish to cancel your order as above). For your protection, we recommend that you use a recorded-delivery service.

3.4. Please note that you will be responsible for the cost of returning cards to us unless we deliver the item to you in error or it is faulty or if we have supplied you with a substitute card.

3.5. If you cancel (and where already delivered, return) your order in accordance with the above provisions, we will (subject as stated below) refund to you:-

3.5.1. The purchase price for the item cancelled/returned

3.5.2. Brooke’s standard and least expensive delivery charge for the item cancelled/returned even if you have elected to return the item using a delivery method which is more expensive. Note - where you ordered a number of items and only cancel/return some of them, delivery charges will not be refunded except for such part of delivery charges that relate specifically to the items returned.

3.6. Any refund issued under these provisions will be made, using the same means of payment as you used for your order within 14 days of:-

3.6.1. our receiving the cards back; or

3.6.2. (if earlier) your providing evidence that you have returned the cards; or

3.6.3. your telling us that you want to cancel your order if you cancel before we despatch the cards.

3.7. In all other cases, if we are not at fault or there is no right to change your mind, you have no right to cancel your order.

3.8 If for any reason you suspect that your credit card has been used to make an inaccurate or incorrect transaction through this website, please advise us at the earliest opportunity by calling our Supporter Care Team on 020 7470 9393 or [email protected]. We will investigate and arrange a refund as necessary.

4. Brooke Shop gifts

4.1. If you order one of our Brooke Shop Gifts you are making a donation to fund our work for which we are enormously grateful. You will receive a card to commemorate the gift.

4.2. All of the items featured in the Brooke Shop part of our sites are genuinely needed and used by the programmes that the Brooke supports. However, your donation will not necessarily be used towards the item shown but will be used to help Brooke to continue with its full range of work.

4.3. Email cards are sent as soon as you have submitted your online Brooke Shop Gift application, though due to circumstances beyond our control they may occasionally take several minutes or possibly even hours before they arrive in the recipient's in-box. If you, or your intended recipient, do not receive the certificate, please check your ‘spam filter’ to confirm whether the email has been diverted. If the email card has not been delivered please email us on [email protected] providing full details of the Brooke Shop Gift applied for. A copy of your application confirmation is always helpful. From time to time due to circumstances beyond our control we may be unable to deliver cards to the email address provided by a donor. In such cases it may be necessary to send the card to an alternative email address.

4.4. Please note that occasionally circumstances beyond our control could affect delivery times. If your gift is time-sensitive, you may want to check the despatch date with our Supporter Care Team at the time of making your donation. Postage and packaging for Brooke Shop Gifts is free of charge.

5. Supporter Care Team

5.1. We hope that you are happy with your cards and the service you receive, but should you have any queries or problems please contact our Supporter Care Team on 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 or [email protected].

6. General conditions that apply to orders of Christmas cards or Brooke Shop gifts

6.1. The Brooke Christmas cards are sold by the Brooke’s wholly owned trading subsidiary, The Brooke Hospital for Animals Trading Limited (‘Brooke Trading’). Brooke Trading gift aids all its profits to  Brooke. It is a company limited by shares number 8959139 and its registered office address is First Floor, 10 Queen Street Place, London, EC4R 1B. Brooke Trading may be contacted at 0044 (0)20 7470 9393 or [email protected].

6.2. All orders for cards are subject to availability and we reserve the right to refuse to supply to any individual or company. The supply of goods from this site is subject to availability and it is not always possible for us to inform you at the time you place your order whether the goods you want are still available for purchase. If you select a card which is sold out, we may carefully choose an alternative. You may return substitute cards if you are not satisfied with them (see Cancellation and Returns clause 3).

6.3. Your submission of an order represents an offer to purchase the cards indicated by you and is not binding on us until we have accepted your order. This means that if a product is shown on our sites but is not available or is incorrectly priced or otherwise incorrectly described or if we are unable to arrange delivery to your address or wish to decline your offer for any other reason, we will not be obliged to sell you that card.

6.4. Shortly after we receive your order, we will acknowledge it by email, detailing the products you have ordered. This email is issued automatically and does not mean that your order is accepted.

6.5. We may contact you to obtain further information to enable your order to be evaluated or processed.

6.6. Acceptance of your order for cards and completion of the contract between you and us will take place when we dispatch the cards to you. Any cards on the same order which we have not dispatched to you do not form part of that contract. We will assign an order number to your order and tell you what that number is.  It will help us if you tell us the order number whenever you contact us about your order.

6.7. The price you pay is the price displayed on our site at the time we receive your order apart from where an error has occurred in displaying the price. While we try to ensure that all prices on our sites are accurate, errors may occur. If we discover an error in the price of cards you have ordered we will inform you as soon as possible and give you the option of reconfirming your order at the correct price or cancelling it. If we are unable to contact you we will treat the order as cancelled. If you cancel and you have already paid for the cards, you will receive a full refund.

6.8. Prices displayed include VAT where applicable. Price and availability information is subject to change without notice.

6.9. Cards may differ slightly from the images shown. All sizes and dimensions of cards as indicated on our sites are approximate but we make every effort to make sure they are as accurate as possible. We have made every effort to display as accurately as possible the colours of the images that appear on our sites. However, as the actual colours you see will depend on your monitor, we cannot guarantee that your monitor's display of any colour will accurately reflect the colour of the card on delivery.

6.10. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the details provided on the order form.

6.11. We have a legal obligation to supply cards in conformity with your order.

6.12. We do not file details of your order for you to subsequently access direct on our sites.

6.13. If you have made a donation to Brooke we will send you an email with the card you have chosen as an attachment in pdf format to the email address you have given.  Paper cards will be sent to you by post.

General provisions

These apply when you visit or use one of our sites including when you order Christmas cards or Brooke Shop gifts.

7. Changes

We may change these Terms at any time, in which case the amended Terms will be posted on our sites and will apply from the date we post them, with the exception that any orders that we have already accepted from you before the new Terms are posted will continue to be subject to the Terms in force when your order was accepted. Please check these Terms on each occasion you use our sites. If you continue to use our sites you will be bound by the latest Terms.

8. Using our sites

You agree to only use our sites in a manner that complies with all applicable laws and regulations and is consistent with these Terms and does not infringe the rights of anyone else, nor restrict or inhibit their use and enjoyment of our sites (including, amongst other things, hacking). We reserve the right in our sole discretion to deny any user access to any of our sites without prior notice.

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

You must not misuse our site 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.

9. Privacy and cookie statement

We use, store and process information about you in accordance with our privacy statement and cookies statement. By using our sites, you consent to our use, storage and processing of your information in accordance with that statement.

10. Intellectual property rights

10.1. You acknowledge that all copyright, trade marks and other intellectual property rights in our sites and all photographs, footage, designs, images, text, software, data and other material in our sites or generated by our sites are owned by us or our licensors. You are permitted to use the sites and this material only as expressly authorised by us.

10.2. You are permitted to print and download extracts from our sites for your personal non-commercial use and for private study or non-commercial teaching purposes or to make the content accessible to disabled users, provided in each case that:-

10.2.1. Copyright and source indications are also printed and copied;

10.2.2. No modifications are made to the materials (save to the extent necessary to enable accessibility by disabled persons) and they are not used as part of any other publication;

10.2.3. Any document is printed and copied entirely and is not used in a derogatory or misleading context or way; and

10.2.4. The material is not used in a manner which may damage our reputation or otherwise be harmful to us or impair our ability to achieve our charitable objects.

10.3. No other use of material on our sites may be made without first obtaining our written permission. In particular, you must not do the following unless you have first obtained our written permission:-

10.3.1. Incorporate any material from our sites in any other work or publication, whether in hard copy or electronic form; nor

10.3.2. Make any commercial use or publication of any material on our sites (other than as necessary for the purpose of viewing the sites in the course of business).

10.4. If you wish to use any material from any of our sites other than in accordance with term 10.2 please email your request to [email protected] with the subject line “Permissions request”.

10.5. The photographic, text and other graphic images within any cards or publications supplied to you are copyright works and none of them may be copied, reproduced, licensed or otherwise exploited.

10.6. The Brooke name and logo are trade marks of the Brooke. Other logos and names used on our sites may also be the trade marks of the Brooke or their respective owners. No permission is given by us in respect of the use of any such trade marks, names or logos and such use may constitute an infringement of the holder's rights.

10.7. Whilst we encourage our supporters to campaign on the issues referred to on our sites, unless we have specifically authorised you in writing to do so please do not imply that you are taking action on behalf of Brooke and in particular do not state that Brooke is taking, or proposes or is considering taking, action against individuals or organisations, for example, a boycott of a company's products.

10.8. Any rights not expressly granted in these Terms are reserved.

11. Donations

We regret that donations (including Brooke Shop Gifts) cannot usually be refunded. Please contact our Supporter Care Team on 020 7470 9393 or [email protected] if you have a query about a donation you have made.

12. Advertisers, sponsors and other organisations

We may from time to time allow companies to advertise goods and services on our sites. Whilst we will not knowingly run an advert that is untrue, or which relates to goods or services contrary to our objects, the appearance of an advert does not mean that we endorse the advertiser's goods or services. We also work with other organisations including those who sell goods and services and may provide links on our sites to their websites.  We do not endorse the goods and services of those organisations.  With the exception of products sold on our sites, we are not responsible for the accuracy of any advertising material or for any product or service that you may purchase from other websites.

13. Disclaimers

13.1. The information provided in our sites is intended to provide general information only and, as such, should not be considered as a substitute for advice covering any specific situation. Whilst we endeavour to ensure that the information on our sites is correct, we do not warrant the accuracy and completeness of that information and we will not be held liable for any errors or omissions. The material on our sites may be out of date, and we make no commitment to update such material.

13.2. We take every reasonable care to ensure that all orders, donations and subsequent transactions are conducted via a secure link. However, the security of information and payments transmitted via the internet cannot be guaranteed and as we are not responsible for the operation of the secure link we will not, unless we are negligent, be liable for any loss you may suffer if a third party obtains unauthorised access to any information you provide.

13.3. We do not warrant that the functions contained in our sites will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that our sites or the servers that make them available are free of viruses or bugs or represent full functionality, accuracy or reliability of the materials. We will not be liable for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system or any other damages (including amongst other losses, loss of profit or loss of use) arising out of your use or delay or inability to use our sites, their content or any link to another website arising in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise except in the case of death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

14. Liability

14.1. We do not limit in any way our liability for fraud or death or personal injury caused by our negligence or breach of statutory duty or any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

14.2. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by us or our employees or agents in circumstances where:-

14.2.1. Loss or damage was not reasonably foreseeable to both you and us when you commenced using our site or when a contract for the supply of cards by us to you was formed;

14.2.2. Loss or damage was not caused by any breach by us, our employees or agents; nor

14.2.3. Loss or damage relates to your business (including loss of profits, revenue, contracts, anticipated savings, data, goodwill or wasted expenditure).

15. Links

15.1. Our sites may contain links to third party sites. Such links are provided for your convenience only. We do not control such sites and are not responsible for their contents. The mere inclusion of such links does not imply any endorsement of the material on those sites nor any association with their operators. If you decide to access any of the third party sites linked to or from our sites, you do so entirely at your own risk and we are not responsible for any damage, loss or offence caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the content, information, advertising, services or products available on third party sites. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all the time and we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.

15.2. If you wish to link from your website to any pages of our sites you may do so only on the basis that you link to, but do not replicate, the website page, and subject to the following conditions:-

15.2.1. You do not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of any logos on our sites;

15.2.2. You do not in any way imply that we are endorsing any products or services;

15.2.3. You do not misrepresent your relationship with us nor present any other false information about us; and

15.2.4. You do not otherwise use any Brooke trade marks displayed on our sites without our express written permission.

15.3. At any time and at our complete discretion we reserve the right to withdraw the permission to make website links to our sites.

16. General

16.1. If any provisions of these Terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any country which apply to these Terms, then so far as these Terms apply within that country in which those provisions are illegal, invalid or unenforceable those provisions shall be severed and deleted from these Terms and the remaining provisions of these Terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

16.2. If you breach these Terms and we take no action, we will still be entitled to use our rights and remedies at a later date or in any other situation where you breach these Terms.

16.3. Events beyond our control - We will not be liable to you for any delay in delivering any services or order or for breach of our obligations, if the delay or breach is due to acts of God, civil commotion, riots, malicious damage, floods, drought, fire, epidemic, legislation, failure of ISP or telecommunications provider or any other cause beyond our reasonable control. This does not affect your statutory rights.

17. Law, courts, Language

17.1. These Terms, use of our sites and the supply of products and services by us are governed by and to be interpreted in accordance with English law. In the event of any dispute arising in relation to these Terms, use of our sites or in relation to the supply of any products or services by us where you live in England the English courts will have jurisdiction over the dispute. If you live in Scotland you can bring legal proceedings in either the Scottish or English courts. If you live in Northern Ireland you can bring legal proceedings in either the Northern Irish or English courts. These Terms and our sites are provided in the English language only.

17.2. Consumers also have the right to have disputes resolved via alternative dispute resolution. This is a process where an independent body considers the facts of a dispute and seeks to resolve it, without you having to go to court. If you are not happy with how we have handled any complaint, you may want to contact the alternative dispute resolution provider we use. You can submit a complaint to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) via their website.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome you can still bring legal proceedings. In addition, please note that disputes may be submitted for online resolution to the European Commission Online Dispute Resolution platform.

17.3. These Terms do not affect your statutory rights as a consumer. If you live in the UK for information about your statutory rights visit the Citizens Advice consumer service.  Other countries may have similar consumer services that you can consult.

These Terms were last updated on 16 August 2024.