Important Legal Agreements
Black Cat Hosting provides web hosting to clients worldwide, and we have a responsibility to protect each client and to provide the best services available. All clients of Black Cat Hosting are subject to the following terms of service:
Indemnification Policy
You agree to use all Black Cat Hosting services and facilities at your own risk. Black Cat Hosting specifically disclaims all warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Black Cat Hosting be liable for any loss, or loss of data, or other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Black Cat Hosting harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against Black Cat Hosting, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by customer, it's agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Black Cat Hosting against liabilities arising out of Any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Black Cat Hosting's server.
Black Cat Hosting reserves the right to intervene with any of the sites hosted on its servers in the interest of its customers. Any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party Copyright infringement any defective products sold to customer from Black Cat Hosting's server. Black Cat Hosting shall be the sole judge of what violates this Policy.
CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICY
As a company, Black Cat Hosting is committed to providing the highest levels of customer service in the industry.
It is an unfortunate fact that any business, anywhere in the world, with a rapidly expanding customer base will at some point deal with a customer (or two) who feel they are not getting a satisfactory response to a question they have asked, or believe they are not getting what they paid for.
In order to assist our customers, and to ensure that our customers always receive the highest level of customer service, we have created this policy which outlines what a customer should expect from Black Cat Hosting, and what Black Cat Hosting expects from its customers.
Acceptance
The Customer signified acceptance of this Customer Service Policy, as well as our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy, when they submitted their order to Black Cat Hosting for Services, and that order was accepted.
Appropriate Channels for Receiving Customer Service
By submitting a support request through Black Cat Hosting Ticket Support System to the appropriate department.
By phoning 1300 080 314 (During our Office Hours).
Customers who do not use the abovementioned methods to contact Customer Service are not covered by this policy and do so at their own risk.
Customer Conduct
The Customer agrees to conduct themselves in an appropriate and professional manor when seeking Customer Service from Black Cat Hosting.
Black Cat Hosting staff will not respond to requests for Customer Service if the Customer:
- Has used offensive or obscene language;
- HAS USED EXCESSIVE CAPITALISATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF SHOUTING;
- Has made threats of violence, legal action or referral to an external party (eg. Department of Fair Trading);
- Has posted the issue or question on a public medium, such as forums or blogs, before it has been either raised with or answered by Black Cat Hosting staff within an appropriate timeframe.
Appropriate Timeframes
Support requests and emails sent to Black Cat Hosting seeking Customer Service should be answered by Black Cat Hosting staff within two (3) business days. Each time a response is made by the Customer this timeframe will be reset.
Notwithstanding anything else in this agreement, the maximum aggregate liability of Black Cat Hosting, any of its employees, agents or affiliates, under any theory of law shall not exceed a payment in excess of the amount paid by the Customer for the Service in question for the six months prior to the occurrence of the event(s) giving rise to the claim.
Customer Service Goodwill Credit
From time to time, Black Cat Hosting staff or management may make the decision to apply a $25.00 Customer Service Goodwill credit to the Customer’s account credit balance.
This credit is not redeemable for cash and can only be used to purchase additional Black Cat Hosting services or as credit on system generated invoices for Service renewals.
Non-compliance
In accordance with the Black Cat Hosting Terms of Service, Black Cat Hosting may suspend or terminate the Service(s) of a Customer who has refused to follow this policy when seeking Customer Service.
Any requests for Customer Service made outside of the guidelines set within this policy will not be covered by this policy.
Changes
Black Cat Hosting may amend our Customer Service Policy at any time. At all times Black Cat Hosting will make available the current terms for client review and download via our website. Changes to this agreement other than price changes will become effective upon their publication to our website, and furthermore, continued use of the Service(s) constitutes acceptance of the amended terms. If you do not wish to accept the amended terms, you may request cancellation of your Service(s) in-line with our documented Cancellation Policy.
ACCOUNTS AND PAYMENTS
At this time we bill monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually, depending upon the plan.
We accept:
- PayPal (VISA, MasterCard, Direct Debit);
- Credit Card;
- direct deposit.
For web hosting plans we will setup your account upon payment receipt. Clients are encouraged to pay by Credit Card or PayPal.
There are no contract periods but for each successive period, your contract is automatically renewed unless we are notified otherwise.
Late Payments
All accounts are billed according to the dates they were first activated on.
A late fee of $5.00 is applicable if invoice is not paid within 7 days post invoice due date.
If you do not pay for service renewal in 7 days of invoice due date, your account will be suspended.
If you do not pay for service renewal in 30 days of invoice due date, your account will be terminated.
Refunds
The following Service(s) are not eligible for a refund if the Service has been successfully provisioned by one of Black Cat Hosting’s suppliers:
- Domain Names;
- SSL Certificates;
- Software Licences.
A full refund will be provided to account credit or returned to the original payment method, if the order was placed within thirty (30) days of the date that the refund was requested for any of the following Service(s):
- Web hosting services.
- VPS services.
A pro rata refund will be provided to account credit only if the refund request was made more than thirty (30) days after the order was placed for any of the following Service(s):
- Web hosting services.
- Virtual Private Servers.
The Customer will not be entitled to a refund if any of Black Cat Hosting’s Terms, Policies and Agreements have been breached by the Customer.
All other refunds will be processed at the sole discretion of Black Cat Hosting, in-line with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's published policies and guidelines.
More information can be found at: Consumer Rights Guarantees
Cancellations
The Customer can request cancellation of their Account or any Service(s) for any reason by logging in to their account and submitting a cancellation request. For security reasons, we will not accept cancellation requests by any other method.
Any prepaid fees for Service(s) past the current billing month will be refunded in accordance with the Refunds subsection of this agreement once a refund request has been made by the Customer. This can only be done by submitting an Ticket.
The Customer agrees to pay any outstanding invoices upon cancellation of their Service(s).
If the Customer requests cancellation of a Service after the invoice for the renewal of the Service has been paid, a refund will be issued in accordance with the Refunds subsection of this agreement.
Suspension and Termination of Service(s)
Black Cat Hosting may suspend or terminate Service(s) if:
- The Customer is found to be in breach of any policy including but not limited to the Terms of Services, Acceptable Use Policy, Customer Service Policy or any applicable Registrant Agreement;
- The Customer has become insolvent or bankrupt;
- The Customer has unpaid invoices.
If a Customer’s Account is closed for any reason, or any Service(s) suspended or terminated, the Customer must pay all outstanding invoices by the due dates.
If a web hosting, or dedicated email hosting is suspended or terminated for any reason, Black Cat Hosting is under no obligation to provide the Customer with a copy of any data associated with the Service(s). Black Cat Hosting may provide the customer with a backup of the data, if it is available, for a fee of $200.00.
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY
The Customer signified acceptance of the Acceptable Use Policy upon signup to Black Cat Hosting and their subsequent acceptance of the Agreement.
The Customer acknowledges that they are solely responsible for ensuring that all Service(s) are in full compliance with this policy, and that they are solely responsible for the files and applications that have been uploaded and executed.
Unacceptable Content & Material
The Customer may not publish, transmit, distribute or store any content or material on Black Cat Hosting’s servers or network that Black Cat Hosting believes:
- Constitutes child pornography;
- Is excessively violent or incites, threatens or implies violence;
- Contains harassing content or hate speech;
- Is unfair or deceptive under any relevant Fair Trading or Consumer Affairs act in your state;
- Is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy;
- Creates a risk to a person’s safety, health or security;
- Compromises national security or interferes with an investigation by any law enforcement agency;
- Improperly exposes trade secrets or any other confidential or proprietary information of another person or business;
- Is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protection, which includes illegal file sharing and torrents;
- Clearly infringes on another person or businesses trade mark, patent or property;
- Promotes illegal drugs or violates import or export laws;
- Relates to illegal gambling or fire arms trafficking;
- Is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to the Customer or to Black Cat Hosting;
- Is otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against Black Cat Hosting by offended viewers.
Prohibited Use
cPanel web hosting Services may not be used for the following purposes:
- For storage of backup archives nor any data which is not directly related to and accessible through the website itself.
- For storage of email data exceeding 5GB in total per service; this total encompasses all email inboxes additional directories within the cPanel service including the default catchall email account.
- IRC scripts or bots;
- Proxy scripts or anonymous browsing utilities;
- Image or file hosting scripts (similar to Photobucket, Rapidshare, etc);
- IP scanners;
- Pirated software or “warez” sites;
- Banner advertisement services;
- Lotteries, banking or investment sites (such as Pyramid or Ponzi schemes);
- Hacker focussed sites, archives or programs;
- Sale of any controlled substance without having the appropriate permits;
- Sites promoting illegal activities;
- Any game servers (such as Counter Strike, Half Life, etc);
- Any VoIP service primarily associated with game server communities (such as TeamSpeak);
- Any other purpose that Black Cat Hosting management have deemed as unacceptable.
Limitation of Liability
Black Cat Hosting shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental and consequential damages, which may arise from Black Cat Hosting servers going off-line or being unavailable for any reason whatsoever. Furthermore, Black Cat Hosting shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental or consequential damages, resulting from the corruption or deletion of any web site from one of Black Cat Hosting servers. All damages shall be limited to the immediate termination of service.
Disclaimer
Black Cat Hosting cannot be held liable for system downtime, crashes, or data loss. We cannot be held liable for any predicted estimate of profits in which a client would have gained if their site was functioning. Certain services provided by Black Cat Hosting are resold. Thus, certain equipment, routing, software, and programming used by Black Cat Hosting are not directly owned or written by Black Cat Hosting. Moreover, Black Cat Hosting holds no responsibility for the use of our clients accounts. If any terms or conditions are failed to be followed, the account in question will be automatically deactivated. We reserve the right to remove any account without advanced notice for any reason without restitution as Black Cat Hosting sees fit. FURTHERMORE, Black Cat Hosting retains the right to change any or all of the above Policies, Guidelines, and Disclaimer without notification.
