Terms and Conditions of Service

These were last updated on 02/07/2020

INTRODUCTION TO TERMS

We aim to make our terms and privacy policy as easy to understand as possible. However, there is some complexity to make sure both Switchd and you are legally protected. Please get in touch if there’s anything that doesn’t make sense.

What these Terms Cover

The following sets out the terms and conditions (’Terms’’) between Switchd Ltd (“us, we, Switchd”) and you, the customer (“you”). You agree to be legally bound by these terms in connection with the Services we provide or when you are visiting the Website.

Why are these terms important?

Please read these Terms carefully before signing up to the service offered by us. These Terms tell you, how we will provide the Services, who we are, how either party may change or end the legally binding contract between us, what to do if there is a problem, how the Terms may be automatically renewed and other important information.

How to contact us

You can contact us by emailing us at team@switchd.co.uk or by writing to us at International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London, England, EC1A 2BN.

Please keep a copy of these terms for your records.

1. Definitions used in these Terms

“Switchd”

means Switchd Ltd which is a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales with company registration number 10408051 and its registered address at International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London, England, EC1A 2BN.

“Website” or “Site”

means www.switchd.co.uk and other connected websites

“Content”

means any and all text, images, audio, video, scripts, code, software, databases and any other form of information capable of being stored on a computer that appears on, or forms part of, our Site; and

“Privacy Policy”

means the document which sets out the terms and conditions relating to how we look after your personal information. The detail of this can be found in the privacy policy document.

Service

means the provision of an independent service that determines the best deal for you from a range of suppliers of given product or service, then manages the switching process of the product or services you receive from third party in line with your specifications and our determination of the best deal for you. It may also include handling of relevant admin and communications in order to reduce hassle for you.

“Writing” includes emails

When we use the words “words” or “written” in these Terms, this includes emails.

2. Our Contract with You

By visiting the Website and / or submitting your details via the Website and / or clicking the acceptance button and / or checking the box to accept on the Website in connection with the Service you agree to be bound by and to act in accordance with these Terms and the Privacy Policy.

If you do not agree to these Terms or our Privacy Policy, you are not permitted to access and use the Service and you should immediately stop using the Service and we may take any action to prevent your access and / or use of any part of the Service

3. Appointment of Switchd

The Service

By completing the relevant forms on the Website, you are appointing us (Switchd) to provide you with the Service for the period you agreed when you signed up to the Switchd Service. The initial period is usually 12 months.

Automatic Renewal

Unless you terminate the provision of the Services, which you have a right to do, then the Terms will automatically renew at the end of the period of service you agreed when you signed up to the Switchd Service. Subscription charges will, therefore, continue to be taken as agreed with you at initial sign up or as otherwise communicated to you in writing (section 7).

Acting on your behalf and as Your Agent

To allow us to provide the Service you appoint us as your agent and give us permission to act on your behalf. This means that Switchd is permitted to act on your behalf to create legal relationships with third parties, set up direct debits or access information held by third parties.

Acting on your behalf as your agent in connection with the Services we shall have the following powers:

  1. to select energy supply or other service providers for you;
  2. to switch you to suppliers in your name (including communication on your behalf);
  3. to access information held by third parties about you (including but not limited to ECOES, XOSERVE, DCC and or Smart Meter Data); and
  4. any other powers that we may reasonably require in order to provide the Services. Consumers will be notified if we need to share their data further than the energy providers they are switched to.

Your appointment of Switchd to provide the Service and to act on your behalf as your agent will continue in accordance with these Terms.

4. Our Service

Duration of the Services

We will provide the Services to you until you end your subscription or you end the contract as described in these Terms (section 19) or we end the contract by written notice to you as described in these Terms.

Finding the best deal for you

We will carry out regular assessments of all the deals available in the market and determine the best deal for you, given the information we have about your usage patterns.

Switching your supplier

From time to time, when appropriate, we will switch the product or service that you receive to one which we have found to be a better deal for you, over the relevant time period, as described in ‘finding the best deal for you’ above.

We will inform you of any decision we make to switch by email or another agreed method of communication.

We will always switch you to the best deal as we determine given all the deals we are aware of. However, deals may exist that we have been unable to identify, for example, without limitation, those not advertised or not made widely available to the public so we cannot guarantee that there isn’t sometimes a better deal that we have been unable to identify. At the time of writing we search 23,730 tariffs on your behalf.

When we are made aware, or come to realise that a switch has been unsuccessful, we will notify you of it and switch you to the best currently available deal. If an offer has been withdrawn by the supplier, due to reasons outside our control, we will re-analyse the market and switch you to the best currently available deal.

Cooling-off

As part of the Service provided we will notify you of how to contact the supplier we have switched you to. You will be able to cancel any switch that we make on your behalf within the relevant cooling-off period by contacting the supplier directly.

What we do not do

The Service does not include:

  1. any payments you must make to third party suppliers;
  2. sending any messages on your behalf to third party suppliers, except as may be required to apply for products and services, or the receipt and notification to you of any messages received from third party suppliers; or
  3. acting as your energy supplier.

We only sell to the UK and our Website is solely for the use of those resident in the UK. We do not accept any application for our services from addresses outside of the UK.

5. Your Responsibility

Suitability

Our Service is tailored to individual preferences and circumstances and our decisions are made based on the details provided to us by you or by third parties. However, it remains your responsibility to ensure suitability and adequacy of the product or service that is selected by us. You have a 14 day cancellation period for any switch if you deem it unsuitable.

You should seek independent professional advice, if you are uncertain as to the suitability or adequacy of any product or service chosen for you during the provision of the Service.

Contracts with Third Parties

By submitting your details to us, you are giving permission that we will be making applications to obtain products or services from third party suppliers on your behalf that depending on their terms and conditions may be accepted or rejected. Your contract for the third-party product or service will only be concluded once that application has been accepted. You will receive confirmation of acceptance.

If you obtain any third-party product or service through the Switchd Service your contract will be with that third party who will be providing that product or service to you on their own terms and conditions. By accepting these Ts and Cs, you are defaulting to accept the energy provides Tc and Cs too. You will have 14 day to review this and refuse to accept their Ts and Cs by cancelling the switch.

You agree not to apply independently to any provider of the services we are contracted to find for you while using the Switchd Service.

If you decide to cancel a choice of service we have made on your behalf it is your responsibility to inform us of the decision and also to contact the supplier and request the cancellation. This can be done by calling the supplier on the phone number displayed on their website.

Accuracy and Use of Information

You must check and ensure that all information, content, material or data you provide to us during sign up or otherwise is correct, complete, accurate and not misleading. Also, that you disclose all relevant facts, related to the switching of your energy supply, to us when requested.

Before commencement of receiving a product or service from a third party, you must check and, if necessary, correct all material, information, content or data held by the third party about you to ensure it is correct, complete, accurate and not misleading and that all relevant facts have been disclosed by you. Failure to check and correct as described above could invalidate the product or service provided by the third party.

Before providing information about any other person you must get their permission to do so. When you submit any other person's details, you are confirming to us that that they understand how their details will be used you have their permission to provide the details.

Passwords etc.

You may complete a registration process as part of your use of our Service or the Website which may include the creation of a username, password and/or other identification information. You must not disclose this username, password and/or other identification information to any other person and must keep it confidential.

6. Payment & Automatic Renewal Payment

When you must pay and how you must pay

We accept payment as set out on our Website and payment must be made at the time of your application for the Services at the price specified on the Website. We may delay taking payment to a later date as described during sign up and as determined by us.

Automatic Renewal Payment

If the Services automatically renew then we will charge you the price as stated on the Website on the date of the automatic renewal or as communicated to you by any other means. All terms set in out in these Terms, including your rights and any obligations you owe to us, will continue in force.

Prices Include VAT

All prices stated on the Website include VAT unless expressly stated otherwise.

7. Availability of Service & Website

Our aim is to provide uninterrupted access to the Service and Website but we give no warranty as to its availability. We reserve the right to suspend, limit or terminate your access to the Service and Website at any time.

From time to time and without notice, we reserve the right to add, remove, amend, delete, edit or modify any content, material, information, or data displayed on this Website.

8. Permitted use

The use of the Website and Service is for your personal, non-commercial purposes, meaning the Website may only be accessed and used directly by a private individual or by a business to seek a product or service directly for that individual or business. It is strictly prohibited to gain access to and use the Website and our Service other than for your personal, non-commercial purposes.

You are not permitted to use the Website or our Service:

  1. using any automated software, spider, data mining, , process, program, robot, web crawler, trawling or other 'screen scraping' software, process, program or system;
  2. in any unlawful, fraudulent or commercial manner;
  3. to tamper with, modify, reverse engineer or amend any part of this Website;
  4. to harm, intimidate or harass another person, or in a way that invades another person's privacy or is obscene, offensive, hateful, indecent, libel, objectionable, unacceptable, inappropriate, threaten, abuse, embarrass, defame, discriminatory or damaging as determined by us;
  5. to create, confirm, update, check, modify or amend your own or a third party’s databases, records or directories; in a way that interferes with, disrupts or imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large burden on our communications and technical systems as is reasonably determined by us;
  6. you may operate a link to the Website provided it is fair and legal and does not damage or take advantage of our reputation, as determined by us. You must not operate a link to this Website that in any way suggests or implies any form of association, approval or endorsement by us unless expressly given permission, by us, to do so. We may withdraw any linking permission at any time and we reserve the right to require you to immediately remove any link to this Website at our direction.

9. Intellectual Property Rights

All Content included on our Site and the copyright and other intellectual property rights subsisting in that Content, unless specifically labelled otherwise, belongs to or has been licensed by Us. All Content is protected by applicable United Kingdom and international intellectual property laws and treaties.

Subject to the below you may not reproduce, copy, distribute, sell, rent, sub-licence, store, or in any other manner re-use Content from our Site unless given express written permission to do so by Us.

You may:

  1. access, view and use our Site in a web browser (including any web browsing capability built into other types of software or app); Download our Site (or any part of info caching;
  2. print pages from our Site;
  3. download extracts from pages on our Site; and
  4. save pages from our Site for later and/or offline viewing.

Our status as the owner and author of the Content on our Site (or that of identified licensors, as appropriate) must always be acknowledged.

You may not use any Content saved or downloaded from our Site for commercial purposes without first obtaining a licence from Us (or our licensors, as appropriate) to do so. This does not prohibit the normal access, viewing and use of Our Site for general information purposes whether by business users or consumers.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions limits or excludes the provisions of Chapter III of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ‘Acts Permitted in Relation to Copyright Works’, covering in particular the making of temporary copies; research and private study; the making of copies for text and data analysis for non-commercial research; criticism, review, quotation and news reporting; caricature, parody or pastiche; and the incidental inclusion of copyright material.

10. Feedback or complaints

We always aim to provide you with the best service we possibly can. If you are unhappy with our service, please let us know and we will work with you to understand what's happened and put it right. You can send us an email on team@switchd.co.uk or check out our Help Centre for more information.

11. Your User Information & Password

Please let us know if any of your user details change, particularly your email address and mobile phone number. If you do not do this, we will not be able to deliver any alerts to you. We will not be liable for any loss or damage affecting you due to a lack of communication resulting from incorrect contact details for you.

By providing us with your e-mail address, you agree to receive all required notices electronically, to that e-mail address.

12. Submission & Use of Information

By submitting information, PINs, passwords, usernames, other log-in information, materials, data, and other content to us through the Services or Website, you are providing permission for us to use that content for the provision of the Services.

We may store and use the information that you provide us, as described above, in accordance with this Agreement and our Privacy Policy.

You confirm that you are entitled to submit the above mentioned information to us for use in connection with this Agreement and the Service, without us being subject to any restrictions or limitations or any obligation by us to pay any fees.

When you use the Services, you will be directly interacting with the website of the third party provider of the product or service. We will submit information including usernames and passwords that you provided to us in order to log into the Website of the third party concerned. You hereby authorise and permit us to store and use information submitted by you to accomplish the delivery of the Service including configuration to work with the third party sites for which you submit your information.

13. Privacy

We treat your privacy very seriously and we are committed to protecting your privacy. We process information about you in line with our Privacy Policy. By using the Website, you agree to the way in which we process and deal with your personal information.

We may disclose your personal information or access your account if required to do so by law, any court, the Financial Conduct Authority, or any other applicable regulatory, compliance, Governmental or law enforcement agency.

How we may use your personal information – We will use the personal information you provide to us:

  1. to supply the Services to you;
  2. to process your payment for the Services; and
  3. to inform you about similar services that we or our partners provide, but you may stop receiving these at any time by contacting us.

14. Limitation of Liability

You should read the following terms very carefully as they set out our liability to you.

Liability which is not excluded

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for our fraud, or excludes or limits our mandatory duties or liability under English law.

Validity

If any provision of these Terms held to be unlawful, invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be deemed deleted from these Terms and the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of these Terms shall not be affected.

No guarantee of data

We are not able to guarantee that the data, material and information we use to provide the Service is always accurate and without error.

We do not monitor, verify or endorse data, material and information submitted or provided by third parties, which is used to provide our Service and you should be aware that such information may be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. We are not responsible for any data, material or information used to provide our Service, which has been provided by third parties.

Liability for Website

We exercise all reasonable skill and care to ensure that our Site is free from viruses and other malware. We accept no liability for any loss or damage resulting from a virus or other malware, a distributed denial of service attack, or other harmful material or event that may adversely affect your hardware, software, data or other material that occurs as a result of your use of our Site (including the downloading of any Content from it) or any other site referred to on our Site.

We neither assume nor accept responsibility or liability arising out of any disruption or non-availability of our Site resulting from external causes including, but not limited to, ISP equipment failure, host equipment failure, communications network failure, natural events, acts of war, or legal restrictions and censorship.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions excludes or restricts our liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for death or personal injury resulting from negligence, or for any other forms of liability which cannot be excluded or restricted by law. For full details of consumers’ legal rights, including those relating to digital content, please contact your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office.

We are responsible to you for foreseeable loss and damage cause by us. If we fail to comply with these Terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or our failing to use reasonable care and skill, but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss of damage is foreseeable is either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time this contract was made, both we and you know it might happen.

Losses caused by a third party

We are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with any contract entered into by you or the terms and conditions (even where we have acted on your behalf to sign up to the contract) with any third party in relation to any product or service or for any acts, omissions, errors or defaults of any third party in connection with those terms and conditions.

We have no liability for business losses

If you use the Services for any commercial or business purposes we will have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

Delay

No failure or delay by us in exercising any right under these Terms will operate as a waiver of that right nor will any single or partial exercise by us of any right preclude any further exercise of any right.

15. Use of third party websites

You are solely responsible for any use of any third-party websites and for any decision to obtain or refrain from obtaining any of the products or services available on such third party websites.

Links to other sites may be included on our Site. Unless expressly stated, these sites are not under our control. Without limiting our ability to provide the Service, we neither assume nor accept responsibility or liability for the content of third party sites. The inclusion of a link to another site on our Site is for information only and does not imply any endorsement of the sites themselves or of those in control of them.

Your use of any third-party website will be governed by the terms and conditions of use and privacy policy applicable to that website. Such terms and conditions of use and privacy policy will be different from these Terms and our Privacy Policy. It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand and agree with the terms and conditions of use and privacy policy of any third party website before using that website.

We are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with the terms and conditions of use or the privacy policy applying to any third party website or for any acts, omissions, errors or defaults of any third party in connection with those terms and conditions of use and/or privacy policy.

Any views, opinions, advice or assistance which is given or provided to you by a third party after you have used this Website do not represent our views, opinions, advice or assistance and are not checked, monitored, reviewed, verified or endorsed by us. We do not endorse, recommend or take responsibility for any third party who provides you with any views, opinions advice or assistance.

You act or refrain from acting on any third party's views, opinions, advice or assistance at your sole risk and sole discretion and you are solely responsible for any decision to act or refrain from acting on such views, opinions, advice or assistance. We are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with such views, opinions, advice or assistance including in relation to their accuracy, truthfulness or completeness or for any acts, omissions, errors or defaults of any third party in connection with such views, opinions, advice or assistance.

16. Miscellaneous

Validity

If any provision of these Terms held to be unlawful, invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be deemed deleted from these Terms and the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of these Terms shall not be affected.

Entire Agreement

These Terms and the Privacy Policy, together with the acts of our duly authorised agents and statements on our website regarding the benefits of the service, constitute the extent of the agreement between you and us relating to your access to and use of the Website and our Service, and supersedes prior Terms.

Delay

No failure or delay by us in exercising any right under these Terms will operate as a waiver of that right nor will any single or partial exercise by us of any right preclude any further exercise of any right.

We may transfer this agreement to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another organisation, provided that this would not materially impact the Service. If a transfer occurs, the customer will be notified with the opportunity to terminate their contract.

This contract is personal to you, you cannot transfer it or your rights to another person and nobody else has any rights under these Terms

These Terms are a legally binding agreement between you and us. No other person shall any rights to enforce any of the provisions set out in these Terms.

17. Changes to these Terms and Conditions

We may alter these Terms and Conditions at any time. If we do so, details of the changes will be highlighted at the top of this page and we will contact customers in this regard. Any such changes will become binding on you upon your first use of our Site after the changes have been implemented. You are therefore advised to check this page from time to time.

In the event of any conflict between the current version of these Terms and Conditions and any previous version(s), the provisions current and in effect shall prevail unless it is expressly stated otherwise

18. Your rights to end the contract

You can always end your contract with us. We do ask that you get in touch first to see if there is something we can do to improve the Service to your satisfaction.

Your rights when you end these Terms will depend on the Service you have bought, whether there is anything wrong with it, how we are performing and when you decide to end the contract:

  1. If what you have bought is faulty or not as described you may have a legal right to end the contract or to get the service re-performed or to get some or all of your money back;
  2. If you want to end the contract because of something that we have done or told you we are going to do, see below;
  3. If you have changed your mind about the service, see below; and

In all other cases (if we are not at fault and there is not right to change your mind), see below.

Ending the contract because of something we have done or going to do

If you are ending these Terms for the reasons set out below, the legally binding agreement we have will end immediately and we will refund you in full for any services which have not been provided and you may be entitled to compensation. The reasons are:

  1. we have told you about an upcoming change to the services or these Terms which you do not agree to;
  2. we have told you about an error in the price or description of the Services you have applied for and you do not wish to proceed;
  3. there is a risk that our ability to supply the Services you have contracted for may not be available to you for events outside of our control;
  4. we have suspended supply of the Services for technical reasons, or notify you we are going to suspend them for technical reasons, in each case for a period of more than three months; or
  5. you have a legal right to end the contract because of something that we have done wrong.
Exercising your right to change your mind (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013)

For most products and services bought online you have a legal right to change your mind within 14 days and receive a refund.

Loss of Right to Change Your Mind

In these Terms and in the process of sign up to the Service you request us to provide you with immediate performance of the Services (once we have accepted you as a customer) at the time of entering into these Terms on sign up and on each renewal of the Services.

This means, in each case, that you will lose your right to change your mind referred to above in respect of the Services. You expressly acknowledge this loss of right to change your mind in accepting these Terms.

Ending the contract where we are not at fault and there is no right to change your mind

If you do not have any other rights to end the legally binding agreement between us, you can still contact us before it is completed and tell us you want to end it. We will refund any subscription already paid but will retain a portion of the paid subscription to cover you up to the later of: 6 months after your last switch or 1 month after you cancel the contract.

The legally binding agreement between us will not end until 1 months after the day on which you contact us to end the Service.

19. How to end the agreement with us (including if you have changed your mind)

Tell us you want to end the agreement

To end the legally binding agreement with us, please let us know by doing one of the following:

Email us at team@switchd.co.uk or in writing to International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London, England, EC1A 2BN. Please provide your name, home address, details of the service you have bought from us and, where available your phone number and email address.

We will refund you the price you paid for the Services by the method used for payment. However, we will deductions from the refund as described above. This is to protect us from users cancelling the contract once a switch has already been performed.

We will make any refunds due to you as soon as possible. If you are exercising your right to change your mind then your refund will be made within 14 days of your telling us you have changed your mind.

20. Our Rights to End the Agreement

We may end the legally binding agreement between us if you break it. We may end the agreement for the provision of the Service at any time by writing to you if:

You do not make a payment to us when it is due and you still do not make payment within seven days of us reminding you that payment is due; or

You do not, within a reasonable time of us asking for it, provide us with information that is necessary for us to provide the Service.

21. Responsibility for Third Parties

We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of any third party, including without limitation, the acts or omissions of energy suppliers.

22. Governing law

These Terms and your access to and use of this Website shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with English law.

Each of you and us submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales in connection with these Terms and your access to and use of this Website (including any claims or disputes).