Terms, Conditions, Privacy and Refund Policy

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After reading this page, you must click the checkbox on the Payment Information page to proceed with your order. If you decide that the Terms, Conditions, Privacy and Refund Policies are unacceptable, just don't click the checkbox and you can Empty your shopping cart. But just think what you'll be missing - look at that plate of that mouth-watering, sweet, crunchy, delicious toffee ... mmmm! Clicking on the checkbox represents your agreement to all the terms and conditions either explicitly stated or implied. Don't worry, there's nothing in here that goes beyond what any reasonable person would expect (except for the condition about adding us to your will as sole beneficiary ... just kidding!).

The website from which you accessed this agreement ("the Website") is provided to you subject to the following conditions. These terms are in addition to any other terms governing access to the Website. By visiting (in any manner) the Website you accept these terms and conditions (the "Terms of Service"). Please read them carefully. Any Non-Human Visitors to the Website shall be considered agents of the individual(s) who controls, authors or otherwise makes use of them. The access rights granted to you under the Terms of Service are non-transferable without the express written permission of the owner of the Website.

Shipping

The most difficult times for shipping handmade chocolate and toffee items is spring and fall. These are the times when some of the country (SoCal, FL, TX) can have temperature swings that go from 40F to 80F, while the northern part of the nation sits comfortably at the 20's and 30's. So, when you place an order in March from Detroit that you're sending to someone in Georgia, don't be surprised if it costs A LOT more to ship. We may have to use insulated packaging with ice packs to get it there before it melts. And even if we do, there is still no guarantee that it'll arrive in perfect coniditon. Although it would be nice to have complete control over the transit of our product, once it leave our warehouse, we do not.

Since I've had a few people bring this topic up, I thought I should address "free shipping." There is no such thing as "free shipping," any more than there is such a thing as a "free" sample. Except in the make-believe world promoted by Socialists, everything costs something to someone. When places like Amazon and Land's End offer "free shipping," it's only free to the extent that you're not paying the entire cost of shipping your item. Amazon pays the shipping company one way or another - usually by adding the cost of shipping to the price of the product you're buying. Sometimes those companies spread shipping costs into the sale price of other items they sell; but there is still a cost - it is not free. They do this to entice you to buy more product, thus distributing the costs across a larger product base. The company still makes a profit, since they distribute the costs across all their sales.

We cannot offer "free shipping." We are a small company that counts every cent that comes in and goes out, and our volume is not large enough to spread the shipping costs like the Amazon's do. We sell in 2 years what Amazon sells in an hour. We do not have enough margin in each sale to distribute the costs of shipping across all the sales we make. Sometimes the actual shipping costs are more than the toffee being sent. That is a cost we have to pay to UPS or the Post Office, it is not a cost we arbitrarily determine. They charge us for shipping, so we charge you. We make no profit on shipping; at the end of the year, we lose money on shipping. It's a little disturbing when people confront us about this topic and imply or explicitly state that we are fleecing them, when in most cases, the costs for these people to ship are actually higher than what we are charging them with our flat rate.

Most orders are packaged and shipped within three business days of receiving the order. We reserve the right to delay shipment until such time that we determine its arrival will be in the most satisfactory condition. For example, in the warmer months especially, if an order is placed on Wednesday for shipment to TX, we will hold that package until Monday so that it doesn't sit in a UPS warehouse over the weekend.

The map on the left shows the transit days for packages sent from The Toffee House (Zip code 15301). These transit days reflect the travel time of the package once it leaves The Toffee House, not from the date the gift is ordered. The number of days-in-transit is based on business days, not weekend or holiday days. We normally don't ship on Thursday or Friday, especially when it's warm in the area to which the gift is heading. If the destination is in a state that takes longer than 2 days, the package will be restricted and you will have to call to order.

From approximately October through March, The Toffee House^® will ship most items through UPS and occasionally through the US Postal Service ("USPS") - reserving the right to add a handling fee for orders that must be sent via the Post Office since this manner of shipment is outside our normal procedures and incurs additional costs to us. From approximately April through September, we will ship our toffee in special warm weather packaging (it's approximate since we don't control the weather - sometimes it gets pretty darned hot in September or May). The packaging we use from April through September will be a styrofoam-lined corrugated container with reusable ice packs. Orders shipped using any other option than UPS Ground will incur additional charges. The Toffee House^® will not be responsible for any weather-related or other damage the product sustains during shipment after it leaves our warehouse. We retain the right to ship the product using any shipping method we deem will get the product there in the best condition in a reaonable amount of time and at as minimal a cost as possible.

We will only ship to the restricted states upon request and with your understanding that warm weather melts chocolate and once it leaves here, we can't be responsible for the condition upon arrival; the insulated packaging is not a guarantee, it is only an attmept at mitigation. Please understand that we are implementing these changes so that the product you receive is in the best condition possible.

Beginning in 2013, we will "shut off" states which get excessively hot in the summer. If you want to still ship it, we will send it UPS Next Day Air. The cost will be shocking if you've never sent like this before. Keep in mind that we still have to put the toffee in an insulated container with ice packs, so a 1 lb tin of toffee will not be shipped as a 1 lb package, it will be considered by UPS as a 13lb package because of Dimensional Weight. Because the package's dimensions exceed a standard package, UPS adds "weight" to the pakage to compensate for the additonal bulk. If you want to estimate a 1 lb tin, go to UPS.com and put in the weight of 8 lbs (this is the weight of the tin, box and ice packs) plus the dimensions of 14x13x11 inches. The cost you see is just the cost of shipping, it doesn't include the cost we pay for the special packaging and ice packs. It's be nice if we lived in the Star Trek fantasy world where there was no money and everyone just worked to better themselves, but we don't. We live in the real world of needing to feed our kids.

We will ship to physical addresses and PO Boxes whenever possible. Orders that cannot be shipped using UPS ( PO Box addresses in particular ) will take at least a day longer to process and may incur an additional handling fee. The Toffee House^® is not responsible for inaccurate addresses and is not liable for lost items due to inaccurate addresses.

Tax
Tax is not added at this time to orders. If the government chooses to burden small businesses with an Internet tax in its never-ending attempt to force manufacturing to other countries, then we will address that when the time comes.

In the meantime, I suggest taking a look at something that would go a long way in bringing businesses back to the US, relieve citizens of the intrusion of privacy of the IRS and enable workers to get 100% of their paycheck. It is called the FairTax and it's an idea whose time has come. Check it out at www.FairTax.org. The Ruling Class in Washington, DC will not willingly give up their power of taxation, which they wield like the Sword of Damaclese, so we must, as citizens, demand passage of this Bill from our legislators with a threat to unseat them at the next election.

“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” — Frederic Bastiat

Personalization of Cards
The Toffee House^® offers to our Corporate Clients the option of having their business logo and/or name printed on the front of the bi-fold card that is placed in each tin or tied to each bag. This service is offered free of charge.

The Toffee House^® can obtain the corporate logo from an electronic file in a BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG, or PDF. We can also try to scan the image from a business card or letterhead. There may be an additional charge if a special font needs to be purchased. Usually, this will be around $20.

Returns & Refunds
If you did not receive exactly what you ordered, or it arrived in poor condition, and is not the fault of The Toffee House^®, we will either credit your account or replace your merchandise. However, The Toffee House^® will not be liable for weather-related damage if your shipment is traveling between April and October. We will do everything in our power to get you the freshest toffee, but sometimes, it gets too dang hot. We also are not responsible for damage incurred during shipment. You can contact UPS for claims.

Please return the unused portion with an explanation containing the time, date and place of purchase or from whom and when you received it as a gift, the problem you encountered and your contact information.

To return the merchandise, please call or e-mail The Toffee House^® to receive a return authorization number. You can then contact UPS for pick-up, or take it to a UPS counter.

Payment Methods
We accept the following payment methods:

• Visa
• MasterCard
• American Express
• Discover
• Money Order
• Cashier's Check
• Personal Check (The Toffee House^® reserves the right to hold shipment until the personal check has cleared.)

Security & Privacy Policy
The Toffee House^® uses encryption technology through its Hosting Provider, Hostway.com, in those areas of our site which require the protection of your information. To make sure you have the best security features, please download and install the latest version of your browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape (of course, you may be one out of a million who uses Firefox, Opera, Deepnet Explorer, Amaya, or another obscure browser, but I think you'll be OK with our security and site layout - let me know if you run into issues).

The Toffee House^® respects your privacy. We will never share any of your personal information with anyone anytime. Periodically, The Toffee House^® will use name and address information for promotional or marketing pieces for The Toffee House^® only. We will never sell, release, or intentionally disseminate any personal information of our customers or visitors to any entity.

SPECIAL LICENSE RESTRICTIONS FOR NON-HUMAN VISITORS

Special restrictions on a visitor's license to access the Website apply to Non-Human Visitors. Non-Human Visitors include, but are not limited to, web spiders, bots, indexers, robots, crawlers, harvesters, or any other computer programs designed to access, read, compile or gather content from the Website automatically.

Email addresses on this site are considered proprietary intellectual property. It is recognized that these email addresses are provided for human visitors alone. You acknowledge and agree that each email address the Website contains has a value not less than US $50. You further agree that the compilation, storage, and/or distribution of these addresses substantially diminishes the value of these addresses. Intentional collection, harvesting, gathering, and/or storing this Website's email addresses is recognized as a violation of this agreement and expressly prohibited.

APPLICABLE LAW AND JURISDICTION

Each party agrees that any suit, action or proceeding brought by such party against the other in connection with or arising from the Terms of Service ("Judicial Action") shall be governed by the law of the state of residence of the registered Administrative Contact (the "Admin State") for the Website as such laws are applied to agreements between Admin State residents entered into and performed entirely within the Admin State. You consent to the jurisdiction of federal and state courts within the Admin State. You consent to the venue in any action brought against him in connection with breaches of these Terms of Service. You consent to electronic service of process regarding actions under the above agreement.

RECORDS OF VISITOR USE AND ABUSE

You consent to having your Internet Protocol address recorded. An email address may appear immediately below (the "Identifier") if we suspect potential abuse. The Identifier is uniquely matched to your Internet Protocol address. Visitors agree not to use this address for any reason.

VISITORS AGREE THAT HARVESTING, GATHERING, STORING, TRANSFERRING TO A THIRD PARTY OR SENDING ANY MESSAGE(S) TO THE IDENTIFIER CONSTITUTES AN ACCEPTANCE AND SUBSEQUENT BREACH OF THESE TERMS OF SERVICE.

Our priority to you, our customer, is to make you feel safe and secure (or warm and fuzzy, if you prefer) when making any transactions with The Toffee House^®. Please feel free to e-mail us at toffee@thetoffeehouse.com or give us a call at 724-223-7901.

Privacy Policy Statement

This is the web site of The Toffee House. Our postal address is 100 Commerce Drive, Washington, PA 15301 We can be reached via e-mail at toffee@thetoffeehouse.com or you can reach us by telephone at 866-590-7901

For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes the consumer's domain name and e-mail address (where possible).

We collect the domain name and e-mail address (where possible) of visitors to our Web page, aggregate information on what pages consumers access or visit, user-specific information on what pages consumers access or visit, name and address, telephone number, payment information (e.g., credit card number and billing address).

The information we collect is NEVER shared with other organizations for ANY purposes. With that being said, if one of the countless agencies that exist in our bloated and freedom-crushing government requests information we have, we will be forced by the heavy hand of government to disclose the information when legally required to do so, at the request of said threatening governmental authorities conducting an investigation (most of which will have been instigated for political rather than legal reasons), to verify or enforce compliance of current wasteful regulations with the policies governing our Website and applicable laws or to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Website.

With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record session information, such as items that consumers add to their shopping cart, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, record past activity at a site in order to provide better service when visitors return to our site .

If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending an e-mail to the above address or calling us at the above telephone number.

We will NEVER make the e-mail addresses of those who access our site available to other organizations.

If you supply us with your postal address on-line you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on new products and services or upcoming events. If you do not wish to receive such mailings, please let us know by calling us at the number provided above, e-mailing us at the above address. We will be sure your name is removed from the list we share with other organizations

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to unique identifier information (e.g., customer number or password) that we maintain about them, transaction information (e.g., dates on which customers made purchases, amounts and types of purchases) that we maintain about them, contact information (e.g., name, address, phone number) that we maintain about them. All of this information can be seen, edited and deleted by the site visitor using the appropriate links on the site. If, for any reason, you are not able to do so, please call and we can make changes to your account over the phone.

With respect to security: When we transfer and receive certain types of sensitive information such as financial information, we redirect visitors to a secure server that has an SSL certificate using at least 128-bit encryption. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above addresses or phone number.

Have a nice day.