1. About us
1.1 The Community is operated by Plain English Finance Limited ("we", "us", "our"), a limited company registered in England and Wales (company number 07503422). We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under Firm Reference Number 564876.
1.2 Our registered office is: Stag Gates House, 63/64 The Avenue, Southampton, Hampshire, SO17 1XS.
1.3 You can contact us about anything in this Agreement at [email protected].
2. The Community - and the platform we use to host it
2.1 The Community is the online space we provide for members of our Own Your World Mastermind ("the Mastermind") to ask questions, share progress, and discuss the material together.
2.2 At the date of this Agreement, we most likely intend to host the Community on Skool or another similar community platform. The exact platform may change from time to time. When we refer to "the Community" in this Agreement, we mean the current version of the platform on which we are hosting it, whatever it happens to be.
2.3 In addition to our own rules in this Agreement, the platform provider will have its own terms of service and community standards that apply to you when you use their platform. You agree to comply with those as well.
2.4 If we ever move the Community to a different platform, we will let members know in advance and this Agreement will continue to apply.
3. What "your content" means
3.1 "Your Content" means anything you post, upload, share, submit, or otherwise contribute in or through the Community, in whatever form. That includes:
- posts, replies, comments, questions, and answers;
- images, videos, audio, files, links, and documents you upload or share;
- your profile information, including your display name, biography, and profile picture;
- private messages you send to other members or to us through the platform;
- any testimonial, review, or feedback you give us; and
- anything else you contribute to the Community.
4. Financial content - important rules
4.1 The Community exists so that members can learn together and support each other. It is not a place to give or receive personal financial advice.
4.2 Only qualified, properly authorised financial advisers can give personal financial advice under UK law. Neither we, nor other members, are giving you personal advice in the Community, and you should not treat anything posted there as personal advice.
4.3 In particular, you must not:
- hold yourself out as a financial adviser or as authorised by the FCA if you are not;
- recommend specific investment products, individual stocks, or trading strategies to a specific member as if you were giving them personal advice;
- invite other members to invest in any scheme, fund, business, or product you are involved with, or from which you would benefit financially;
- share tips, signals, or predictions that are presented as guaranteed or near-guaranteed outcomes; or
- promote any product, service, or company - including your own - to other members without our prior written permission.
4.4 Sharing your own experience, describing what you personally chose to do and why, and asking questions about principles and frameworks is fine and is exactly what the Community is for. Telling another member specifically what they should do with their money is not.
4.5 We may remove any content that we consider crosses this line, and we may suspend or remove any member who repeatedly does so. See sections 8 and 9.
5. Your general promises when you post
5.1 Whenever you post Your Content in the Community, you confirm to us that:
- you own it, or you have all the rights and permissions needed to share it;
- it does not infringe anyone else's copyright, trade mark, privacy, or other rights;
- it is accurate and honest, and not misleading;
- it complies with all applicable laws and regulations; and
- it complies with this Agreement, our other terms, and the rules of the platform on which the Community is hosted.
6. Confidentiality between members
6.1 The Community is a semi-private space among fellow Mastermind members. Members may share personal or financial information about themselves - such as their income, savings, investment mistakes, career situation, or family circumstances - that they would not want repeated outside the Community.
6.2 By joining the Community, you agree to treat what other members share as confidential to the Community. You must not:
- share, publish, screenshot, or repeat elsewhere anything personal that another member has posted, without that member's express permission; or
- identify any other member outside the Community without their permission.
6.3 Common sense also applies in the other direction: because we cannot force other members to respect confidentiality perfectly, you should not share anything in the Community that you would be seriously harmed by if it were repeated. Consider what you post accordingly.
7. Content you may not post
7.1 You must not post any content that is, or that a reasonable person would consider to be:
- unlawful, or in breach of any applicable regulation;
- defamatory, dishonest, or knowingly false;
- harassing, threatening, bullying, or intimidating towards any person;
- discriminatory or hateful on grounds of race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any other protected characteristic;
- sexually explicit, obscene, or pornographic;
- graphically violent;
- an invasion of another person's privacy, or a disclosure of another person's personal information without their consent;
- infringing of anyone else's intellectual property rights;
- spam, chain-message, pyramid scheme, or unsolicited promotional content;
- advertising, recruitment for, or promotion of any product, service, or organisation - including your own - without our prior written permission;
- an attempt to impersonate any person or organisation, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation;
- any malware, virus, corrupted file, or malicious code; or
- in breach of the financial rules in section 4 above.
7.2 You must also not use the Community to:
- collect other members' personal information, whether by scraping, private messaging, or any other means;
- send unsolicited direct messages promoting any product, service, or point of view;
- circumvent, disable, or interfere with the security or functionality of the platform on which the Community is hosted; or
- do anything that could bring us, Andrew Craig personally, or the Community into disrepute.
8. Our right to moderate and remove content
8.1 We (and any moderators we appoint) may, at our discretion and without notice:
- remove, edit, or hide any content that we reasonably consider breaches this Agreement or is otherwise inappropriate;
- issue a warning to the member responsible;
- restrict a member's ability to post, comment, or send private messages for a period; and/or
- suspend or permanently remove a member from the Community, without refund, in accordance with the Terms of Sale.
8.2 We will normally give the member concerned an opportunity to respond before we take significant action, but we reserve the right to act immediately where we reasonably consider the seriousness of the breach, or the risk to other members, requires it.
8.3 We are not obliged to monitor everything posted in the Community, and we do not warrant that we will catch every breach. If you see something that breaches this Agreement, please report it (see section 13).
8.4 We are not responsible for the content posted by other members. Any views expressed by members are those of the individual member, not of Plain English Finance.
9. Consequences of breach
9.1 In addition to our rights in section 8, if you breach this Agreement seriously or repeatedly we may:
- terminate your access to the Community and to any other product or service you have bought from us, in accordance with the Terms of Sale, without refund;
- take legal action against you where necessary to protect us, our other members, or any affected third party; and
- share information about the breach with law enforcement or other authorities where required by law.
9.2 You will remain responsible for any losses, damage, or liability we suffer as a result of your breach of this Agreement.
10. Ownership of Your Content, and the licence you give us
10.1 You keep ownership of Your Content, including any copyright and other intellectual property rights in it.
10.2 To let us actually run the Community, and to let us include Your Content in the day-to-day life of the Community and in genuine, non-misleading references to it, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, adapt, publish, and make available Your Content:
- within the Community itself, to other current and future members;
- in Plain English Finance archives and back-ups; and
- in aggregated or anonymised form, for the purposes of running, improving, describing, and promoting our products and services.
10.3 This licence continues after you leave the Community, to the extent needed to keep the Community's own historical record intact (for example, so that a thread you contributed to still makes sense to members who read it later). If you want your identifiable contributions removed on leaving, please contact us and we will do what is reasonably practicable, but we cannot guarantee removal of every trace.
10.4 The licence in section 10.2 does not extend to marketing use of Your Content in a way that identifies you personally, unless section 11 (Testimonials) applies or you have given specific consent.
11. Testimonials and quoting members
11.1 From time to time we may want to quote something you have posted, said, or written - for example, a testimonial, a review, an email you have sent us, or a helpful contribution in the Community - in our marketing, on our website, in our emails, or on social media. Where the content identifies you personally, we will always ask for your permission first, and we will only use it in the way you have agreed.
11.2 When we do, we will usually attribute it in the form you have used yourself - for example, first name and general location ("Phil, Northern Ireland") - and never in a way that identifies you more specifically than you would be comfortable with.
11.3 If you would prefer us not to use a particular piece of feedback in our marketing, please tell us at the time you send it, or contact us afterwards at [email protected] and we will not use it (or, if already used, will stop using it going forward).
11.4 We will not fabricate, edit, or amend testimonials in a way that misrepresents what you meant.
12. Your rights over the content you post
12.1 Under UK data protection law, you have rights over the personal information about you that we hold - including the personal information contained in Your Content. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
12.2 You may edit or delete individual posts at any time using the platform's normal editing tools, where available.
12.3 If you want to leave the Community altogether, please contact us at [email protected]. Section 10.3 explains what happens to Your Content when you leave.
13. Reporting a breach
13.1 If you see something in the Community that you think breaches this Agreement, please report it in one of the following ways:
- using the reporting or flag function built into the platform (where available);
- sending a private message to a moderator or to Andrew Craig; or
- emailing us at [email protected].
13.2 We take reports seriously. We will look into any report reasonably promptly and take whatever action we think is appropriate. We may not always tell the person who reported the breach what action we took, but we will if we can.
14. No warranty; our liability
14.1 We do our best to keep the Community available, working, and useful, but we do not warrant that it will be available at all times, error-free, or free from disruption. Availability may be affected by maintenance, technical issues, or matters outside our reasonable control (including the availability of the platform on which the Community is hosted).
14.2 Nothing in this Agreement limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for any liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, or for any duty or liability under FSMA or the FCA's rules.
14.3 Subject to section 14.2, our liability to you for anything arising in connection with the Community, or with Your Content, is capped and limited as set out in section 18 of the Terms of Sale.
15. Changes to this Agreement
15.1 We may update this Agreement from time to time. The current version will always be available in the Community and on request from us.
15.2 If we make a material change, we will tell members in advance - typically by posting a notice in the Community and, where we hold your email address, by email.
15.3 By continuing to use the Community after an update takes effect, you accept the updated Agreement.
16. Governing law and jurisdiction
16.1 This Agreement, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with it (including non-contractual disputes or claims), are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
16.2 The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with this Agreement.
17. General
17.1 If any part of this Agreement is found by a court to be unenforceable, the remaining parts will continue to apply.
17.2 A failure or delay by us in enforcing any part of this Agreement is not a waiver of our right to enforce it in the future.
17.3 You may not assign or transfer your rights under this Agreement without our prior written consent.
17.4 No third party has any rights to enforce this Agreement under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
18. Contact us
18.1 If you have any questions about this Agreement, or you want to raise something with us in private rather than in the Community itself, please contact us at [email protected] or in writing at Plain English Finance Limited, Stag Gates House, 63/64 The Avenue, Southampton, Hampshire, SO17 1XS.