Credit Programme Terms

These terms govern the credit programme — recommending personalized Hero of the Book children's books for those who do not run a business. The reward here is not a commission in money, but credit towards your own future purchase.

1. Who declares the programme

The programme is declared by:

• Name: Lukáš Kantor, a self-employed person doing business under the Trade Licensing Act
• Company ID: 03177009, VAT ID: CZ9109235410
• Registered address: Milíkov 244, 739 81 Milíkov
• Contact e-mail: contact@heroofthebook.co.uk

(hereinafter the "operator"). A person whose application to the programme has been approved by the operator is hereinafter referred to as the "participant".

The programme is a public promise pursuant to Section 2884 et seq. of the Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll.): the operator undertakes to provide credit to everyone who meets the conditions set out below. The law of the United Kingdom has no institute of that name, but the result is the same — an announcement of this kind is a unilateral offer to the world, which is accepted by meeting the stated conditions and from that moment binds the person who made it. This is not a brokerage agreement nor any other contract for consideration — the participant undertakes nothing towards the operator, performs nothing on the operator's account and acquires no entitlement to a monetary payment.

These terms concern exclusively the relationship between the operator and the participant. The relationship between the operator and a customer introduced by the participant is governed by the terms and conditions — the participant is not a party to the purchase contract and does not act as the operator's representative.

2. Who can take part

A participant may be a natural person who:

• is over 18 years of age and has full legal capacity,
• has provided true and complete details in the application.

Neither a business licence nor a registration number is required, and the operator does not ascertain them — the credit is neither paid out nor invoiced, so there is no reason for them.

Anyone who wishes to recommend in return for a commission in money should use the affiliate programme; that programme is, however, intended for entrepreneurs, because commissions are paid against an invoice. Taking part in both programmes at the same time is not possible and only one reward is ever granted for a single referral. A switch between the programmes is possible for the future upon a request sent to the contact e-mail; entitlements that have already arisen are settled under the terms of the programme in which they arose.

3. Start and duration of participation

Participation begins when the operator approves the application. The programme is approval-based: the operator is not obliged to accept an application and may reject it without giving a reason. There is no legal entitlement to take part in the programme.

Once approved, the participant receives their referral code and link. The code is personal and non-transferable.

4. Referral link, code and recording of referrals

Referrals are recorded as follows:

• When a visitor clicks the participant's referral link, the participant's code is stored in a cookie in the visitor's browser.
• The cookie is valid for 30 days from the last click.
• An order is assigned to the person whose code is in the cookie at the moment of ordering. The last click rule applies.
• If the visitor deletes their cookies, uses a different device or browser, or has cookies blocked by their browser settings, the referral may not be recorded. No entitlement to credit arises from an unrecorded order and the operator is not liable for technical limitations on the visitor's side.
• A purchase of one's own does not count. An order paid for by the participant themselves — whether from the account to which the code is linked or to the e-mail address of that account — does not give rise to credit. This is where the programme differs from the affiliate programme, in which self-purchases are permitted: credit is a reward for recommending to someone else, not a discount for oneself.

5. Discount for the referred customer

A customer who arrives via the participant's referral link receives a 10% discount off the price of the book and the audiobook add-on. The discount does not apply to shipping.

Discounts cannot be combined: if the customer applies a separate discount coupon, the coupon replaces the automatic referral discount. This has no effect on the recording of the referral or on the participant's entitlement to credit.

6. Credit — what it is and what it is not

For a referred and paid order, credit amounting to 10% of the base is added to the participant's balance; the base is the price of the book actually paid excluding value added tax, i.e. after deducting discounts and coupons. The base does not include shipping, the audiobook add-on or value added tax.

Credit is a promise of a discount off the price of a future purchase from the operator, not a monetary payment. It follows that credit:

• is not paid out in money and cannot be exchanged for money, neither in part nor upon termination of participation,
• is non-transferable — it cannot be given away, sold or otherwise transferred to another person; nor does it pass to heirs,
• cannot be used to pay outside the operator's offering and cannot be exchanged for a gift voucher or for any other transferable store of value,
• does not bear interest and does not give rise to a monetary claim against the operator.

Credit is recorded in the currency of the version in which it arose.

7. Origin and expiry of the entitlement

The entitlement to credit arises upon payment of the referred order, and the credit is added to the participant's balance immediately. There is no waiting period and no additional approval.

The entitlement expires if:

• the order was cancelled or the amount paid was refunded to the customer (including partially — in which case the entitlement expires to the corresponding extent),
• the order was placed fraudulently, by misuse of payment instruments, or in breach of Art. 10 of these terms,
• the order was placed only for show, in order to obtain credit.

Because credit is added immediately, expiry of the entitlement is dealt with retrospectively: the operator is entitled to reduce the participant's balance by the corresponding amount, or to invalidate the credit. The balance will never fall below zero. If the discount has already been used up, the operator will not pursue the participant for anything — it may, however, set it off against credit arising to the participant later.

8. Applying the credit

Credit that has been added is held by the participant's account as a balance. No exchange, conversion or issuance of a code takes place — the participant applies the credit simply by being logged in when placing an order; the balance is deducted from the price automatically.

• The balance is reduced gradually as it is applied — the unused part remains for the next purchase.
• The balance is valid for 365 days from the last credit added. Each further reward extends this period. Once the period expires, an unused balance lapses without compensation; it is not converted into money.
• The balance is tied to the participant's account and is non-transferable — it can be applied only to an order of the same participant; if another person attempts to apply it, the system will not accept it.
• The balance cannot be used to pay for a gift voucher or for any other performance that is transferable to another person (Art. 6). It applies to a book, its printing, shipping and add-ons for the participant themselves.
• No review reward arises for a purchase paid for out of credit.

The lapse of an unused balance on expiry of the period concerns a discount, not money paid — the participant paid nothing for the credit, so it is neither a deposit nor a gift voucher.

9. Annual cap

The total credit added to a single participant per calendar year is limited to £500. Once that amount is reached, further referrals are recorded until the end of the calendar year, but no credit arises from them.

The cap is part of the promise, not a technical limitation: above that threshold it is no longer an occasional benefit for a customer, but a systematic gainful activity, which is governed by the affiliate programme and which presupposes a business licence.

10. Rules for recommending

The participant is under no obligation to publish, promote or state anything anywhere; the programme creates no such obligation and the operator orders no performance. If the participant decides to share their link, the following rules apply.

No reward is provided under this programme for commissioned content creation or for agreed promotion. If the participant agrees with the operator that they will create or publish something for the operator, such collaboration is governed by the separate creator collaboration terms; the reward under those terms does not count towards the cap under Art. 9 and is not mixed with credit.

The participant is obliged to:

• present the product truthfully and in line with the information stated on the operator's website; not to promise features, prices, deadlines or guarantees that the operator does not provide,
• label a message as advertising or as a partnership wherever the law requires it, including on social media,
• comply with the rules on sending commercial communications (the recipient's consent and the option to unsubscribe at any time).

What the law of the United Kingdom requires. Since 6 April 2025 unfair commercial practices have been governed by Part 4 Chapter 1 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (repealed by section 251(1) of that Act). Three of its rules bear directly on promotion:

• Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. Editorial content promoting a product where the reader cannot tell that the trader paid for it is banned in all circumstances — paragraph 12 of Schedule 20. No proof that anyone was actually misled is needed. The label ("Ad", "Advertisement", "Paid partnership") belongs at the start of the content, not hidden among hashtags; that is also what section 2 of the CAP Code requires and what the Advertising Standards Authority enforces.
• No fake or concealed-incentive reviews. Writing, commissioning or publishing a review that does not reflect genuine experience is banned in all circumstances, as is concealing that a review was incentivised — paragraph 13 of Schedule 20, which also imposes a duty to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove such reviews.
• Nothing untrue and nothing half-said. A misleading action (section 226) covers false information and also the overall presentation, even where every individual statement is true (section 226(3)); a misleading omission (section 227) covers leaving out material information, including failing to make the commercial intent clear. The total price must be stated (section 230).

Enforcement is not only a matter for the courts: since 6 April 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority can find an infringement itself and impose a penalty of up to £300,000 or 10 % of worldwide turnover (Part 3 Chapter 4 and section 182(6)). The consumer also keeps a private claim — the right to redress in Part 4A of the 2008 Regulations (regulations 27A to 27L) remains in force.

For electronic marketing the rules are in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003: e-mail and text messages require the recipient's prior consent (regulation 22), the only exception being the sender's own existing customers and similar products (regulation 22(3)); the sender must be identifiable and every message must offer a way to unsubscribe. Compliance is supervised by the Information Commissioner's Office, which may impose a monetary penalty of up to £500,000.

Promotion aimed at children carries a further prohibition: directly exhorting children to buy, or to persuade an adult to buy for them, is banned in all circumstances (paragraph 30 of Schedule 20).

The participant is prohibited in particular from:

• forced or hidden cookie placement (cookie stuffing), automatic redirects, loading the link in a hidden frame, iframe or pixel, and any other artificial generation of clicks,
• sending unsolicited commercial communications (spam), including comment spam,
• bidding in search engines and PPC systems on the operator's brand name or its obvious variants and misspellings, whether as a keyword or in the ad copy,
• impersonating the operator, its employees or official representatives, or entering into any obligations in its name,
• publishing false reviews or ratings,
• spreading the link on sites with unlawful content, adult content, hateful, violent or discriminatory content,
• placing the code on discount aggregators, coupon and cashback portals without the operator's prior written consent,
• ordering on another person's account or arranging for an order to be reimbursed in such a way that the referral merely conceals a purchase of one's own.

11. Taxes

Credit is a reduction of the price of your own future purchase from us. Nothing is paid out to you, the credit cannot be exchanged for money and it can only be used in our shop, so on the participant's side there is no receipt of money to report to HM Revenue & Customs. The annual cap in Article 9 is set so that even a participant who reaches it stays well below both of the £1,000 allowances in Part 6A of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 — the trading allowance and the miscellaneous income allowance — up to which income need not be reported at all.

Recommending us to people you know is not trading: it is occasional, the participant buys nothing in order to resell it, adds nothing to it and takes no commercial risk, so the badges of trade are not met. If you do run a business and receive credit in connection with it, it is for you to assess and declare it; the operator withholds no tax from the credit and issues no tax document for it. The credit reduces the price actually charged for the next order — it is a discount, not a payment.

12. Breach of the terms and termination of participation

If the participant breaches these terms, the operator may, depending on the severity of the breach, suspend their participation, cancel the as yet unused credit balance that arose in connection with the breach, or terminate the participation with immediate effect and deactivate the code.

The participant may terminate their participation at any time by notice sent to the contact e-mail. Upon termination of participation, no new credit arises; the unused balance remains available until the end of its period of validity under Art. 8 and is neither paid out nor compensated in money (Art. 6). This does not apply to termination for breach of the terms — in that case the balance lapses without compensation.

If the operator terminates the participation by notice sent to the participant's e-mail, the participant has at least 30 days from delivery of the notice to use up the balance, unless the termination is for breach of the terms.

13. Changes to the terms and revocation of the promise

The operator may unilaterally change these terms, the credit rate, the annual cap and the period of validity of the balance, or terminate the programme. Participants will be informed of any change or termination by e-mail at least 14 days in advance.

Neither a change nor a termination affects credit that arose before it took effect — that credit is settled under the previous wording and the participant may use it up for at least 30 days from the date the change takes effect, and in any event at least until the end of the period of validity of the balance under Art. 8. Revocation of the public promise is not effective against a person who made a referral before they learned of the revocation (Section 2885(2) of the Civil Code); in the law of the United Kingdom the same follows from the nature of a unilateral offer, which can no longer be withdrawn against a person who has already begun to perform it, and a withdrawal must in any event be published as widely as the offer itself.

14. Personal data protection

The operator processes the name, e-mail address, referral code, the record of referred orders and the state of the credit balance (credit arisen, added and used up) as a controller. The legal basis is performance of an obligation arising from a public promise under Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR and compliance with legal obligations under point (c).

In this programme the operator does not process a registration number, a billing address or a bank account number — nothing is invoiced and nothing is paid out.

Further details, including the participant's rights, are set out in the privacy policy.

15. Liability

The operator is not liable for website downtime, or for referrals not recorded due to the visitor's browser settings. It does not guarantee any minimum number of orders or any minimum amount of credit.

The participant is responsible for the content they publish and for the compliance of their message with the law.

16. Final provisions

The relationship between the operator and the participant is governed by the law of the Czech Republic. If the participant is a consumer with their habitual residence in another country, the choice of Czech law does not deprive them of the protection afforded by the mandatory provisions of the law of their own country (Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, which the United Kingdom retained in its domestic law by the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and Non-Contractual Obligations (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, SI 2019/834). For a participant in the United Kingdom the protection of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies in addition wherever the relationship has a close connection with the United Kingdom (section 74(1) of that Act), and they may sue in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom where they are domiciled (section 15B of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982).

The body designated for the out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes with us is the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce), Gorazdova 1969/24, 120 00 Praha 2, Czech Republic, adr.coi.cz. Its competence follows from the seller being established in the Czech Republic; a submission is free of charge and may be made in English.

The United Kingdom has its own approved ADR bodies under the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/542), but those schemes cover traders established in the United Kingdom, so none of them can take on a dispute with us. Two routes that used to bridge that gap no longer exist: the UK European Consumer Centre closed on 31 December 2020, and the European Commission's ODR platform has been shut down — Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 repealed Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 with effect from 20 July 2025 and the platform stopped accepting complaints on 20 March 2025. Any website still offering an ODR link is out of date.

Alongside or instead of ADR you may:

• write to us first at contact@heroofthebook.co.uk — most matters are settled that way;
• report the matter to the Citizens Advice consumer service (0808 223 1133, citizensadvice.org.uk), which passes reports on to Trading Standards;
• turn to the Competition and Markets Authority, which since 6 April 2025 can decide consumer-protection cases itself and impose a penalty of up to £300,000 or 10 % of worldwide turnover (Part 3 Chapter 4 and section 182(6) of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024).

None of this takes away your right to go to court. Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 apply to the contract wherever it has a close connection with the United Kingdom, regardless of the choice of Czech law (section 74(1) of that Act), and as a consumer you may bring proceedings in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom in which you are domiciled (section 15B of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, inserted by the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019).

The participant is not an employee, commercial agent, intermediary or business associate of the operator.

If any provision of these terms is invalid or ineffective, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.

The current wording of these terms is always available on this page. Please send any questions to contact@heroofthebook.co.uk.