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Terms And Conditions

Introduction

The website Proofed.com (hereby referred to as the “website”) is the property of Proofed Inc. The terms “Proofed,” “we,” “us,” and “our” all refer to the company Proofed Inc., whose registered office is Proofed Inc., 8 The Green, Dover, DE 19901, USA. Proofed is registered in Delaware: File Number 6566631.

The terms “user(s),” “customer(s),” and “you” refer to you as the client of our website and services.

The terms “proofreader(s),” “proofreading expert(s),” “editor(s),” and “copy editor(s)” refer to our partners offering such services to you through our website.

The terms “document(s)” and “work product” refer to the text that you have submitted to us for servicing.

The term “proofreading” includes “editing,” “formatting,” “copy editing,” and “translating” as services that we offer our users.

Proofed and its affiliates provide their services to you subject to the following conditions. By using this website, and/or registering a user account, you agree to comply with and are bound by the following terms and conditions. You may also enter into a written agreement with Proofed, in which case the terms of such written agreement are in addition to these online terms and conditions, and, to the extent of any inconsistency between these online terms and such written agreement, the written agreement shall take precedence. These online terms, and the terms of any written agreement, coupled with the privacy policy, make up the overall agreement between Proofed and its users. In addition, when you use any current or future Proofed service(s), or visit or purchase from any business affiliated with Proofed, whether or not it is included on this website, you will also be subject to the guidelines and conditions applicable to such service(s) or business.

Please note that this contains provisions that may limit your rights, and limit the liability of Proofed, such as under the section entitled “Liability and Warranties.”

Proofed reserves the right to amend these terms by updating this page without notice. Proofed will make reasonable efforts to ensure its customers are aware of any such amendments. However, the onus is on you to regularly check the Terms and Conditions. These terms were last updated on March 1 2020.

Copyright

Users who submit work product to this website for a service retain the copyright over such work product. Proofed does not claim the rights of any work product by virtue of supplying its services. Amendments resulting from proofreading made via the services delivered by Proofed become the copyright of the user. The amendments that Proofed makes to work product are advice only. It is the user’s responsibility to accept, reject, or further amend such amendments. Content of any finished work product is therefore entirely the responsibility of the user or other persons to whom the author delegates, licenses, or otherwise assigns control over his or her work product. The user is solely responsible for any obscenity, blasphemy, racism, plagiarism, or reproduction of copyrighted material.

You represent and warrant: that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the work product that you submit for service; that the work product is accurate; that use of the work product you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury or offense to any person or entity; and that you will indemnify Proofed and/or its affiliates for all claims resulting from any work product you supply.

Proofed has the right but not the obligation to monitor and refuse any activity or content for any reason in its sole discretion. Proofed takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any work product submitted by you or any third party.

Services

Our proofreading experts work from a standardized set of guidelines that describe in detail the process that all services should meet. Users are welcome to provide notes to our proofreading experts to meet certain specific criteria that the user wishes to achieve; however, if the request is not consistent with our internal guidelines set out below, then they will not be fulfilled.

Our standard guidelines are as follows:

Proofreading

  • Correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors
  • Check your word choice and suggest improvements
  • Highlight issues of clarity or consistency in the text
  • Make sure the tone fits the document type
  • Ensure adherence to a chosen style guide
  • Ensure that the English used in the document matches your dialect request (i.e., British English, American English, or Australian English)
  • We will check that your references are correctly presented as per your specified style guide and make corrections using the source information you have included. If your references are missing source information, we will add a comment to indicate what information is required, but we will not add this ourselves to ensure we follow academic plagiarism guidelines. Additionally, if your references are currently in a different style than the one you have requested, we do not convert references from one style to another but can offer this as an additional service.
  • Where possible, leave comments with feedback and links to our helpful blogs to help you further develop your English writing skills

 

Editing

As well as our standard proofreading, we will:

  • Revise sentences for clarity and concision
  • Edit text to change or adapt its tone
  • Make revisions to improve the overall quality of writing
  • Reorganize paragraphs and/or document structure where required
  • Make suggestions of changes or additions to enhance the document

 

Formatting

Formatting is only available for documents created in MS Word, Pages, or Google Docs. As part of this, we can:

  • Insert a generic front cover page
  • Insert a dynamic table of contents
  • Insert page numbers
  • Format headings, including adding multilevel numbering where requested
  • Format the captions for charts, tables, and figures
  • Insert a dynamic list of figures, tables, and charts
  • Adjust line spacing
  • Apply the specified margins
  • Ensure that font use is consistent
  • Align or indent text as required
  • Insert section or page breaks as requested

Please note that not all the options above are necessary for every document. Contact us for a custom quote for other document formats. Additionally, cross-referencing, indexing and formal typesetting for publication are optionally available for an additional fee.

 

AI Package

Our AI package is comprehensive and, as such, cannot be combined with other proofreading or editing services. Instead, these are included within the AI Package.

  • Amend biased and/or prejudiced language common in AI-generated text
  • Fact-check for verifiable information readily found within the public domain, including:
    • Numbers (statistics, currency conversions, dates, and other verifiable data)
    • Spelling and capitalization of company/individual names
    • Job titles, position holders, and company names
    • Dates of events (historical or contemporary)
    • Contact details of individuals and organizations
    • Dialect-related inconsistencies (spelling, punctuation, or language)
    • Clarity and accuracy of instructions (for an action or process)
    • Old, outdated, irrelevant, offensive, and/or politically/socially incorrect information
    • Contradictions or inconsistencies
    • Verifiable facts
    • Potentially libelous or defamatory statements or language
    • Appropriateness and accuracy of images (i.e., are they showing the correct information or object, are they appropriate and timely, and do they add to the narrative?)
  • The fact checking service does not include checking individual references

Corrections, Credits, And Refunds

Proofed maintains a fair and simple policy for corrections, credits and refunds. The first step in any remedial request is to email us at complaints@prooofed.com. We will review your work by having it thoroughly checked by an additional proofreading expert to assess whether we have met our minimum service requirements for the services that you have ordered.

From there, we will assess your request and will, at our sole discretion, (a) correct any defective work product, (b) provide a full refund or a partial refund, or (c) provide account credit based on the nature of the incident. We will look into issues with work product for 30 days from the point of completion. Cases outside of this will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis in our sole discretion.

Refunds will take five working days to process. Therefore, please allow that time to elapse before the money paid is back into your bank account or card balance. Account credit will be instantly applied and available to use via your Proofed user account immediately.

  • If the order has been placed by mistake, the user must contact us ASAP as we will not be able to provide a full refund if one of our proofreading experts has begun servicing the document.
  • If the user has uploaded the document multiple times, we will provide a full refund for the duplicate orders.
  • If several services have been ordered, but some were by mistake, or are no longer required, we will be happy to refund you in full for those additional services minus a $15 administration fee. If our proofreading expert has partly completed the service that has been requested for a refund, we will calculate the refundable amount.
  • If we have delivered a substandard service, we will work with you to agree an agreeable credit or refund amount.

Credit that has been applied to your user account is valid for two years from the point at which it was applied to your account. Once this time has elapsed, the credit will automatically be removed from your account. You will be notified of such credit expiry on the date of expiry.

System Abuse

Proofed provides coupon codes for users to receive a 500-word free sample on their first order. This is a goodwill gesture to customers and the code can only be used once per customer. If this goodwill gesture is abused through the activation of multiple accounts or any other method, then Proofed reserves the right to deactivate the individual’s accounts. Additionally, any abuse of other coupon codes and promotional offers will be treated in the same manner.

Electronic Communications

When visiting our website or sending emails to us, you are communicating with us electronically; therefore, you consent to receive electronic communications from us. We may communicate with you via email or by posting notices on this website. You agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

Contact

For all questions, comments, and inquiries, please contact legal@proofed.com.

License And Site Access

We grant you a limited license to access and make personal use of this website, but not to download (other than page caching) or modify any portion of it except with our express written consent. This license does not include any resale or commercial use of this site or its contents; any collection and use of any service listings, descriptions, or prices; any derivative use of this site or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of another merchant; or any use of data mining, robots, or similar data-gathering and extraction tools. This site or any portion of this site may not be reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold, visited, or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose without our express written consent. You may not frame or utilize framing techniques to endorse any trademark, logo, or other proprietary information (including images, text, page layout, or form) of Proofed and our affiliates without our express written consent. You may not reproduce any image or depiction of this site as it might be rendered by a web browser or otherwise without our express written consent. You may not use any meta tags or any other hidden text utilizing our name or trademarks without our express written consent. Any unauthorised use terminates the permission or license granted by us. You may be granted a limited, revocable, and non-exclusive right to create a hyperlink to our website so long as the link does not portray us, our affiliates, or their products or services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise offensive manner. You may not use any of our logos or other proprietary graphic or trademark as part of the link without our express written consent.

Proofed Trademark

“Proofed” is a registered trademark of Proofed Inc. Unauthorized use of the “Proofed” name or our copyrighted logos—including reproduction, imitation, or any other use likely to cause confusion—is strictly prohibited without the express prior written consent of Proofed Inc. This includes using our trademark in text, web addresses, domain names, company names, product names, or any other materials not produced or authorized by Proofed Inc. When referencing our company or services, please use the name “Proofed”. We reserve all rights to our trademark and logo and may request the cessation of any 3rd party use at any time.

Liability And Warranties

We warrant that the work product delivered to you will comply with the service levels specified by Proofed.

Proofed will not be liable for any loss or damage, including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this website or review or proofreading of work product.

Proofed takes no responsibility for, and will not be liable for, its website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond our control. It is the user’s responsibility to safeguard any original work product sent to Proofed. Proofed does accept responsibility for the content of any work product submitted for editing. Proofed is also not responsible or liable for infringement of copyright, or any defamation or other loss or damage as a result of work product that has been edited.

Where plagiarism or discrimination are alleged to be present subsequent to the acceptance of a document, we reserve the right to cease proofreading and the customer will be alerted as to this allegation if not aware, and may be charged for work undertaken prior to the notification of such allegation. Proofed shall be under no obligation to investigate any third-party allegations of this nature and may act entirely within its own discretion as to proceeding with editing the relevant work product.

Prior to using our services, student users should check their academic establishment’s rules and regulations. Proofed is not liable for any damages related to the use of the proofreading process, or any errors or inaccuracies that may appear on the website or in work product that has been subjected to the proofreading process.

While we endeavor to ensure that any electronic files originating at this site are free of known computer viruses, we provide no warranty or guarantee that files are virus free, and we are not able to provide any assurances with respect to emails or attachments that may have originated with third parties.

In no event is Proofed liable to a user for damages in excess of the amount paid by that user for the service giving rise to such liability.

If you do not provide accurate contact information, or if you do not respond promptly if we require further information, we cannot be responsible for delays in providing the service to you.
If you create an account, a logon ID and password is required. It is your responsibility to protect that information including, without limitation, to use effective passwords that are not easily guessed or discoverable, and to keep logon IDs and passwords confidential. You are responsible for any activity that occurs under your logon ID. You will advise Proofed immediately if you discover any compromise of your passwords or suspect unauthorized use of the site using your identity.

TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY LAW, THE WARRANTIES SET FORTH HEREIN ARE EXCLUSIVE AND IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, ORAL, WRITTEN, STATUTORY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES CONTAINED HEREIN AND TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW DISCLAIMERS OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THIS DISCLAIMER MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. TO THE EXTENT SUCH WARRANTIES CANNOT BE DISCLAIMED UNDER THE LAWS OF YOUR JURISDICTION, WE LIMIT THE DURATION AND REMEDIES OF SUCH WARRANTIES TO THE DURATION OF THIS EXPRESS LIMITED WARRANTY.

Quotes And Payment

All users are eligible for a free initial quote. This quote will be provided with the current website prices at the time of its provision. Unless specifically guaranteed in writing, prices may change between the time the quote is issued and when the work is undertaken. Pricing is in most cases driven by the word count of the work product. All services carry a minimum price regardless of the word count.

All services are quoted in American Dollars (USD) unless otherwise stated. All users are required to pay for documents prior to any work being done on them. Payment must be in full unless otherwise agreed in writing by Proofed. Business users who are deemed eligible by Proofed may be provided a post-pay account, where documents can be paid for at the end of each calendar month. Unless otherwise agreed to in writing, payment is due when an invoice is rendered. If the whole or any part of an invoice remains outstanding for more than 30 days, the Client shall pay liquidated damages interest calculated at the rate of 1% per month or part thereof on the overdue balance from the invoice date.

Proofed withholds the right to charge additional fees that result from inaccurate information being provided by a user. Any additional charges levied will be notified to the user.

Proofed strives to meet exact deadlines and prides itself on the prompt service provided. However, Proofed is not liable for any result from a delay in the service. In such an instance where a delay may be unavoidable, Proofed will make commercially reasonable efforts to contact the customer and remedy the situation.

Additionally, Proofed is not liable for delays in any service due to unforeseen circumstances beyond its reasonable control. All dates and times provided for the delivery of the content are approximate and based on previous orders of the same size. Proofed cannot be held liable for any loss or damage caused by a later delivery time than has been quoted.

AI Content Detection Policy

Accuracy of AI Detection Tools


AI detection tools often produce inaccurate and inconsistent results when distinguishing between AI-generated and human-generated content. Unlike plagiarism detection tools, such as iThenticate, AI detection software may incorrectly label well-written human content as AI-generated due to complex sentences, proper grammar, and flawless spelling. Consequently, changes in AI content scores following our editing process should not be interpreted as the use of AI tools.

Prohibition of AI Tools in Editing


Proofed contractually enforces a strict policy prohibiting editors from using third-party AI tools in any customer work.

Position on AI Detection Use

Proofed does not endorse or recommend using AI detection tools to penalize content creators due to their unreliability. Accordingly, we do not offer services to reduce AI detection scores and will not issue refunds for customers who experience increased AI scores after our editing process.

Customer Responsibility and Awareness


Customers should be aware that AI detection scores may vary after editing; however, this does not indicate that AI tools were used in the editing process. Proofed upholds the integrity of its human-only editing services and is committed to providing accurate, reliable editing support.

Right To Refuse Work

The customer assumes all responsibility for any liability resulting from the falsification or misstatement of personal information. Proofed reserves the right to refuse service to anyone whom we believe to have falsified personal details.

Proofed does not condone, nor is it ever knowingly involved in, plagiarism. We reserve the right to decline any work that is believed to contain plagiarized content. Proofed reserves the right to refuse any document that advocates racism or discrimination, or is deemed hateful, threatening, abusive, or insulting, alongside any material which is in violation of national or international law.

Upon acceptance of the work product, we have the right to subsequently refuse the job if it does not meet the standard that makes it possible for the copy editor to complete the job. This also includes situations where our proofreading expert reasonably believes that he or she cannot carry out the job to an acceptable standard. If our proofreading expert refuses the job, you will be notified via email, and your payment will be reimbursed minus any associated fees incurred.

Termination Of Contract And Service

A contract between the customer and Proofed commences as soon as payment is received. Furthermore, receipt of payment confirms the customer’s intention to initiate the service process. If a customer wishes to cancel any services provided by Proofed subsequent to payment, then they must contact us and a refund will be issued (minus any costs incurred through administration and service delivery). Proofed reserves the right to cancel any contract at our discretion for any reason without explanation.

Confidentiality

We take confidentiality very seriously. We acknowledge that our proofreading experts may be privy to confidential information in the form of sensitive or unpublished material. To ensure client confidentiality, all of our proofreading experts are bound by our code of conduct, as well as our non-disclosure agreement.

Proofed keeps both original and edited documents with every order history, although you have the ability to delete all files stored after your order has been completed. Proofed will, however, maintain a record of the work completed.

Marketing Disclaimer

Proofed reserves the right to make “fair use” of your logos, trademarks, and imagery for editorial content. Proofed will use the above in promotional, advertising, and marketing material. Proofed will only do this if you have submitted documents for or on behalf of an organization.

Governing Law

This site and this agreement are governed by the laws of the State of New York, excluding any conflicts of law provisions and excluding the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Any legal action against Proofed shall take place in the courts of New York, New York.

If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Supplementary Editor Terms

Guaranteed Work

Graduates from the “Knowadays Becoming a Proofreader” course who receive a passing grade of 80% or above (“Graduates”) are entitled to enroll for a trial period working as a freelance editor with Proofed, Inc. (“Proofed”). The trial involves proofreading 10 documents to allow Proofed to determine whether the Graduate can deliver work to the high standards that Proofed is committed to delivering to its customers and clients.

Remuneration

During the trial period, the freelancer will be paid at Proofed’s standard rate for each document they complete.

Duration of Trial Period

By the nature of the business, the amount of work Proofed has available is variable. The duration of the 10-document trial period is dependent on the Graduate’s availability and the work available from customers at the time. Proofed guarantees that all Graduates on a trial period will be given the opportunity to work on at least five documents within the first month of their enrollment date.

Contract Status

Editors on a trial period will be engaged as freelance independent contractors. This is the contract status of all creatives working with Proofed. This role does not constitute the Graduate as an employee or agent of Proofed and does not entitle the Graduate to receive any employee benefits. 

Eligibility

Proofed is a company registered in the US, and all payments to its freelancers are compliant with US regulations. The Graduate shall be responsible for the payment of the Graduate’s own taxes, and for the payment of any social security, unemployment, insurance, and other contributions required by law. The Graduate’s country of residence must have a double tax treaty with the US, as per the list maintained by the IRS.

End of the Trial Period

Once the Graduate has completed 10 proofreading documents, the Proofed team will decide whether they have achieved an acceptable standard of proofreading and working practices, and thus whether to continue their engagement as a contractor. The Graduate will then be notified by Proofed of its decision to continue or end the contract. If there is a delay in this notification, the Graduate shall be entitled to continue proofreading documents submitted by customers and shall be paid for such work in accordance with Proofed’s standard terms and conditions, until a decision regarding the contract is communicated by Proofed in writing.

In some circumstances, particularly if work quality has been inconsistent, Proofed may require an extension of the trial period, requesting the Graduate to proofread additional documents before a final decision is taken. This is solely at the discretion of Proofed.

Proofed Right to Terminate Trial Period

Proofed reserves the right to terminate the trial period at any time, by written notice, with or without cause. Any such decisions by Proofed shall be final and at its sole discretion.

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