Terms and Conditions of use
Welcome to germanonlineinstitute.com, the premier service for people around the world to learn German online. This agreement (the “Agreement”) represents the entire contract between you and German Online Institute (GOI GmbH) with respect to the above mentioned site(s) (the “Site”) and, if applicable, the services therein. By visiting, becoming a customer of and/or purchasing German lessons to German Online Institute, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions (the “Terms”) of use set out below.
Acceptance of the Terms and Conditions
Changes to these Terms and Conditions
1. Acceptance of the Terms and Conditions
By using the information, tools, features and functionality located on germanonlineinstitute.com (together the “Service” or the “Services”), you agree to be bound by this Agreement and the Terms, whether you are a “Visitor” (which means that you simply browse the German Online Institute website) or you are a “Customer” (which means that you have registered with German Online Institute). The term “you” or “User” refers to a Visitor or a Customer. The term “we” refers to German Online Institute. If you wish to become a Customer and/or make use of the Service, you must read this Agreement and indicate your acceptance during the registration process.
If you do not agree with all the Terms and Conditions, do not use the Site.
Please review all of the Terms and Conditions carefully before using the Site.
By using the Site, you agree to be bound by the Terms and confirm that you are over the age of 13 and able to form legally binding contracts.
Before you continue, you should print or save a local copy of this Agreement for your records.
2. Changes to these Terms
German Online Institute has the right to modify this Agreement and any policies affecting or pertaining to the site. Your continued use of the site and services following notice of the Agreement modification will be considered an acceptance of the modified terms and conditions of use. Your recourse upon dissatisfaction with the modified terms of use is to not buy any more lessons with German Online Institute. Furthermore, German Online Institute reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the site at any time.
3. Provision of the Services
In providing the services, we do not actively monitor the display, transmission and exchange of Material (defined below) that is accessible by means of the Services, nor do we maintain any obligation to do so except as otherwise determined by us or required by the laws of applicable jurisdictions. However, subject to the terms of our Privacy and Security Policy, we reserve the right to monitor the Services for purposes of determining that their usage is in compliance with these Terms and applicable laws. In addition, and as described elsewhere in these Terms, we maintain an ab- 3 solute and unconditional right to review and remove material accessible by or transmitted through the Services that, in our sole discretion, we believe is in violation of the law of these Terms and Conditions or is unacceptable to us in our sole discretion.
From time to time and without prior notice to you, we may change, expand and improve the Site and Services. We may also, at any time, cease to continue operating part or all of the Services or selectively disable certain aspects of the Services or portions of the Site. Any modification or elimination of the Services will be done in our sole and absolute discretion and without an ongoing obligation or liability to you, and your use of the Site and Services do not entitle you to the continued provision or availability of the Site and Services.
4. Your Rights
German Online Institute offers you a nontransferable, non-exclusive, limited right to access, use and display the content of this Site and to gain access to our teaching staff, provided that you comply with this Agreement and the Terms and Conditions as set out in full. The materials are provided to you only for your private, non-commercial use.
By electing to purchase German lesson/s of German Online Institute, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions set out below in section 10 in the German Online Institute billing policy.
5. Use of the Service
Your right to access and use germanonlineinstitute.com and the Service is personal to you and is not transferable by you to any other person or entity. You are only entitled to access and use German Online Institute for lawful purposes.
5.1 PRIVATE LESSONS
a. VALIDITY
Any lesson/package bought is valid for 1 year. After 1 year your account and all lessons bought, will be deleted in our sole and absolute discretion and we are under no obligation to retain a record of your Account or any data or information that we may have stored by means of the Account and/or the Services.
b. TEACHER PROVISION
We hold the right to replace your teacher with good reason (long-term change of availability or termination of teacher). The customer has the right to request a new teacher, a replacement teacher or a second teacher anytime they wish.
PAY AS YOU GO | PAKET 1 (5h) | PAKET 2 (10h) | PAKET 3 (20h) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
€ 20,- | € 19.50- | € 19.00- | € 18.00- | |
pro Lektion 60 Minuten | pro Lektion 60 Minuten | pro Lektion 60 Minuten | pro Lektion 60 Minuten |
5.2 GROUP COURSES
a Replacement Teacher
We provide replacement instructors during holidays/sickness of your teacher. We hold the right to exchange the group course instructor.
b. Teaching Methods
All the language skills are taken into account through Google Video Call (Listening/Speaking), Google Doc (shared whiteboard), Classroom Stream and Hangouts Chat (writing), document, screen & weblink sharing (reading). Learning is supported through individual preparation and revision, homework tasks for reading and listening comprehension as well as single, pair and group work through group Hangouts Video call and Classroom interactive stream for peer interaction even outside the lesson time.
c. CERTIFICATION
Participants can gain a CEFR certificate. This requires the active course participation of at least 80% and the qualified assessment of your teacher.
d. MATERIALS
All course materials are provided.
e. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS | SUPPORTED WEB BROWSERS | BANDWIDTH FOR VIDEO CALLS | OTHER REQUIREMENTS | |
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Current version & 2 previous major releases of: Mac OS X, Windows, Chrome, Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions | We recommend Google Chrome for best, plugin-free compatibility. | Broadband Integrated cameras, USB web camera or BlackMagic device 2 GHz dual-core processor (or greater). |
f. Level of German
Please ensure, that you complete the level test on our page and choose the right course for you. Choosing a much higher/lower level than your test results will result in a reduced positive learning experience for ALL course participants. There will be no refunds, if you did not do the test and are in the wrong course. We may try our best to switch you, but cannot guarantee this.
6. Intellectual Property Rights
German Online Institute does not claim ownership of any of the materials provided during lessons of German Online Institute as they remain at all time the sole property of its suppliers. Such aforementioned materials are protected under international copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws. Due to the nature of Skype lessons, our teachers may tailor and personalize the lesson experience by adding web-based materials.
7. Access and Interference
You agree that you will not:
Use any robot, spider, scraper, deep link or other similar automated data gathering or extraction tools, program, algorithm or methodology to access, acquire, copy or monitor germanonlineinstitute.com or any portion of germanonlineinstitute.com, without express written consent, which may be withheld in our sole discretion;
Use or attempt to use any engine, software, tool, agent, or other device or mechanism (including without limitation browsers, spiders, robots, avatars or intelligent agents) to navigate or search germanonlineinstitute.com, other than the search engines and search agents available through the Service and other than generally available third-party web browsers (such as Microsoft Explorer);
Post or transmit any file which contains viruses, worms, Trojan horses or any other contaminating or destructive features, or that otherwise interfere with the proper working of germanonlineinstitute.com or the Service;
Attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse-engineer any of the software comprising or in any way making up a part of germanonlineinstitute.com or the Service. Please be aware that your carrier’s normal rates and fees, such as text messaging fees, will apply when accessing germanonlineinstitute.com with your portable devices.
8. Privacy and Security Policy
Your use of our Site and any personal information or other information about you collected by germanonlineinstitute.com through, or in connection with, the Site (other than User Generated Content) is subject to our Privacy and Security Policy. 5 As indicated in the Terms, our Site is not designed to attract children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifying information from anyone under the age of 13 unless we first obtain permission from that child’s parent or legal guardian.
For questions about our online privacy and security policy for children please refer to the Privacy and Security Policy.
9. Fees and payments
You register by creating a customer account or by providing all relevant data via email to admin@germanonlineinstitute.com in order to receive lessons / a free trial lesson.
Additionally, in order to create a lesson account, you will need to register in order to buy, take lessons in general and access certain features of the Site and Services. Information gathered through the registration process and information related to your account will be subject to these Terms as well as to our “Privacy and Security Policy”. You represent and warrant that you will not create an Account for anyone other than yourself without permission, that all information provided by you when creating an Account is true, accurate and complete, and that you will maintain, at all times, true, accurate and complete information related to your Account.
German Online Institute reserves the right to change the class package fees in effect or institute new fees at any time, upon reasonable notice posted on the site and emailed to current customers.
By purchasing a class package or group course to the German Online Institute service you agree to be bound to the following terms:
Billing Policies
German Online Institute fees are exclusive of any applicable VAT or taxes (no VAT applicable), interest or installment fees charged by the credit card company, or other fees associated with connecting to the Internet.
German Online Institute guarantees that every transaction you make at German Online Institute is 100% secure.
9.1 PRIVATE LESSONS
a. Checking your balance
Customers can check their balance any time they wish by opening a booking confirmation email, clicking the link within and viewing the remaining lessons on their voucher.
b. Pay As You Go and Package options are available only to customers, who registered for a trial lesson and can be accessed directly on the assigned teacher’s calendar page.Your paid class package to German Online Institute gives you access to the stated amount of classes (“class credit”). One class lasts 60 minutes. The exact contents of your paid class package has been previously agreed on during the trial or previous lessons.
c. Refunds
Your class package contains private teacher-led classes, those sessions are delivered on a “class credit basis” over a period of 1 year, this means that if you haven’t used those sessions by the end of the year after purchasing the class package, those unused sessions are lost to you and will not be refunded.
All class package fees are non-refundable after you started your first lesson. Once purchased, classes cannot be refunded.
d. Late-cancellations, no-shows and technical problems
If a customer fails to show up for a scheduled class, no matter the cause (technical or personal), the duration of 1 hour lesson will be charged and the teacher will log off after 15 minutes of the starting time.
Customers need to cancel 24 hours through the provided booking system before the course starts. Failure to do so results in the charge of 1 hour lesson. Cancellations sent via email or verbal cancellations as well as rescheduling are non-valid unless the booking calendar website (3rd party) is proven to be unavailable.
Courses may be cancelled at short notice by German Online Institute. This may happen, e.g. when a teacher falls sick with short notice or have technical difficulties. The lesson will be refunded to the student.
e. Free trial
The free trial is available only available to first-time users interested in private courses – NOT for group course students. If the customer fails to show up in time and/or cancel 24 hours in advance to the scheduled trial appointment, he/she looses the free trial option.
9.2 GROUP COURSES
a. Refunds
Refunds can be issued up to 1 week after your purchase but only 1 week before the course starts to allow for enoug time to fill the place. After this deadline there will be no refunds unless the course cannot take place at all.By buying the offered Services customers agree to check and implement the above outlined technical requirements BEFORE BUYING the course. There will be no refunds due to technical problems on the customer’s side.
i. CANCELLATIONS
e. If the majority of the group 3+ people and/or your teacher cannot take part in the live lesson due to technical problems, the lesson will be cancelled added to the end of the course.
10. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless German Online Institute and its affiliates, partners, suppliers, and employees from any and all liability, claims, costs, or damages arising from your use of the Site or your breach of this Agreement and any of the Terms set out herein.
11. Miscellaneous
If any portion of this Agreement is deemed unlawful, void or unenforceable by any arbitrator or court of competent jurisdiction, this Agreement as a whole shall not be deemed unlawful, void or unenforceable, but only that portion of this Agreement that is unlawful, void or unenforceable shall be stricken from this Agreement.
You agree that if German Online Institute does not exercise or enforce any legal right or remedy which is contained in the Agreement (or which German Online Institute has the benefit of under any applicable law), this will not be taken to be a formal waiver of German Online Institutes’ rights.
All covenants, agreements, representations and warranties made in this Agreement shall survive your acceptance of this Agreement and the termination of this Agreement.
This Agreement represents the entire understanding and agreement between you and German Online Institute regarding the subject matter of the same, and supersedes all other previous agreements.
If you have any questions about this policy statement, or about any of German Online Institutes’ other policies and practices, please contact us on the contact details laid out on germanonlineinstitute.com
germanonlineinstitute.com and related services are, if not otherwise specifically mentioned, supplied by:
Nina Sauer, GOI GmbH
Paul-Dessau-Str.19, 12679 Berlin, Germany