The following are terms and conditions for participating in the SFI Marketing Group Affiliate Program. "Affiliate" refers to you, and "SFI" refers to the SFI Marketing Group, a division of Carson Services, Inc., Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
Violations of any of the provisions of this agreement may result in the suspension or termination of your Affiliate account including forfeiture of future commissions. SFI also reserves the right to take legal action against any Affiliate found violating the provisions in this agreement.
SFI reserves the right to amend this agreement as needed from time to time, and Affiliate agrees that any such amendment will apply to Affiliate. The continuation of Affiliate status or Affiliate's acceptance of income or bonuses shall constitute Affiliate's acceptance of any and all amendments.
1. Affiliate agrees that an SFI Affiliate is an independent contractor and not an employee, agent, partner, legal representative, or franchisee of SFI. Affiliate may not portray him or herself as an employee or owner of SFI corporate, the SFI Affiliate Center, or any other SFI or Zing Network subsidiary. Affiliate further agrees not to incur any debt, expense, obligation on behalf of, for, or in the name of SFI.
2. Affiliate must be of the age of majority in his/her state or country.
3. All Affiliate applications are subject to approval by SFI.
4. Affiliate agrees to receive SFI e-mail, including but not restricted to sales reports, training, newsletters, plus messages from Affiliate's Advisor or other team leader(s).
5. Contact information (e-mail address, phone number, address, etc.) will be provided to your SFI Advisor (typically the person who directly referred you to SFI or whose advertising generated your registration). Contact information is not disclosed to any other party.
6. SFI encourages all affiliates to conduct themselves with professionalism at all times when representing their SFI businesses. Consequently, affiliates are prohibited from using SFI Resources (SFI Forum, group messages, Stream, chat, etc.) to directly or indirectly promote other business opportunities or solicitations of any kind, nor to engage in conversations about religion, politics, and other potentially controversial subjects.
7. Affiliate agrees to present the SFI Compensation Plan and SFI products and services as set forth at the official SFI Website. Affiliate will make no claims regarding potential income, earnings, products, or services beyond what is stated at the official SFI Website. Affiliate further agrees not to reproduce, publish, or post earnings in any form, online or offline, by any means.
8. Affiliate agrees not to publicly disparage SFI, other SFI Affiliates, SFI products, the SFI compensation plan, SFI employees, or SFI Independent Contractors. Affiliate understands that disparagement may result in the immediate suspension or termination of Affiliate account with a cancellation of any pending commissions. All complaints or concerns should be directed toward SFI corporate offices via support.sfimg.com.
9. Affiliate agrees that registering new affiliates through automated machine entry, manual entry, or advancing your affiliates' levels without their approval is strictly forbidden and is grounds for suspension or termination of your account. Affiliate further understands that he/she may only log into his/her own individual account, and any actions taken under the guise of another affiliate, including making payments under another affiliate's account, is strictly prohibited.
10. Affiliate agrees to not utilize SPAM in promoting SFI. SFI maintains a ZERO tolerance policy towards the sending of SPAM, including, but not limited to, unsolicited commercial E-mail (UCE). This action may result in the immediate suspension or termination of Affiliate account with a cancellation of and possible forfeiture of any pending commissions. Affiliate will also be in violation of the SFI Affiliate Agreement and subject to legal action and be held liable for any financial loss incurred by SFI.
For the purpose of this agreement SPAM is defined as e-mailing, faxing, or telephoning ANYONE, in bulk or individually, in violation of all anti-spamming and applicable laws or regulations for the country, state, county, and city where the intended recipient resides. The Affiliate is under obligation to research and comply with all laws concerning unsolicited commercial e-mail. Under United States law, it is unlawful "to use any telephone, facsmile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement. Electronic mail advertisement means any e-mail message, the principal purpose of which is to promote, directly or indirectly, the sale or other distribution of goods or services to the recipient." (CAN-SPAM Act of 2003).
SFI further defines SPAM as contacting anyone, in bulk or individually, about SFI, who has not specifically requested the information directly from Affiliate. The ONLY exceptions to this rule are:
A. Sending SFI E-Cards to your family and friends. You can send up to 10 E-Cards a day.
B. Mailing to APPROPRIATE OPT-IN mailing lists where the source does the mailing on Affiliate's behalf AND you do not use an SFI-provided Gateway URL. However, use extreme caution when choosing an opt-in mailing list company! Using anything but the most reputable sources could generate spam complaints against Affiliate resulting in suspension or termination.
IMPORTANT: As it relates to Affiliate use of appropriate opt-in mailing lists as described above, Affiliate understands and acknowledges that it is illegal to forge headers on e-mails and it is illegal to neglect to include a valid functional unsubscribe link along with a valid mailing address in any e-mails sent out. Any Affiliate found forging headers or not including a valid functional unsubscribe link will be immediately and permanently terminated from SFI. Further, this action may result in the immediate suspension or termination of Affiliate account with a cancellation of and possible forfeiture of any pending commissions. Affiliate will also be in violation of the SFI Affiliate Agreement and subject to legal action and be held liable for any financial loss incurred by SFI.
C. You may include information on SFI in e-mail Acknowledgement Messages for orders and inquiries that you receive, so long as it is stated up front that you will be sending them an acknowledgement.
SFI also considers ANY type of advertisement about SFI that is posted unsolicited on online venues (e.g. newsgroups, chat rooms, etc.) to be spam.
11. Affiliate agrees to provide SFI with a valid e-mail address upon registration. Affiliate understands that the use of an autoresponder e-mail address is prohibited.
12. Affiliate is SOLELY responsible for e-mail sent by Affiliate using Affiliate's own, non-SFI e-mail system. SFI requires all Affiliates to permanently remove anyone who complains or requests to be removed from the Affiliate's mailing list or address book. If SFI receives a complaint from the same e-mail address as a previous complaint from an e-mail that was sent more than a week after the original complaint was filed, SFI reserves the right to terminate the offending Affiliate.
13. Affiliate is SOLELY responsible for adherence to all provisions in this agreement with respect to e-mail content sent by Affiliate using SFI's Affiliate mailing system.
14. Affiliate agrees and accepts the current SFI Compensation Plan (www.sfimg.com/CompPlan) in its entirety. SFI further reserves the right to alter, change, and/or update portions of the SFI compensation plan or the SFI compensation plan in its entirety for any reason at any time without prior notice.
15. Although the SFI Affiliate Program is not limited to the United States of America, all payments will be made in U.S. dollars. Affiliate commissions shall normally be paid by company check and sent out monthly on or about the 5th for the previous month's sales. To cover SFI processing costs of Affiliate commission check, SFI will deduct $5 (five USD). If a sale is canceled or refunded, the related commission will be deducted from a subsequent payment. The minimum commission check that will be sent out is $10 USD (after processing fee) for US residents, $45 USD (after processing fee) for affiliates residing outside the US. Some exceptions may apply.
16. Affiliates wishing to change Advisors must officially opt out of the SFI program for a minimum of six months. All advised affiliates and previous relationships with other SFI affiliates and members will be voided at this time. After the six-month period, you may rejoin SFI with the Advisor of your choice. If a violation of this policy is discovered, all positions other than the original position will be terminated. HOWEVER, if your Advisor creates a ticket at support.sfimg.com releasing you as his/her personally advised affiliate, you may rejoin SFI under a different Advisor; SFI reserves the right to assess each situation on an individual basis.
17. Under no circumstances may you request or encourage an SFI Affiliate from another affiliate's organization to register as an SFI Affiliate under you. Affiliates are permitted, however, to interact with each other and share ideas online, such as on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
18. Affiliate is strictly prohibited from soliciting SFI affiliates for other business opportunities. Although SFI takes no issue with affiliates being involved with other business opportunities outside of SFI, affiliates may not use any SFI resource or tool (i.e. TeamMail, TeamTalk, PSA Mailer, My Best Tips, etc.) to directly or indirectly promote other business opportunities or for-profit endeavors to other affiliates. In short, if you know someone is in SFI, you may not solicit them in this way.
19. Affiliate will be issued an "Affiliate Link," a unique URL which allows SFI to identify visitors from Affiliate site as originating from Affiliate. These visitors are tracked with this unique URL, and sales are recorded with the appropriate Affiliate ID. To receive commissions, Affiliate must use the provided Affiliate Link. The URL may be in various forms, such as a banner, image, or text link.
20. When promoting SFI, its products and/or services, business opportunity, and products, services, and/or opportunities of its subsidiaries in print, digitally, or online, affiliates must use only official text ads, banners, and other approved advertisements containing links to the Affiliate's assigned unique URL. Redirect URLs are permitted to be used in online, digital, and printed advertisements, so long as those redirect URLs go directly to the Affiliate's unique URL assigned to him/her by SFI.
21. Affiliate is solely responsible for ensuring that their Affiliate Link is set up properly to qualify for commissions.
22. SFI is not responsible for technical problems, acts by third parties, or other events outside our reasonable control which may temporarily disrupt or diminish service.
23. SFI will make every reasonable effort to track and pay commissions for all sales that apply to Affiliate. However, SFI is not responsible for technical problems, acts by third parties, or other events outside our reasonable control which may temporarily disrupt or diminish this ability.
24. To protect SFI customer privacy, if deemed necessary, SFI reserves the right to withhold identifying customer contact information from Affiliate.
25. SFI reserves all rights in or to all Zing Network trademarks and servicemarks but may be used by Affiliate in accordance with this agreement. Affiliate may in no way display an SFI or any other Zing Network program's logo, image, or trademark which may be distasteful, defame, or misrepresent SFI, Zing, or its subsidiaries.
26. Affiliate shall follow SFI advertising guidelines and agrees not to misrepresent SFI products or services. Affiliate agrees to use only SFI-approved ads. However, if you are a Gold Affiliate or above, you may submit your own ads for SFI's approval. They must be approved, however, before you can publish them.
27. Affiliate understands that prohibited sites for advertising SFI products or services include: Websites that promote sexually explicit material or violence; sites that promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, or physical disability; sites that promote illegal activities.
28. Affiliate may not assign rights or delegate duties under this Agreement without the prior written consent of SFI. Upon request, SFI will provide Affiliate with guidelines for the sale, transfer, or assignment of Affiliate's SFI business.
29. SFI shall not be held liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages or any loss of revenue or profits arising under or with respect to this Agreement or program, even if SFI has been advised of the possibility of such damages. SFI aggregate liability arising under or with respect to this agreement or the program shall in no event exceed the total commissions paid or payable by SFI under this agreement.
30. Affiliate agrees not to present others' creative works—in full or in part—as his or her own nor engage in violation of copyright agreements for any reason. Such violations could result in suspension or termination of membership.
31. By submitting Affiliate tips, SFI Forum posts, and any other feedback and content to the SFI Affiliate Center, other Zing Network sites, our Support Desks, or in any direct communication to SFI Corporate offices, Affiliate agrees that such content becomes the intellectual property of SFI Marketing Group and grants permission to use Affiliate's name, likeness, and all submitted content or comments for training materials, marketing aids, publicity purposes, and any other purpose deemed necessary and desirable by SFI Corporate without further notification, payment of additional consideration, recognition of authorship, etc., except where prohibited by law.
32. SFI makes no warranties expressed or implied with regard to Affiliate Program except as outlined in this Agreement.
33. Both SFI and the Affiliate reserve the right to terminate this agreement at any time. The term of this Agreement shall be for a period of one year from the date hereof and shall automatically renew upon each anniversary without further act of the parties unless either party has terminated this Agreement by written notice to the other. If terminated, outstanding commissions at time of termination shall be paid in the next payment so long as the terms of this agreement were not violated by the Affiliate. Payment of the final commission payment to the Affiliate may be withheld for a reasonable time in order to ensure that the correct amount is paid.
34. In the event that a provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the balance of the Agreement will remain in full force and effect.
35. Affiliate understands that if he/she fails to log in to the Affiliate Center within a 45-day period, Affiliate will automatically have his/her payment option set to "Accumulate my commissions." Affiliate must access the Edit Commission Payment Info page and change this setting back to the preferred option. Note that logging into any SFI account other than your own is strictly prohibited.
36. Should Affiliate allow their SFI Affiliateship to lapse for a continuous 3-month period, Affiliate understands that he/she will forfeit all accumulated commissions.
37. SFI limits affiliate's use of a single credit card to a limited number of separate affiliate accounts.
38. SFI carefully monitors various SFI Affiliate actions for fraud. Violations will result in suspension of commissions or affiliateship termination.
39. Should Affiliate fail to maintain their SFI Affiliate status for 1 month, any personal referrals (PRMs and PRAs) are forfeited (roll up) to Affiliate's Advisor on or about the 5th of the following month. For example, if you were an affiliate in June, you have until the end of July to re-qualify as an Affiliate. Should you fail to do that, your referrals will be rolled up to your SFI Advisor on or about the 5th of August.
40. Affiliates reassigned to you inadvertently, heedlessly, or due to an error, may be reinstated to the original Advisor if deemed necessary.
41. Transferability of SFI Affiliateship:
A. In the event of an Affiliate's death, SFI will keep sending commissions in the method that's been selected on the affiliate's account. For example, if the affiliate had chosen to have his or her commission mailed by check, the affiliate's surviving spouse or other representative must ensure they have the legal right to cash a check made out to the name on the SFI account. However, surviving spouses and representatives can also log onto the affiliate's account and make the necessary adjustments to the account name and information. IMPORTANT: surviving spouses and representatives must have account login information. SFI will not provide that information. Note that, other than this particular exception, logging into any SFI account other than your own is strictly prohibited.
B. In the event that an Affiliate or surviving spouse of Affiliate wishes to sell his or her SFI Affiliateship organization, Carson Services Inc. reserves the right to approve or reject any and all potential buyers, including the family members of referred affiliates or spouses/partners who reside at the same address.
42. Logging into any SFI account other than your own is strictly prohibited.
43. Providing false registration information (for example, entering a U.S. address while actually residing in another country) will result in your account being terminated.
44. Affiliate agrees not to use or in any way directly or indirectly employ scripts, applications, or other services designed to automate any part of the affiliate's relationship (such as daily actions and other tasks) with SFI and its divisions and Zing Network subsidiaries (TripleClicks, Eager Zebra Games, Rewardicals, ECommergy, Elevation Mall, etc.), except where expressly stated as permissible by SFI Corporate.
45. This agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Nebraska, unless the laws of the state in which Affiliate resides expressly require the application of its laws. This agreement is further governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United States of America.
SFI hereby disclaims all express and implied warranties for all products, goods or services, including the implied warranties of MERCHANTABILITY and FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. All products, goods, or services are provided AS IS with respect to SFI and Zing Network programs and sites. Any warranty or other remedy offered by the original manufacturer or party offering any services, if any, is offered only by such entity and not by SFI or the Zing Network.
SFI obligations and your remedies hereunder are solely and exclusively as described and limited herein. SFI's liability, whether based on contract, tort, warranty, strict liability, or other theory, shall not exceed the price of the individual unit of goods, products, or services of which the alleged defect or damage is the basis of the claim. In no event shall SFI be liable for any loss of profits, loss of use, or other indirect, incidental, or consequential damage.
SFI and Zing program displays of any products, goods, or services offered by or originating from a party other than SFI are not intended nor offered as information or data comprising any claim or representation as to such products, goods, or services by SFI or Zing. Any ultimate purchase of any product, good, or service from SFI or Zing program is made subject to the law of the State of Nebraska, which substantive law shall control the relationship of the parties.
Any controversy, dispute or claim between SFI or Zing subsidiary and any other party arising out of/or involving any SFI business relationship shall be resolved by binding arbitration. The arbitration shall be conducted in accordance with the Procedures of the American Arbitration Association. This arbitration agreement does not cause waiver or modification of either party's right to legal proceedings in a court residing in the same judicial jurisdiction as stated herein to enforce any unpaid monetary debts by either party, as awarded by the arbitrator following Binding Arbitration. The parties agree to such venue as the forum of choice of the parties.
The arbitrator shall apply Nebraska substantive and procedural law to the proceeding. The demand for arbitration must be in writing and must be made by the aggrieved party within 90 (ninety) days of the event giving rise to the demand. The arbitration shall take place in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The arbitrator's power to award a remedy shall be limited to monetary damages. Should either party wish to seek injunctive relief or other non-monetary relief, such claims shall be brought exclusively in a court of competent jurisdiction located in the State of Nebraska, County of Lancaster.
The arbitrator shall determine if there is any prevailing party, and the prevailing party shall be awarded only such fees and expenses as are permitted under the law of the State of Nebraska. The fees for the arbitrator shall be paid equally by both parties. The parties understand and acknowledge that by agreeing to arbitration, they are giving up any right they may have to a judge or jury trial with regard to all issues subject to arbitration.
THIS AGREEMENT CONTAINS AN ARBITRATION PROVISION WHICH MAY BE ENFORCED BY THE PARTIES.