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.nz

(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. 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 3-year minimum validity of gift cards under section 36WB of the Fair Trading Act 1986 does not apply to credit: credit is not sold to you, and section 36WA(d) of that Act excludes vouchers supplied as part of a customer loyalty programme.
• 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 NZ$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).

Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. In New Zealand the rule comes from the Fair Trading Act 1986: section 9 prohibits conduct in trade that is misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive, and section 13(e) and (f) prohibit a false or misleading representation that goods or services have any sponsorship, approval or endorsement, or that a person has any sponsorship, approval or affiliation. A post that hides the fact that it was paid for misleads in exactly that way, even if every sentence in it is true. The Advertising Standards Authority's codes, which bind advertisers and media in New Zealand, require the same: an advertisement, including influencer content, must be obviously identifiable as an advertisement in the publication itself, not only in a profile description or behind a link. Advertising aimed at children is held to a stricter standard under the ASA's Children and Young People's Advertising Code, and we do not want any promotion addressed to children at all.

For commercial messages sent by e-mail, SMS or instant message, the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 applies. Section 9 prohibits sending a commercial electronic message without the recipient's consent, and the burden of proving consent is on the sender (section 9(3)); section 10 requires accurate sender information and section 11 a functional unsubscribe facility, and an unsubscribe request must be honoured within 5 working days. Civil penalties under section 45 reach NZD 200,000 for an individual and NZD 500,000 for an organisation, and the Act is enforced by the Department of Internal Affairs. Bulk unsolicited messages are not permitted under this cooperation in any case.

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 the operator. It is not transferable, it cannot be paid out in money and it can only be used as a discount on your next order. The operator has no place of business in New Zealand, so it withholds no tax and files no return about you with Inland Revenue. Because you are not a Czech tax resident and do nothing in the Czech Republic, the credit is not income from Czech sources under Section 22 of Act No. 586/1992 Coll., on income taxes, either.

No New Zealand rule sets a de minimis for a benefit of this kind, so the annual cap in these terms, NZD 500, is a deliberate contractual limit, not a tax threshold. It keeps the programme what it is meant to be: an occasional discount among friends, not a source of earnings.

If your own position is different, for example because you recommend the books as part of a business, the credit may form part of your business income under the Income Tax Act 2007 and you declare it under the rules that apply to you. Each participant is responsible for their own tax affairs. Goods and services tax is not affected: a discount simply lowers the price of the purchase on which you use it.

Taking part in the programme does not make you a business. An occasional recommendation that only lowers the price of your own next book is not an activity carried on for profit.

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).

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).

No out-of-court body is competent to decide a consumer dispute with us. New Zealand has no approved dispute resolution scheme for a seller established abroad, and the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce), which handles such disputes for customers in Europe, cannot take your case: Article 2(1) of Directive 2013/11/EU opens its dispute resolution only to a consumer resident in the European Union. We would rather tell you that plainly than send you to Prague to be turned away. The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform no longer exists either. Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 repealed it with effect from 20 July 2025, and it stopped accepting complaints on 20 March 2025.

What is open to you:

• Write to us first at contact@heroofthebook.nz. We reply no later than the following working day, and we would much rather put things right ourselves.
• The Commerce Commission (comcom.govt.nz, 0800 943 600), which enforces the Fair Trading Act 1986, for example if you believe we have misled you about the product or about your rights. It does not decide individual disputes, but it takes complaints.
• Consumer Protection at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (consumerprotection.govt.nz), which explains your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and how to enforce them.
• A chargeback with your card issuer. It rests on the card scheme rules rather than on a statute, but in practice it is the quickest way to get money back for something that was not delivered or not as described.
• The Disputes Tribunal, which hears claims up to NZD 60,000 under section 10 of the Disputes Tribunal Act 1988. The parties appear without lawyers and the fee is low.

Our terms choose Czech law, and that choice is valid (Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008). It cannot take away the protection New Zealand law gives you: under section 43(1) of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 that Act has effect notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in any agreement.

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.nz.