Our policies

Terms and conditions of sale

 

These terms and conditions are bound with trade between you (the customer after dispatch of items) and Ant Antics (the company) who is legally known as Ant Antics Limited of Priory Street, Carmarthen, SA31 1LS registered with company house under incorporation number 13835286

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Terms used

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for the purpose of these terms the abbreviated word in its first instance of use will be in full with the abbreviation in closed brackets. subsequent use in the terms will then be of the abbreviated term.

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Purchase of items

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We reserve the right to correct errors in the listing and pricing of products on our store up to the point of dispatch. Once dispatched our terms and conditions of the sale become final and no alterations to the product pricing can be made by us (the company).

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Up to the point of dispatch, If in the event we have made a pricing error or a listing error (for example, we sell a queen with 5 workers when we only have queens with 10 workers), then we will present the customer with the opportunity to upgrade their order or cancel it for a full refund.  If we have inadvertently and accidentally charged the incorrect amount (for example, an option error is not adding additional cost) then we will also offer the customer to settle the difference or we can cancel the order for a full refund. Once dispatch has happened, we are no longer able to alter pricing or request funds.

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Delivery of items and live arrival guarantees

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All orders will endeavour to be shipped within 7 working days of receipt, however in some instances of bad weather (or in the event of a presale) this may be longer. Orders will be shipped one of two ways depending on the customer selection at checkout.

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In the event that the weather falls below 5 degrees overnight. All shipping will be paused until such a time that the weather returns to normal for safe dispatch of live animals.

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Standard shipping will be used where selected and entitles the customer to second class shipping on dried goods (or any goods where the contents are not alive), and in line with Royal Mail terms and conditions, first class for any order with living goods.  Orders shipped on this service are excluded from the live arrival guarantee as well as any other guarantees the company offers including (but not limited to) the fertility guarantee, settling in guarantee and rights to return.

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Orders shipped using a tracked service at checkout do benefit from our full guarantees provided the conditions are met in the receipt of the queen. These include being present for the delivery, not removing the security seal on the queens test tube and reporting to us with a video within 12 hours of delivery. Only the queens life is covered by this warranty and the lives of workers are excluded from any warranty. once the 12 hour warranty has passed, the queen is then only covered by the 7 day settling in guarantee.

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When claiming against the live arrival guarantee, we will send a shipping label to the customer to return their ants to us. They should be returned to us with the security seal attached and once received we will either replace the colony like-for-like or we will provide store credit to be used against a future purchase where stock has been exhausted on the colony chosen.

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Rejected or missed deliveries

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deliveries which are returned to the company because they have been missed, rejected or not collected, if the customer has not paid customs charges or if they are returned to us at any stage of their journey then the order will incur a cancellation charge to cover the losses of the company in shipping living animals. All live ant ordered returned for these reasons will incur a £16.50 (or 25%, whichever is less) restocking fee to cover the extra time that will be required to nurse the queen to health after her journey and cover the card fees in processing the transaction as well as the cost of the shipping that was paid by us to dispatch the queen. 

 

If in the event the queen has died in transit back to us, no refund will be provided for the order.

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Chargebacks & Order Cancellations

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in the event a chargeback is made against the company which is later proven to be false, the customer will receive an invoice from us for the costs incurred in disputing the chargeback and for the fees imposed by our bank.

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Any order cancelled by the company for incorrect shipping data (or ordering from a country on a service we do not offer) will be liable to a 5% deduction on the refund to cover the processing fees of the transaction charged to us by our payment provider

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ALL OTHER CANCELLATIONS made by the customer for any reason will incur the cost of processing the transaction (which we do not get refunded by the card payment provider) This is 2.9% + 20p. This is because when you originally decided to buy, the transaction still happened and a fee was charged to us for it. 

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Returns

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Returns on living animals

We do not permit returns on queen ants or colonies purchased from us as the moment they leave us, we are no longer in control of their health or wellbeing. If a customer wishes to return a colony they may do so for free by shipping them to our company address and we will readopt them at any time during the ants life.

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Please note: We do not offer any physical refund for any live animals sold at Ant Antics Ltd.  In some cases we may offer store credit against colonies with a Live Arrival Guarantee providing we are notified within 12 hours of delivery, a tracked service was used and the security seal has not been removed.  If you have any questions about our refund policy then please get in contact with us.

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Food items

Food items are not covered by any returns policy and cannot be returned for a refund once dispatched

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Physical items

All physical items can be returned to us within 28 days for a full refund if a customer changes their mind on a purchase. They should be returned to us in an unused condition with all of the parts of the order present. Orders sold as a bundle where part of the bundle is not returned or illegible for return (in the case of living animals) then the return value will be calculated and the cost of items used, missing or not eligible will be deducted from the refund at their full RRP costs and will not be adjusted for any bundle values.  Returns for physical items must be shipped and paid for by the customer and the original order shipping is non refundable.

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Faulty goods

If your non-living and non-perishable items develop a fault we would not expect when used in a reasonable way then contact us as soon as possible and we can repair them for you at our cost. Return shipping of faulty goods is covered by the company.  Given the nature of our products, we typically only accept returns on items within 90 days of purchase depending on the longevity of the product this could be more.  If your item is discovered not to be faulty then the return shipping is to be paid by the customer. Once repaired we will ship valid claims back to the customer free of charge.

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Fertility guarantee

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We will guarantee the fertility of any queen we sell providing they are shipped using the TRACKED service and  the following conditions have been met:

she was purchased as a queen with brood and has never had workers or was not purchased with workers; the customer used a tracked shipping service to receive the queen, did not miss the delivery and has a valid live arrival guarantee; the queen is within 180 days of purchase and the queen is alive.

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Fertility guarantee claims require the customer to return the queen to us at their own cost in a safe way that ensures she arrives safely. We are not responsible for any deaths of queens during the return process. Once received we will monitor the queen for a period of up to 4 weeks where we will check for fertility;

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if your queen is considered infertile

we will replace the queen for you. in the absence of stock being available for the same species and type then we may offer you options of paying the difference to upgrade the colony to a larger size, or offer you credit against a new queen. We do not offer refunds under this guarantee.

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if your queen is considered fertile

we will send you an invoice for the return shipping cost and once paid she can come back home with our notes on how we kept her to get the brood to develop.

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please note, if your queen was shipped using the standard shipping then no guarantee applies.

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This policy is effective as of 18 December 2022.