Terms of Agreement for services provided by Stolen Horse International

MUST READ! By using this website, filing a report with or otherwise providing information to Stolen Horse International, Inc. (“SHI”), you agree that you have read, understand and agree to all of the following terms and conditions:

General Terms and Conditions

• In many cases, horses and other property listed as stolen or missing are the subject of a legal dispute. SHI receives the information it publishes from reports submitted to SHI by third parties. Accordingly, SHI is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of such information. If you believe that information published by SHI is false or misleading, you may submit a rebuttal report. [Hot link to rebuttal report submission page] Additionally, you may want to seek legal advice from an attorney regarding your situation.
• SHI provides its website as a portal to help people find stolen or missing horses and horse-related property. Although SHI may provide search assistance and related services to persons filing reports with SHI, SHI does not provide legal advice of any kind and does not mediate disputes. SHI’s main goal in publishing information is to help ensure the safety and well being of horses.
• From time to time, SHI volunteers and/or discussion board participants may provide information or advice to you or other persons filing reports with or otherwise contacting SHI. Such information or advice is not provided on behalf of SHI. Accordingly, SHI is not responsible for such advice or information.
• Your use of SHI’s website and your relationship with SHI shall be governed by the laws of North Carolina. You hereby agree that any legal action brought in connection with this website or your relationship with SHI must be brought in Cleveland County, North Carolina.
• In any legal actions brought in connection with SHI’s website or your relationship with SHI, if SHI is the prevailing party, SHI will be entitled to prompt payment of expenses from the other party(ies) following final adjudication in favor of SHI. “Expenses” shall including the following costs actually incurred by SHI: attorneys’ fees, retainers, court costs, transcript costs, fees of experts, witness fees, travel expenses, duplicating costs, printing and binding costs, telephone charges, postage, delivery service fees and all other disbursements.
• The information on SHI’s website and in other SHI publications is protected by U.S. copyright law and may not be used or reproduced in any format without advance written permission from SHI. However, you may copy and distribute fliers produced by SHI provided that you do so solely for the purpose of promoting recovery of the horses or property described in the fliers and that you copy such fliers in their entirety. If you wish to republish information on SHI’s website or have other copyright questions, you may write to SHI at stolenhorse@netposse.com.
• At any time and without notice to anyone, SHI may change fees for submission of reports or other services.

Submitting Information to SHI/Use of material in public mediums

• By filing a report or otherwise submitting information to SHI, you are certifying that to the best of your knowledge, all the information is accurate, complete and not misleading. If, after filing your report, you discover that information you have provided to SHI is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, you agree to immediately update such information by contacting SHI.
• By filing a report or otherwise submitting information to SHI, you agree that SHI, in its sole discretion, may (but is not required to) publish or disseminate any information you provide to SHI. Additionally, SHI may disclose such information to anyone, including but not limited to law enforcement officers and opposing parties. Once you have provided information to SHI, you cannot revoke permission to publish or disseminate such information.
• If SHI receives information, for example from a law enforcement agency, clearly demonstrating that information previously provided to SHI is false or misleading, SHI, in its sole discretion, may (but is not required to) remove or edit information published on SHI’s website or otherwise disseminated by SHI without notice to anyone.
• Upon reviewing information you have submitted, SHI, in its sole discretion, may (but is not required to) request more information from other sources, including but not limited to law enforcement and opposing parties.
• Unless you pay the applicable filing fee in full at the time you submit your report to SHI, SHI may discard your report. If your filing fee payment is dishonored or otherwise incomplete, SHI may discard your report. All payments must be made via Paypal. If you pay by echeck, SHI may wait for your echeck to clear its account prior to processing your report.
• Once you have submitted your report to SHI and paid the applicable filing fee, you will not be entitled to a refund for any reason, including but not limited to recovery of the horse or property that is the subject of the report.
• In its sole discretion, SHI may elect not to publish names and exact locations provided to SHI.
  • In its sole discretion and at any time without notice to anyone, SHI may remove, edit or supplement any information published by SHI.
• If you benefit financially from SHI’s communication/publication of information submitted by you to SHI, you understand and agree that SHI shall be entitled to 51% of the gross amount you receive. For example, if as a result of your information being published on SHI’s website, email notifications, press releases, stories, or any other form of communication you are paid for the rights to use your story in a television show, SHI will be entitled to 51% of such payment.
• Use of information of the stories, horses or equipment on this website must first be cleared through Stolen Horse International for public release including but not limited to, written, film and electronic mediums. Stolen Horse International has rights to 25% of all monies paid to persons or intenties, but not limited to sponsorship, advertisement, royalties, when information on this site or derived from Stolen Horse International email notifications, press releases, stories or other form of communications is used. Written permission must be obtained from Stolen Horse International to use of any information on this site. Disputes concerning this information shall be governed by the laws of North Carolina and any legal action must be heard in the Cleveland County, North Carolina courts.
  
• SHI requires that each person who submits a report to SHI join a NetPosse Volunteer group. You may select your group when you file by clicking here or SHI will add you automatically to the the Private Yahoo List Group or the Private Mailing List. Neither of these groups are discussion groups and only receive email from SHI.
• If you indicate in your submission to SHI that you will be including a photo of the horse or other property that is the subject of your report, in its sole discretion, SHI may not process your report until SHI has received a photo.
• You are responsible for verifying with SHI that SHI has received your material, including images and supporting documents.
• If you wish for SHI to publish your photograph(s) on SHI’s website, you must submit your photograph(s) in the following format: jpg or tif format, 72 dpi, and at least 300 pixels (width or height).
• If you wish for SHI to publish your photograph(s) in a flier, you must submit your photograph(s) in the following format: jpg or tif format, 300 dpi, and at least 1000 pixels (width or height).

Offering a Reward
SHI frowns upon individuals who offer rewards and then do not pay those rewards when their horse or property is recovered. You agree not to post or otherwise offer a reward unless you are certain you will be able to pay the reward at the time your horse or other property is recovered. Accordingly, by submitting a reward offer to SHI, you certify that you have read, understand and agree to all of the following terms:

• You will be ready, willing and able to pay the offered reward at the time your horse or other property is recovered.
• Your reward offer, including but not limited to offers submitted to SHI after filing your original report and reward offers that you may publish on your own, constitutes an offer to contract which can be accepted by the actions of those undertaking efforts to cause the recovery of your horse or other property.
•  Within 15 days of recovery of your horse or other property, you must pay the reward in full to the individual(s) and/or organization(s) (specifically including SHI) whose action(s) resulted in the recovery. If you do not pay the reward within such time period, you will owe those entitled to the reward an additional 10% interest per year on the principal amount of the reward.
• If it appears that multiple persons may be entitled to the reward, you will use good faith efforts to determine the relative contributions of the parties and pay the reward amount pro rata to such persons. The fact that multiple persons may have a claim to the reward is not an excuse for nonpayment of the reward. For example, if Joe Smith saw SHI’s flier about your missing horse and as a result, called you to make arrangements for the return of your horse, both SHI and Joe Smith would be entitled to the reward (provided that you ultimately recovered your horse).
• This agreement shall be governed by the laws of North Carolina. The parties hereby agree that any legal action under the agreement must be brought in Cleveland County, North Carolina.
•  In any legal actions brought in connection with this agreement or otherwise with respect to a reward offered by you, the prevailing party will be entitled to prompt payment of expenses from the other party(ies) following final adjudication in favor of the prevailing party. “Expenses” shall including the following costs actually incurred by the prevailing party: attorneys’ fees, retainers, court costs, transcript costs, fees of experts, witness fees, travel expenses, duplicating costs, printing and binding costs, telephone charges, postage, delivery service fees and all other disbursements.
• If you offer a reward, and such offer is published on SHI’s website or in a flier made or distributed by SHI and your horse or other property is recovered, you agree to pay SHI 25% of the offered reward, in addition to any other amount to which SHI may be entitled pursuant to the terms of your reward offer.
•  When submitting your report form, you may request that SHI not publish the reward amount. However, you must inform SHI of the reward amount at the time you submit your reward offer to SHI; otherwise, SHI will not publish your reward offer.

Once you complete the form and hit submit, you will be redirected to the PayPal link. If you do not pay the fee or it is rejected, this form will be deleted, and you will have to resubmit with valid fee before it will be processed. “By submitting this information to Stolen Horse International (SHI), aka NetPosse, I understand that ALL submissions become the property of SHI/NetPosse and are subject to review by same. SHI reserves the right to refuse listings or reject any and all text and/or images at its discretion. SHI is not obligated to give a reason for refusal, but will do so if time allows. “I also understand that the above info may be sent out in public forums, and I am giving my consent to do so. Any pictures submitted to SHI can be used on the website and in publications by and related to SHI without notification. I also certify this information to be true and that I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions.”

Go back to Stolen Horse Report Form page