Terms of Use
The terms for using this website and reading its guides. The terms for buying Dot Book live on the Buy Online page instead.
The short version
This page covers using this website. It is deliberately short, because a page of small print that nobody reads protects nobody.
The guides here are general information, carefully researched and honestly written, but they are not legal advice and we are not attorneys. The terms for actually buying Dot Book are on the Buy Online page, not here.
1. Who you are dealing with
This website is operated by Darius du Plessis, trading as Dot Business Systems, a sole proprietorship in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), South Africa. Email info@dotreceive.co.za, WhatsApp +27 79 677 3392.
“We” and “Dot” below mean that business. “You” means whoever is reading the site.
2. What the guides are, and what they are not
We publish guides about South African record-keeping law — the Second-Hand Goods Act, POPIA, the paperwork small businesses are obliged to keep. We research them against the Acts themselves and we link every source at the foot of each guide so that you can check us.
But:
- They are general information, not legal advice. We build record-keeping software. We are not attorneys, and nothing here is a substitute for someone who is.
- The law moves. A guide is accurate as at its date. An Act can be amended, a regulation gazetted or a case decided the week after we publish.
- Your circumstances are not the general case. Whether a rule applies to your business, and how, is a question about your business.
- Where a point is genuinely unsettled we say so rather than choosing the confident-sounding answer. If a guide tells you the law is unclear, that is the finding, not a hedge.
If you are facing an inspection, a docket or a charge, get a lawyer, not a guide. We would rather say that plainly than have someone rely on a web page in a matter that could end in a criminal court.
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss arising from a decision taken on the strength of something you read here. That is not us disclaiming care — we take a great deal of it — it is us being honest about the difference between a published guide and advice given to you about your situation.
3. The free Stock Check
The stock check is a twelve-question self-assessment. It is scored in your own browser, the result is an indication rather than an audit, and it is free with nothing attached. It does not send us anything unless you press the button to send it. Nothing on it is a quotation and nothing on it obliges either of us to anything.
4. Buying Dot Book
Nothing on this site is an offer capable of acceptance. Prices shown are current at the time of publication and may change. A sale happens when we send you a written quote and you pay it, and the terms of that sale — how you pay, what you get, the cooling-off right, refunds — are set out on the Buy Online page.
Two things worth repeating here because they protect you:
- We never publish our bank account on this website, and we never send a change of banking details by email or message. If you receive such a message claiming to be from Dot, it is not from us. Phone the number above before sending anyone money.
- Nothing is charged automatically. Payment is EFT, from your own bank, on an amount you have seen in writing. We do not take card details and there is no debit order.
5. Using the site
You may read, print and share these pages, and quote them with attribution and a link. Please do not republish a whole guide as your own, scrape the site automatically, or use anything here in a way that would mislead someone about who wrote it.
The text, the guides, the Dot name and the Dot mark belong to us. Quotations from Acts and government publications belong to the State and are reproduced here for information.
Where we link to somebody else — SAPS, the Government Printer, SAFLII — we do not control that site and cannot promise it will still be there or still say what it said. That is why we quote the material words in the guide itself rather than only linking to them.
6. Availability
This is a small site run by one person. We try to keep it up and correct, but we do not guarantee that it will be available without interruption or free of error. If you find a mistake — particularly a legal one — please tell us at info@dotreceive.co.za. We will fix it and say that we did.
7. Your personal information
Covered separately and in detail on the privacy page. The summary: this site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and has no tracking of any kind, and we hold only what you chose to send us. To have anything deleted, see the data deletion page.
8. Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction. Nothing here limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, or POPIA — those rights cannot be signed away and we are not trying to.
9. Changes
If these terms change, the date at the top changes with them. The version on this page is the one that applies.